"At least you are not alone."
Translation:Wenigstens bist du nicht allein.
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A great article, to summarize this read:
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"wenigstens" is when you "whine" with pessimistic/optimistic or hopeful statements.
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"mindestens" is when you state that it could be more.
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"zu mindest" is when you say, at least form my point of view, at least in my opinion, ...from what I know.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Mindestens is more to do with numbers. E.g. There are at least three apples, "es gibt mindestens drei Äpfel." Zumindest is used as a consolation method. E.g. at least your father is there "zumindest ist dein Vater da" wenigstens can be used in both situations.
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I've reported it. Mostly because in a several other cases (At least take my phone number. At least you don't look blue) Duolingo provides "mindestens" and "wenigstens" as correct.
I can add, 'wenigstens' comes from 'wenig'.
My theory is:
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When you have less XYZ and we try to lead your view upwards, then we tend to use 'wenigstens'.
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When someone is used to have more XYZ and now he/she has less of it, we tend to use zumindestens or mindestens. Also with the aim to lead your view upwards.
What's the difference between "wenigstens" and "am wenigstens". Am wenigstens was marked wrong for me
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"Am" means "at the" (being a contraction of "an dem". Since "dem/the" is a determiner, it should be followed by an object, a noun (z.B., "am Laden" ==> "at the store"). It can be immediately followed by an adjective or an adverb/adjective combination, but then those modifiers need to be followed by a noun (z.B., "am neuen Garten" ==> "at the new garden").
So, since wenigstens is an adverb, it doesn't use a determiner. To make things just a bit more complex: the translation to English is "at least", a prepositional phrase.
"Am" is also used for forming superlative in German. As written in Wikipedia
"The superlative is formed with the preposition am and the ending -en, e.g. am schönsten "most beautifully". Only a limited number of adverbs have a special elative form ending in -stens, e.g. schnellstens ('as fast as possible'), bestens ('very well')". "
So "wenigstens" is one of those special adverbs. But as far as I understand "am wenigsten", is also a valid form, (listed in e.g. Wiktionary).
So in retrospect I think my mistake was adding an s in the end. I.e. a valid alternative answer should be: "am wenigsten bist du nicht allein". Can someone confirm?
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I still have not fully understood the difference between zumindest, wenigstens, and mindestens. It is still not crystal clear to me even after reading the site which is suggested by Bryan_Seelig (Thanks to him). It still seems I can use any of those in many cases with some slight differences in meaning.
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Sounds to me like you've got a pretty good handle on it. It's now just a matter of memorization and practice. (Genauso alles andere Deutsch.)
Why would "Wenigstens bist du allein nicht" not be proper german? I was under the impression that you could tack on "nicht" at the end of any german sentence to negate it. In this sentence that doesn't seem to be the case. Please let me know if anyone has any insight on this.
The 'nicht' is not always in the last position of a sentence. Indeed it is a result of determinded random if it is there. http://faculty.vassar.edu/vonderem/deutsch_heute/Kapitel02/Grammatik/nicht1.html
Wenigstens bist du nicht alleine.
I think it comes before allein in this case to show that you're negating it
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Because what you wrote means "at least you are not lonely," which is not the same thing as "being alone".
I can be alone and not be lonely. I can also be amongst many people and still be lonely. (Sniff. No one understands me. Woe is me!)
I just got marked wrong for writing "Wenigstens du bist" instead of "Wenigstens bist du"
Can I genuinely not say it that way, or is it just Duolingo being stupid again?
Mm. I didn't notice that before I posted. But now I feel a little stupid--I know the verb has to be second. For some reason it just didn't occur to me there. Thanks.
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Well, there are some lead-ins/phrases that don't count (can't think of an example the moment) so that the noun/subject can still precede the verb. I don't know if wenigstens is one of those. I'm assuming not.
Are there any sort of guidelines on where to put an adverb? "Du bist wenigstens nicht allein" was accepted as of June 2021. I've also seen sentences where the adverb is at the end of the sentence. Does this placement change just tone? For example, would an adverb be more emphasized the closer it is to the beginning of a sentence?