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- "Viele Menschen mögen Katzen."
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Could someone shed more light on the difference between 'viel' & 'viele' please?
Welcome to german grammar (GG)! This is not simple. Langenscheidt publishes a small grammar called "GG in a nutshell".
Briefly, adjectives that follow the noun are short and plain. Those before the noun without an inflected article must get an ending to match the noun in number, gender, and case. An inflected article relieves you of that requirement, since the article already matches the number, gender, and case.
In conversation, I just give up on this and count on my listener to pardon my ignorance.
1016
That is not just your theory.
countable: english: much; german: viel
uncountable: english: many; german: viele
Of course there are some things, which are countable in english but not in german or otherwise. for example much homework - viele Hausaufgaben
Other way around, my guy.
'I have much apples' is wrong. 'The tank has many water' is wrong.
Viel is for uncountable nouns. For example: Milch (milk).
Viele is for countable nouns. For example: Apfel (Apple).
I found that they match one to one with the English use of many (viele) and much (viel). "Ich habe nicht viel Geld" (I don't have much money). I have yet to find an example where this does not hold true.
This interested me so I looked it up. According to Wikipedia:
In the singular, viel is often left unchanged when it is not preceded by an article or determiner (e.g. Er hat viel Geld verloren). With articles/determiners it is declined like a normal adjective: das viele Geld.
In the plural, the adjective is usually declined either way (Ich habe viele Kinder, ich helfe vielen Menschen) However, it is sometimes left unchanged in the combinations wie viel (“how many”) and so viel (“so many”): wie viel Kinder or wie viele Kinder.
So in summary, "viel" if it's singular and without an article. Normal adjective rules with article or if it's plural (Nom Acc: viele, Dat: vielen, Gen: vieler).
Use "viele" for countable nouns as "Katzen" and "Männer"
While "viel" is for uncountable nouns like "Zucker" and "Wasser"
Basically you use "viele" and "viel" in the same way you use "many" and "much"
- 1075
Why doesn't it accept "men" intended as "humans" (rather than specifically human males)?
If you said a lot of men like cats, nobody would understand that to include both sexes, that's why. Generally, that meaning only goes for the singular man, as in modern man has achieved such and such.
O-umlaut is not ''oo'' but ''err'' as in ''To err is human.''
Mo''gen.....For english speakers, the spelling ''mergen" gives a surprisingly accurate german pronunciation. (That ''g' is hard, like ''get.' . German has no soft g.)
An example from german literature:: Wolfgang Gerta, (Go''the).
A southern accent makes it even better, killing the R but saving the vowel.
There are soft "G"s in word endings, like Zwanzig (twenty) which is pronounced "tzvantzij" or "tzwantzish"
Actually, not at all. The "g" pronounced in "zwanzig" is still a hard "g" it's just that some native speakers will essentially have an "accent" on how they pronounce the "g" almost exactly like the "ch" is pronounced. For example, these two words: Mag - "like" Mach - "make" When pronounced, they sound exactly the same.
If you pronounce zwanzig as zwanzik, it is you who has an accent :)
Standard German pronounces the ending -ig as -ich. Listen to the model pronunciation at duden.de, for example: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/zwanzig (click on the speaker icon under "Aussprache).
Your example of mag = mach is not parallel because it doesn't involve the ending -ig. (And for northern Germans who pronounce those two words the same, another aspect of that accent is that long vowels are sometimes shortened. In standard German, mag has a long vowel, mach a short one.)
I have heard the word Volk. Can someone please tell me when it is appropriate to use Volk and when it is appropriate to use Menschen? Or are they synonymous?
Volk means an ethnic group, in English "a people"". Menschen just means "people"".
Singular:
- I like
- you like
- he/she/it likes
Plural:
- we like
- you like
- they like
Since "many people" is plural and third person, that falls into the "they" category, ergo like.
Most implies more than many, for which you'd say die meisten Menschen, die meisten Leute or fast alle Menschen.
More complicated than a simple singular/plural split:
- ich mag
- du magst
- er mag, sie mag, es mag
- wir mögen
- ihr mögt
- sie mögen, Sie mögen
viele is "many, a lot of, lots of".
What was the entire sentence you wrote?
"Lot of people...", for example, is wrong if you didn't include "a" in "a lot of".
Perhaps all the discussion is missing the point. without the translation of "Many men like cats." Even in German there is such a possibility!
In today's English, "men" usually means "male human adults" and not "humans in general", which is what Menschen means.
I've just discovered hovering the mouse over the German words, and it gives alternative translations!
