"I eat an orange."
Translation:Ich esse eine Orange.
58 Comments
mabye doing two languages at the same time is bad because i wrote ( ich come un orange) lol
Very difficulto learn two languages at one, my hat off to anyone who can.
it is not that difficult. i`m doing the same because there is no way to learn German from an Spanish platform. So i use English platform. My native language is Spanish
I'm also a native Spanish-speaker, and actually I feel I'm learning a lot more when using English to learn another language, since I can understand faster because I have another reference, not just my native language. I also started Italian and at school we have French class, so when something is difficult to understand in one language I compare it to the others and most of the time one of them will enable me to understand faster than if I just compared it to one.
Well, that's my situation.
I'm learning all five at once, so it may be difficult but it's not impossible.
Not to nitpick... but that should be "Ich como una orange", should it not? Orange is feminine en español...
My native language is russian, and my english is advanced, so i can learn German via english, and that's better, but for me - learning two different languages in the same time (i study spanish too) is really hard :))
As with learning any language, daily studying will help. Go through the lessons and just get to know the words without trying to memorize all the rules first. Re-do the lessons a few times until the words flow smoothly. Then go back and look at the "rules". It'll be easier to learn if you're not stressing over the rules and just read the lessons first.
Help! I don't understand why it is masculine "die Orange" but in the accusative (which I still don't quite get) it changes to feminine "eine Orange." Thanks!
it's not masculine since it's "eine/die Orange". An in the accusative it doesn't change it remains eine Orange.
@whenturtlesfly die is for saying "the orange". Eine orange is for saying "an orange"
No, it would be Ich esse eine Apfelsine. Apfelsine and Orange are both feminine
No. German articles depend only on the case and the gender of the noun. It is irrelevant if the noun starts with a vocal or not. In this example the case is akkusativ and the noun is feminine, hence it must be eine. If the noun would have been masculin (e.g. Apfel) it would have been einen. Long story short: Every indefinite article in German translates to a/an/one in English.
Verbs are second. Subject does not have to be first! See more here: http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa032700a.htm
You are partially correct, though not in this instance. The verb does go at the end when using a modal verb, or a "verb kicker."
Why not use 'einen'? Not sure when that's appropriate because I haven't noticed a pattern yet.
1982
@tylergrrrl : 'einen' is used in the accusative case (masculine singular). 'ein' is used for masculine and neuter genders, and 'eine' is used for feminine (die Orange) - nominative case of course.
Is there any other way besides memorization to tell if something is feminine or masculine or neutral? I keep getting them mixed up...
There are always exceptions, but I've read that words with these endings tend to be a certain gender - masculine: -er, -el, -en, -ling, -ig, -ich; feminine: -e, -in, -ung, -in with female roles (e.g. freund - freundin), -schaft, -ei, -tät, -heit, -keit, -ie, tion; neuter: -chen, -lein, -um, -ium, Ge-
-ig and -ich are standard endings for adjectives so they don't have a gender. Another thing to keep in mind is that these rules only apply if the ending has its own syllable, i.e. the noun has at least 2 syllables. E.g.:
der Dung is masculine although it ends with -ung, but here -ung is not an ending but part of the word itself. There should be only very few of these, just be aware that they exist.
I thought it would be einen because you are eating the orange but it was eine which really threw me off but now i know that oranges are considered feminine
this threefold division amongst nouns (masculine, feminine, neutral) which runs through German Grammar seemingly 'throw off' a lot of people.
Yes, it is used more often in the north, but nowadays I think Orange is predominant in all of Germany.
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time above to explain the nominative/accusative forms of ein and eine. Now when do you use das instead of die? I.e. Das Mädchen but Die Frau?
"Das" is the article for neuter nouns, and "die" is the article for feminine nouns.
Ahh! Thanks! I hadn't grasped that there was a Neutral gender. This I suppose is a slight issue with duolingo, that you don't get a view of the mechanics of the basics of the language. Thanks again for your help :)
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Why does DL so often wait until the very last few questions, to start asking for translating from English to German? This was the last question in the lesson and the only one asking me translate to German. It's not a good way to learn. Es ist gut nicht.
ok heres what I don't get. The orange must be feminine then, because I put ein as an accusative nuetral, but apparently it's and accusative feminine, can anybody shed some light on this
I don't really get what you don't get ^^. Yes, Orange is feminine, thus the article is eine in both Nominative and Akkusative case. And yes here it is Akkusative case because the Orange is the one being eaten. I think you answered your questions yourself already ;-)
Ich esse einen Apfel -> It is correct Ich esse einen Orange -> It is not correct Why?
