- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "I cannot wake the brothers!"
"I cannot wake the brothers!"
Translation:Ich kann die Brüder nicht wecken!
17 Comments
Yeah, to me "Ich kann die Bruder nicht wecken" means you are able to let the brothers sleep, like you could choose to not to wake them.
erwachen = wake up (oneself)
He woke up from deep sleep. = Er erwachte aus tiefem Schlaf.
Why not "Ich kann den Brüdern nicht wecken!"? Are the brothers not the ones receiving the action, hence the brothers should be in the dative case? I'm speaking with comparison to helfen, which requires the receiving party to be in the dative.
Why is wecken triggering the accusative case while helfen triggers the dative case?
Wecken takes the accusative because you are directly waking someone up. With words like helfen, you are "giving help to" someone in German mentality. With the verb folgen, you are "following (behind)" so the way I think of it is an implied "hinter" which takes the dative. With the verb gefallen, things are "pleasing to me" instead of simply "like." Schmecken is "tastes great (to me)." Gehoren to "belong to me." Glauben could be seen as "give trust to." etc
"I can awaken no brothers." or "I cannot awaken brothers."
You are missing the word "the" ("die"), and the word "Kein" is not used in sentences with the definite article ("der, die das")
532
I'm a bit angry about this, I think "Ich kann nicht die Brüder wecken" should be absolutely fine?
Nope. In a sentence with a modal verb (should, can, want to, allowed to, must, etc), nicht goes before the infinitive (the verb at the end of the sentence in German) or the infinitive phrase.
