171 Comments
I'm just worried about the spelling ... 'auf Wiedersehen' and now this .. 'Entschuldigung'. I have a feeling that I'm just at the tip of the iceberg.
Finnish words are actually easier than German words. This is because Finnish is a phonetic language, meaning all words are pronounced the same. In Finnish there is a neat one-to-one correspondence between sound and spelling. To Finns, competing in a spelling bee would be like competing in a breathing contest — everybody in Finland who has a pulse can do it, with world-class precision.
One can read Finnish with phonetical correctness after a few hours' instruction. The difficulty lies in the grammar; Finnish grammar is much more complex than German grammar.
Well, yeah. It's a phonetic language, but that doesn't mean when you see the word 'sparkplug' written on a piece of paper you immediately know how to spell the word 'sytytystulppa', even if you remember it's 'sytystulpa or something like that'.
It's the same way here: 'enschulgidun or something like that.'
And for the record, every language on Earth calls itself a phonetic language. (Edit: Although, to be fair, Finnish is probably actually the most phonetic language on Earth)
Back in school, my Spanish teacher used to call Spanish the most phonetic language on Earth; on the internet, everybody calls their language the most phonetic language on Earth (except English native speakers).
I know. I know a bit of Finnish and it's crazy! No wonder the creator of Lord's of the Ring was fascinated and studied it for the movies!
holy crap and so it begins with most german words like "excuse me" just looking like random jumbled up letters
It doesn't. The literal translation is actually "Excuse me, please", and in this case it's probably the kind of "excuse me" that you can say to get someone's attention rather than the one you use for apologising.
But note that the spelling is phonetic! So while it can be daunting at first (and German can have some fairly large words), just remember that the spelling is very regular and the next time, when you read it to say it out loud, all the sounds are there in the spelling. :)
Indeed, this is good news! Unlike French where there is one sound per on average three letters :)
Still beats english, where we follow 3 different spelling schemes at once!
Haha yeah, the worst advice I ever got in elementary school was to "spell it how it sounds." which rarely works in English.
It always makes me laugh when someone in my foreign language class mentions "how easy" English is. It is (one of) the most confusing languages out there with the spelling and pronunciation.
I'm having trouble with the phonetics, to me it sounds like Entrudigung, any tips?
Yes, look at each letter and sound it out. Listen to native speakers whenever you can. Deutsche Welle has a fantastic amount of podcasts and so on here: http://www.dw.de/learn-german/s-2469 I especially recommend the A-1 Audio Course "Mission Europe", specifically "Mission Berlin." It was a little corny and a lot of fun.
So, "entschuldigung". E is a short E sound, with a touch of long A. Like the e in "bet" with a touch of the ea in "bear". N is N and T is T. So we have the first syllable: "ent".
"Sch" is a consonant cluster and is the same sound as "sh" in English. U is an English long U, just like "oo". L is pronounced with your tongue tip at the bottom of your top front teeth but you can fake it with your tongue behind your teeth as in English. At the end of a word or syllable, D makes a T sound. So we have the second element: "schuld". This is also the part of the word that means "fault" or "guilt".
"-ig" makes a word an adjective, so it turns "Schuld" into "schuldig" which means "guilty. I makes an English long E sound and G is a hard "g" sound like in "gravel". Then we have U again which is a long U sound, "oo". NG is another consonant cluster and together is the nasally N sound in "finger", but without the G sound at the end. That's the end of the word: "ig-ung", and the final G is silent because it's part of the nasally N sound.
Most German words are stressed on the first syllable. But we know that any prefix like ge-, ent-, ver-, and so forth aren't stressed. So we don't stress the first syllable "ent", but we stress the second one: "schuld".
So we get the word: "ent-SHOOLD-ee-goong". Just remember, the last G is silent, and that's not N as in "number", it's N as in "finger" (say "finger" in slow motion and you'll hear the difference."
German language isn't as complicated as it looks at the beginning. Try to practice it whenever you can, learn german happy songs. Follow the words and lyrics for example of Andrea Berg's "Ich werde sterbe nicht nochmal". Find a friend who can speak fluent. Slowly you'll notice your progress. Keep that up!
That was a pretty awesome explanation. Really. Thanks for taking the time with that.
Just wanted to add a funny one. Happy birhday is some 3 or 4 really long and complicated words that look like a whole sentence on paper. I mean its so complicated I mightas well turn up to the party hand in a box of beer and nod my head or just write it down paper and show it to him lols
Is it the most common way to say both? If not, what are different common ways to say both in different situations?
Because it's focused on teaching you the meaning not the literal translation. I had the same problem while learning English :)
Is the "T" letter is pronounced in "Entschuldigung" ?? I just hear it "in-Schuldi-gung" Do I have some troubles in my ears :D ?
It most certainly is not. It is pronounced, although /t/ behind /sh/ ("tsch") results in what is basically an English /ch/ sound.
I'm a bit confused about the context in which you would use this phrase, especially with the first translation it giving me being "sorry, please" As 'excuse me' do you use 'Entschuldigung' as an excuse me to get someone's attention, or when trying to get by someone?
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You can use it for both. In Germany I have used it to call the attention of a waiter/server, for crowded areas, for when I need to be excused, etc. Personally I think it's closer to "excuse me" than "my apologies"
Yes, it has both meanings. Sorry is the more literal meaning. The meaning used here is short for Entschuldigung für die Störung (sorry for interrupting = excuse me). It's the only one that makes sense in combination with bitte (please).
"Pardon, please" is allowed, despite being a bizarrely awkward construct; "Please excuse me" is listed as the translation, but the natural 'I use it every day' form "Pardon me" is 'wrong'. It's these things that most frustrate me. I speak English; I don't use the two listed answers.
Does it have a more literal translation? I see it is used as please and sorry in different situations.
Not really. The exact literal translation is "un-guilting please", but the normal translation of Entschuldigung is the English noun excuse (or apology). So it's "[your] excuse [for my action] please". However, when trying to get someone's attention to a problem (or to something you obviously want from them, such as being served by a waiter), it's enough to just apologise to them for grabbing their attention, as this in itself will usually have the desired effect.
Doesn't "bitte" mean "pardon me" as well as "sorry"? It didn't make sense to me to say "sorry, please", so I answered "sorry, pardon me" and it was wrong. Wouldn't this be an acceptable translation?
This sentence really is quite funny. In my opinion, just "excuse me" is more than good enough.
Adding "bitte" explicitly softens the tone and makes it a polite request rather than a demand.
And what is the difference between "Entschuldigung" and "Verzeihung"? In what context we can use "Verzeihung" rather than "Entschuldigung"?
I new how to speak german to my family when i was in german school bun now that i have left to an English school i have lost it completely , but this app is helpful , although I have only used it for 2 to 3 days i have learnt something and my afrikaans mother is also learning german with this app and my german father
Thank you From Lilo (Liese-lotte) Böttcher
This Entshuldigung is just used for asking people to give you room to pass through or can be used to say " I'm sorry" too?
On its own, Entschuldigung also means sorry. In this context it is really short for "Entschuldigung für die Störung (sorry for the interruption)" or for something similar.
Entschuldigung: (en-SHEILD-di-gung) Having trouble spelling this? Here's what to do: "What I did is read it in a question, and add it to the dictionary. So that when spelling it in another question is called for, it's right in the phone's dictionary, waiting to be used. Try it! Help guaranteed! :-D
I put "Sorry, excuse me" and it marked me as wrong, when they literally just told me that Entschuldigung could be translated to "sorry."
Sigh. They merely reversed the word order for no good reason, causing endless confusion.
- Entschuldigung = sorry / excuse me
- bitte = please.
So can we say that entschudigung is used as excuse me, and not in apologies?
Question: Duo says "Entschuldigung", but some of my other references (books, tapes) say "Entschuldigen". My translation dictionary says "Entschuldigen" is "excuse me" and "Entschuldigung" is an apology. Is there any rule for which is used when?
Any native speaker here? Can you please explain me about the situation that you would use this two words together at once? I live in Germany for 6 years and I'm pretty sure I never heard any German said that. They might say 'Entschuldigung', then 'Bitte' after a while or after an action was done.
You say it when bothering someone to get out of your way or to do their job.
These two words have similar meanings. How do you understand it in a German context?
Excuse me for writing entschuldigung,writing that in german would be a nightmare
can we use this to say sorry as well or is it just to ask someone to excuse you, like from a meeting or to make place for you to move
Does 'Entschuldigung' just mean excuse me, as in an apology? Or can you use it like 'excuse me' in English, When you mean 'please let me through'?
Entchuldigung- when does it mean 1) I am sorry 2) Sorry 3) Please excuse me Completely bamboozeled!!
whenever I will say Entschuldigung, bitte....german 'Frau' will say 'auf Widersehen' to me :)
When I answered Excuse me, please for this it said I was wrong and that the correct translation was please excuse me. How annoying.
I am confused about a word with different and similar meaning. Like bitte and dank or danke.
- Entschuldigung = apology / excuse me / sorry. Said when you did something wrong or when you are about to do something that someone might object to.
- Bitte = request / please / there you are. Said when you want to convince someone to do something for you.
- Danke = thanks / thank you. Said when someone is doing something for you or has done it already.
In each case the respective first English word is the most literal translation. (The first two are nouns. Danke looks like a plural of the noun Dank, though technically Dank is considered not to have a plural.) "Entschuldigung" originally was short for "Ich bitte um Entschuldigung" ("I beg pardon"). "Bitte" originally was short for "Ich bitte" ("I beg"). "Danke" originally was short for "Ich danke" ("I thank").
Not really. Entschuldigung can be either sorry or excuse me, but in connection with bitte = please only excuse me makes sense. Just like you would say "excuse me, please" in English, but not "sorry, please".
This is not the 'official' primary translation. You probably got it because you entered something else that looked similar in some sense. Duolingo then looked in its database of correct answers for something as close to what you entered as possible.
"Excuse me" is a correct translation of "Entschuldigung", and "here you are" is a correct translation of "bitte". The combination doesn't seem to make much sense though.
"Sorry, here you are" would be another translation that would actually make sense. Imagine a waiter standing at your table with the meal you ordered, but held up by another customer talking at you. When he finally gets rid of the other customer and serves you, he might in fact say "Sorry / Entschuldigung" to apologise for having been rude to you, followed immediately by "Here you are / Bitte", which people often say when handing something to someone else who is expecting it. But I would use different punctuation in this case and "bitte sehr" instead of just "bitte": "Entschuldigung. Bitte sehr."
How about Auf Wiedersehen? Same thing, strange and long but it's a common phrase
true. I'll bet that alot of german people think american words look strange too!
Entschuldigung, its gender is feminine. That's mean the one who is talking is feminine or the one I talk to is feminine. How about Masculine, is anything different?
Do not confuse masculine/feminine/neuter gender and male/female/no sex. They are sometimes related and sometimes not. Most nouns describing a job have masculine/male form and a feminine/female form. But most other nouns have only one form. It is masculine, feminine or neuter, and you must learn which it is, but there is no meaning attached to gender.
By the way, this is not completely true. There was a time (more than a thousand years ago) when most singulars were masculine and you could form feminine words from them whose meaning was that of a collective plural or a derived abstract word. It is a remnant from this time that most abstract words in German are feminine. Even today the endings that create abstract nouns, such as -ung, always result in feminine nouns.
It is feminine because it ends in '-ung.' There are not different forms of the word for different speakers.
Tough word but the phonetics are there if you listen carefully. It's definitely one you just have to memorize!
If and when I go to Deutschland they can laugh at me. I just pronounce the words like the male/female speakers on here do!
I think you may have misunderstood how the translation here works:
- Entschuldigung = Excuse me
- bitte = please
- Entschuldigung bitte = Excuse me, please = Please excuse me.
The primary meaning of Entschuldigung is for apologising, but a derived meaning is to get someone's attention. Sorry and excuse me can actually be used in the same way.
Bitte never means "pardon." You can say "Wie, bitte?" if you didn't hear what someone said (in English you might say "Pardon?") but you're just asking someone to please repeat themselves.
Danke. It just seems that if it is listed as an answer it should be accepted, and I try to answer before checking the cheats. Ah, well, just a beginner so I will learn.
I always get the entschuldigung and bitte wrong so i end up putting excuse me please :(
Huh? That's exactly what it means. Entschuldigung = excuse me. Bitte = please. Is it not accepted in this order? Then that's a serious problem and must be corrected.
Why does this app keep throwing words into the mix and expecting me to know them before they teach me
this is confusing because entdchuldigung also means sorry and bitte also means pardon
The trouble is that these small expressions are idiomatic, so the they don't translate one-for-one. "Bitte" doesn't "pardon," but literally come from the verb "bitten" "to beg." So if you don't hear something, you say "bitte" meaning something like "I beg you to repeat that." In English one might say "pardon" as in "Pardon me, I did not hear what you said." Short expressions are particularly non-convertible between languages.
Can someome explain entschuldigung (Duolingo says its the word for sorry as well as excuse me). But i read that entschuldigen was the word for excuse me?
As with many of the most common expression is does not have a one-for-one relationship with any English expression. It literally means something like 'pardon my debts' or 'forgive me', which is very similar to the origins the English expressions 'excuse me' or 'pardon.' It is used, however, both for situations where we would say 'excuse me' and ones where we would say 'sorry.' It does not express sorrow or regret, but only fault. Constructions with 'Leider' or 'Es tut mir leit' are closer the meaning of 'sorry', but we use 'sorry' without meaning to express sorrow all the time. In fact there many situations where older people would always say 'excuse me', that people today say sorry--like bumping into someone while carrying things.
After i found i got this wrong how could the correct answer possibly be Here you're?
This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
I can accept 'excuse me' but surely out the the two correct answers given, one of these answers is actually incorrect?
Can someone please explain this to me further?
I'm not sure about the details of your experience, but I guess the following is sufficient to understand what's going on:
- "Entschuldigung" can be translated either as "sorry" or as "excuse me". The latter, in German as in English, can be used in a conventionalised passive-aggressive way to make someone else pay attention to your needs.
- "bitte" can be translated either as "please" or as "[t]here you are". (As said when handing something to someone.)
- Duolingo has an algorithm built in that automatically generates additional accepted answers from those configured by the course creators. E.g. if "There are two of us" is configured as a correct answer, then "There are 2 of us", "There're two of us" and "There're 2 of us" are also accepted. Sometimes, as in the case of "Here you are" resulting in "Here you're", the algorithm creates accepted answers incorrectly.
Based on this, I am guessing that perhaps you got "Excuse me. Here you are." or its incorrect, automatically generated variant "Excuse me. Here you're." and misread it as two possible correct answers. But it's actually just one. Even without the contraction this is not an ideal answer ("Sorry. Here you are." would be a better way to express what is meant), but I would consider it an acceptable translation of the German "Entschuldigung. Bitte!" The original punctuation suggests that this is not actually what is meant here, but in fact "Entschuldigung, bitte" doesn't strike me as particularly idiomatic German in this combination, anyway, and the altered punctuation makes it perfectly idiomatic.
I put "sorry please" as my answer which sounded weird to me but not as weird as it telling me the correct answer was and i quote "Sorry, here you're"
This was mostly covered in my answer to JohnPaul41929.
While Entschuldigung as a one-word phrase is generally used just like sorry, there is an important difference. Sorry, short for "I am sorry", describes the state of mind of the person who apologises. Entschuldigung, short for "Ich bitte um Entschuldigung" ("I beg for [=your] pardon") is something the person who apologises asks for from the other party.
It is relatively rare in English to say just pardon instead of sorry. If that wasn't the case, a good translation would be "pardon, please". This makes a lot more sense than "sorry, please" because just like wine in "wine, please", pardon is something you ask for.
So I think it is correct that "sorry please" was not accepted.
On the other hand, "Sorry, here you're" makes no sense and should not be accepted. The fact that it is accepted is likely the result of Duolingo's algorithm believing that this is 100% equivalent to "Sorry, here you are", which does make sense and covers a very likely meaning of "Entschuldigung, bitte". In case you don't know, the following is a totally idiomatic, common and normal dialogue in German:
- Bitte. -- Danke. -- Bitte.
A good English translation is as follows:
- Here you are. -- Thank you. -- Don't mention it.
The reason that Duolingo proposes "Sorry, here you're" instead of "Sorry, here you are" is probably that the algorithm considers it more similar to "sorry please" because "you're" and "please" have the same number of characters whereas "you are" has an additional character.
Thats precisely what i had.
Now when i see Entschuldigung, bitte i think of it as "excuse me please" and ignore the "sorry, here you're" explanation .
One thing i find helpful in learning German is to say it in a conversation with a friend of partner as a bit of fun. On the phone at the end of our conversation we often now say Bis Bald or Bis Spater for example as appropriate.
the flipin crap just went the answer is sorry but NO it said it was i am sorry
Technically, "Excuse me, you're welcome" is a correct translation. It doesn't make a lot of sense without a suitable context, but that's true for the German phrase itself and all its correct translations.
However, if you misspell "you're" as "your", then of course it becomes wrong. (And a correct translation of the even more absurd phrase "Entschuldigung, dein Willkommen/Empfang".)
Why is "pardon" not accepted for "bitte"? I think it makes more sense given the sentence
Because pardon simply never has this meaning. It means "please" (the meaning chosen for the 'official' translation), "there you are" or "don't mention it", but it never means "sorry" or "pardon" or "excuse me". This has already been explained several times in this forum.
The problem is that the official English translation switches the order between the two words for no good reason. It would be much clearer if it said "Excuse me, please" rather than "Please excuse me".
My mom is german.and she said it meant excuse me please not excuse,please
Does German have similar grammar to Tamil? I just realized that that does not make any sense, but is the grammar similar to Tamil in that, and I see this for lack of better wording, it's backwards in relation to English? I started to learn German on Duolingo about 20 minutes ago.
This is a very strange question, but I guess you are referring to word order. English is essentially an SVO language, meaning the typical order in a single clause is subject - verb - object. Tamil is an SOV language, meaning that the typical order is subject - object - verb. Proto-Germanic, the reconstructed ancestor of all modern Germanic languages, was an SOV language like Tamil, and also like Proto-Indoeuropean, which is the common ancestor of most European languages. But European languages are generally moving from SOV to SVO. English has almost completed this process, but German is still somewhere in between:
In simple main clauses, German already has the same word order as English, i.e. SVO. But whenever the verb phrase of a main clause consists of more than one word, then only a single word (the conjugated verb) is in the V position of SVO. The remainder of the verb clause follows at the end of the sentence, as in SOV. This strange word order, called V2 because the verb comes second, is an intermediate step on the way from SOV for main clauses to SVO for main clauses. For auxiliary clauses, German still has SOV word order.
Therefore German is more similar to Tamil than English in the sense that it's still closer to the original SOV word order, which the Dravidian languages and the earlier Indo-European languages have in common with each other and a little less than all languages.
For those who have trouble spelling or remembering the word Entschuldigung, maybe the following helps:
First you should realise that the current pronunciation is wrong. The voice currently says "Enschuldigung", dropping the t. This is OK (though by no means required) when you speak quickly and lazily, but it is not done when you speak carefully and clearly as the voice seems to be doing in all other respects. (Of course this problem may be fixed in the future. This part is only correct as of the time I am writing it.)
Next you should understand how to dissect this long word into its constituents and what they all mean. While German often writes compound words together where English prefers to write them as several separate words, this isn't actually what's going on in this case:
- Ent-schuld-ig-ung roughly translates to un-guilt-y-ing.
Let's look at the constituents in detail:
- Schuld = guilt. When Christianity was introduced among Germanic speakers there was probably no word for this inherently Christian concept. So it appears that early missionary used the word for something you owe or have to do, which was the ancestor of English shall. And really, Schulden = debts is what you should pay someone back because you owe it to them.
- schuldig = guilty. Based on the previous point, this should be obvious once it has been pointed out.
Sometimes English is more flexible and allows us to turn an adjective (or noun) into a verb when this can't be done with the equivalent German adjective (or noun). Here it is the other way round. An important difference is that while in English the word often stays unchanged and is just used differently, in German you have to add the proper ending, and more often than in English you also have to add a prefix:
- be-schuldig-en = blame is a verb formed from the adjective schuldig by adding the infinitive ending -en and the general purpose verbal prefix be- that is no longer very productive in English but still features in numerous English verbs such as belittle, bemoan, besmirch, bewitch. If I said that I inadvertently be-tea-ed myself, you would probably understand what I mean.
- ent-schuldig-en = to un-blame is what we get if we replace the positive verbal prefix be- by the negative verbal prefix ent-. (In German, positive verbal prefixes that are only required to change the verb form often disappear when you add a negative prefix.) Note that you could also derive ent-schuldig-en directly from the adjective schuldig, in which case it could also mean to un-guilt, i.e. describe the process of removing guilt (e.g. through an apology and its acceptance) - the normal word used in English for this is to pardon.
- ent-schuldig-ung = un-blam[e]-ing / un-guilt-ing (pardoning, pardon, forgiveness) is simply a noun formed from the verb. So when you say "Entschuldigung", you are technically asking for forgiveness. And indeed, the long form of "Entschuldigung!" ("Sorry!") is "Ich bitte um [Deine/Ihre] Entschuldigung." ("I beg your pardon.") (The long forms are about equally uncommon nowadays in both languages.)
However, since the noun Entschuldigung is used so often, its meaning shifted. Nowadays, rather than the forgiveness that you are asking for, the noun Entschuldigung almost always refers to the apology that you are offering. (Almost always basically means always except in the phrase "Ich bitte um Entschuldigung".)
they once told me it meant "sorry", but then it changed to excuse me, why?
Because it can both or either of those things. It expresses apology and regret without sorrow. Since we often use "sorry" without really meaning to express sorrow, "Entschuldigung" can sometimes be translated as "sorry."
Entschuldigung is hard to spell. But at least were not learning English. Even as a native English speaker I still spell things wrong, pronounce things, make grammatical errors, and use punctuation incorrectly. As you can probbably tell but to be fair I'm kind of young.
This page just confused me more. I think people may be overcomplicating things.
There are (almost?) no words in German where you need to pronounce t-t. There are two reasons why the sequence of letters tt appears in German words:
- To indicate that the previous vowel is short. For example, bitte has a short i, whereas biete has a long i (written ie, which is how a long i is often indicated in German).
- In compound words when the first word ends in -t and the second starts with t-. In this case we just pronounce one t, except when speaking very, very clearly. But words like this are quite rare.
A good example for both phenomena together is the compound noun Betttuch (bed linen). As this looks strange even to German speakers, we usually spell it Bett-Tuch. Bett has tt because the vowel e is short. (Before the spelling reform of 1996, (some) such words were actually spelled with only two ts: Bettuch.)
So Eschuldingung means "please" as well as "im sorry, sorry, and pardon ?" Correct? So how can a new learner like myself know the difference??
No, Entschuldigung does not mean "please" -- the "please" is in the bitte.
Entschuldigung is here translated as "excuse me".
That is a very confusing word to spell. Theres many confusing words in German '~'
You translated the first word twice and didn't translate the second word. Note that in the official translation the translations of the two words are swapped for no good reason.
please excuse me!? are u serious!? i thought "Entschuldigung" meant "sorry"!
Why is everyone commenting here before reading the other comments?And why, oh why, did the course creators swap the two words in the translation for no reason at all?
We don't, but it's technically a correct translation and may have made it into the list of accepted answers for this reason. I would guess that you gave an incorrect answer starting with "I'm sorry". Then the algorithm picked out "I'm sorry, please" from among the 'correct' answers as the closest to what you entered.
This is primarily a problem with Duolingo's algorithms. The course maintainers may not be able to do anything about it.
Because it translates "Entschuldigung" twice and doesn't translate "bitte".
Note that "Entschuldigung, bitte" literally translates to "Excuse me, please" - not "Please excuse me".
Im only 1% luent but i was sure that entschuldigung was sorry but its telling me it means please
Same answer as for so many others who commented before bothering to read the other comments: In the official translation, the order was inverted for no good reason.
- Entschuldigung = sorry / excuse me
- bitte = please
