"Meine Finger habe ich behalten."
Translation:I kept my fingers.
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Anyone seen a Korean film, 'The Good, The Bad and The Weird'? There's a guy in it known as the Finger Chopper.
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Being picky here, but samurai can at worst utterly kill people. Yakuza can expect it from affiliated who failed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume
There was a character in a book I read who lost the first joint on each finger on I believe his left hand because he was a smuggler. This is what I thought of, like someone talking to him saying "You may now be the Onion Knight, but at least I kept my fingers.
This got anything to do with the prior duolingo sentence, "Deine Finger sind im Essen"?
We could write a small horror novel with some of the sentences Duo gives us...
Actual syntax question - I just assumed chainsaws - why are the fingers first? It really seems like it should be "Ich habe meine Finger behalten." I'm really struggling with word order generally. :(
In German, you can start a sentence with the subject or the object. Both "Meine Finger habe ich behalten" and "Ich habe meine Finger behalten" are correct. The only difference lies in emphasis - if you start the sentence with the object (meine Finger), you emphasize these words: I kept my FINGERS (but I lost a leg).
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Me too... Word order throws me. But what I have seen more consistantly is, the subject is usually before the verb and the verb is mostly either second or at the end.
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The verb is ALWAYS in second place. If the main verb is at the end, the helper verb is in second (hat, ist)
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When a German person advises you not to buy something because it is faulty he will say "halten die finger weg". A bit like our expression "I got my fingers burnt with that investment".
That makes a lot more sense! Speaking of funny phrases, in Romanian, if something proves to be a lot more complicated than initially thought, people would say "Mi-am prins urechile cu asta!" translating to: I've caught my ears with it! I always found it hilarious.
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I have always been so proud of my German heritage but I have to honestly say that the DL sentences are so weird (the idioms for example) I'm beginning to wonder whether or not I should even mention that I'm of German descent lol!!
The noun "Finger" is the same in the singular and the plural in German, but you can tell from the posessive determiner, i.e. the form of "my".
"Finger" is a masculine noun and the direct object (accusative case) in this sentence.
meinen Finger (my finger; masculine singular accusative)
meine Finger (my fingers; plural accusative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_pronouns#Possessive_pronouns
You can say "I kept my fingers away from touching dirty money". I hope it makes sense in English.
Ja, but 'I kept my hands away from touching dirty money' is much more common.
Is this supposed to refer to an injury? Then it should be "I was able to keep my fingers"
Daumen drucken, meaning thumbs pressed, is the expression for that in German.
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There's an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "Song of the South" (1950s), where Peter Lorre's character tries to cut off one of Stene McQueen's character's fingers. Very suspenseful.
Maybe this has to do (forgive my hazy memory of the anecdote) with the one war where the French archers had their fingers cut off when they were taken prisoner, and after the war ended, French people would do what we refer to as "flipping off" the Brits to show them that they still had their fingers, meaning they hadn't been taken prisoner and still had the fight in them (or something.)
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Ah, that's why the English gesture is two fingers! (Back of the hand towards the viewer, ie not Churchill's 'V for Victory')
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I think it only really makes sense in a situation when you could potentially lose fingers. Perhaps after you've climbed Mount Everest: "I may have lost two of my toes to frostbite, but I kept my fingers".
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Duo teaching us good sentences to kidnap people (in a few other exercises) and keeping fingers: now I am ready for the German branch of the yakuza!
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This is a daft sentence, unless it is idiomatic - in which case there should be some explanation.
Interesting sentence to get on the day after the 4th of july in America.
Sehr komisch. Sie können sagen z.B "Ich habe dir die Daumen halten" oder "Ich habe dir die Daumen drücken" was beudet, dass "I kept my fingers crossed"
Sentence makes sense if you have a run in with a certain yubi-loving dog v-tuber
Maybe this sentence is referencing this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0nswF0mO504 http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgi6Qcv5Ck
FANTASTIC... but try this one. It's a nice little German language lesson and the consequences of thumb-sucking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0553T0PXMWk
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Exactly what I thought of - had this book for my son when he was little. Very gruesome stories children were told, back in the day…
“To myself” on the end of this sentence would go a long way to ease the “Yikes!”factor.
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Maybe this sentence doesn't translate well? Reminds me of reading subtitles of Japanese shows, and how the expression is lost when translated to English...
The speaker should make clear whether she is saying 'mein' or 'meine'. It is the only way of knowing if she is referring to one or more fingers.
"I have kept my fingers" is a little known saying in English, if it is known at all. Perhaps it means "I saved my bacon" or "I had a close shave". Saying that you had lost or kept your fingers would puzzle most people in the UK. Are there no native English speakers on the DL staff?
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I thought she said "GEhalten" which makes about as much sense, "I held my fingers". I listened again and it really sounds like "GE-" not be-, esp. on the slow version
I don't understand when the perfect ending is -en, and when is -t. Always pick the wrong one.
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The verb is "behalten" (to keep/retain), and it has a non-separable prefix "be". Such verbs never receive a "ge-" prefix when forming the perfect tense. (Further examples: "verfolgen" -> "verfolgt", "beginnen" -> "begonnen", "entfernen"-> "entfernt".)
I have read all the comments and I had so much fun I don't even mind now that I still don't know what the sentence quoted above is really supposed to mean :)))))