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- Topic: German >
- "We are going home."
"We are going home."
Translation:Wir gehen nach Hause.
47 Comments
what is the difference between Haus and Hause I remembered it being " Haus " and why is it " nach " and not " zu ", Isn't nach for geographical/ global/ (i.e. to france....) ?
I was wondering the same things. It's "das Haus" but it changes to "Hause" in dativ case.
compare: http://dict.leo.org/#/search=Haus
and
http://dict.leo.org/#/search=Hause
Secondly: "zu Hause" is an idiom that means "at home" so even though you would say "ich gehe zur Schule" as "I am going to (the) school" you would have to say "Ich gehe nach Hause," because "zu Hause" just means "at home."
Look here:
Hello! But I am still confused why it changes to "Hause" in dative. I thought that the only thing that changes was the plural with the -n if the word doesn't finish with an n or s
It is correct that p r e s e n t l y only plural nouns decline in the Dative case (i.e., add -n) unless they end in -n already (e.g., die Monaten) or -s (die Fotos).
German however u s e d to have additional noun declension for masculine and neuter nouns in the Dative case. (e.g., das Pferd --> dem Pferde).
Although this has all but been lost in modern German, there are a few examples where it has just become colloquial and remains in common use with zu / nach Hause being one of them. I think it's just another one of those things that you will have to remember moving forward.
I first found this out after reading Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language" where he complains about the then active declension of masculine and neuter nouns in the Dative.
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"Nach" is used when you want to say that you are going : 1) home; 2) to visit some islands, countries, cities etc., that in German is writing without article.
"Zu" - when you want to say that you are: 1) visit places not for a long period of time; 2) visit people; 3) driving someone to somewhere at the car; 4) going to sleep; 5) asking someone how you can come to sought-for places.
Correct or complete me if I am wrong :)
I am not sure if I can follow your examples. Agree with "nach" for going home (nach Hause) and going to cities/countries/islands/regions/continents (as long as they don't have an article in their name). "Zu", I would say, goes with events (zur Party, zum Konzert, zum Kongress, zur Schule etc) or spots (zum Museum, zum Parkplatz etc) or people (zum Chef, zu meinen Eltern, zu Maria etc) and goes with an article (except for proper names).
And then there is the third option of "in" or "auf", of course. For countries etc. with an article in their name (in die Vereinigten Staaten, in die Toskana, auf die Kanarischen Inseln) or some types of events (ins Kino, in das Museum – go visit the museum, as opposed to just going to the building).
Carwyn : "wir gehen Hause" does not work because in german you can't just say "we are going home", you need something to indicate the direction : "wir gehen nach Hause" (we are going "to" home)
Komponistin : "Haus" or "Hause" is a hard question. If you want to be really grammatically correct, you should use "das Haus" for the nominative and accusative, and "dem Hause" for the dative. (Let me remind you by the way that you need dative after "nach"). This -e is a very old sign of dative, that you can find in modern german nearly only in "dem Hause". However, in the familiar speach, some people say "dem Haus", or even "das Hause"
FWIW, I have never heard "das Hause" (except as a blooper, maybe). And contemporary grammar lists "dem Hause" as 'sublime/exalted language' alternative for the usual "dem Haus" ;-)
When is ”zu” preferred or correct over “nach” and viceversa? Is there any rule or does it depend on the verb used in each case?
every native German in my local German groups says "zu Hause", they all use it to mean to go from somewhere TO home, not as an idiom as mentioned below.
i) People in your local German group should actually say "zu Hause" to mean AT home, and "nach Hause" to mean TO home; and ii) There is difference between an idiom and an idiomatic term, the former being a saying or a figur of speech, and the latter being an element which does not obey the current grammar conventions – in this case: using a dated dative form, and not using an article before the noun. This was actually the reason why the committee for the New German spelling tried to make "nachhause" and "zuhause" one-word adverbs, but this spelling has not (yet) prevailed.
I think it's because of how the noun is in the dative form. There's a good explanation further up :)
Funny thing, "zu Hause" is the way they teach it in the German Pimsleur course, which I tend to trust much more than Duolingo.
Again... why "Wir gehen zum Hause" is wrong here? ... I failed because of this multiple times
i wonder why they put "ich gehe heim" as an answer. what does heim stands for.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it translates as "we are going after home". Is this simply an idiom in German or is there some logic behind this?
Are zu Hause and nach Hause kinda like fixed expressions in German now? I'm asking because it seems like adding -e in Dative case is uncommon now. Would saying zu Haus and nach Haus be incorrect?
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I have a friend who has lived his whole life in Germany, and I asked him a similar question. He said that both Hause and Haus are correct in these expressions. He said he still uses Hause most of the time, but that he didn't think people would even notice which version you used, as both are common.
Why isn't "Wir gehen Hause" work? Am I wrong in thinking that "Wir gehen nach Hause" mean "We go to home"
i wonder why they put "ich gehe heim" as an answer. what does heim stands for.
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dative nouns used to get an extra e.
I got this from this website :
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/nach-zu-haus-hause.1675600/
why does Duolingo not even explain grammar and jump straight to the exercises. The tips are absolutely useless NGL
