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- "Hast du morgen Zeit?"
15 Comments
I know I'm not the only one learning that lesson the heart-losing way...
It's a hard thing to get used to if you're used to speaking/writing English, but I also know many German speakers who tend to go overboard with capitals when writing in English :)
So "morgen" can mean both "morning" and "tomorrow"? Do we just tell by context which one it is?
Yep. When it means tomorrow it serves as an adverb, so it doesn't have a gender.
"Zeit" actually has to go last in the sentence. This is because in German, if an adverb does not go before the verb, it follows directly after (unless there is a pronoun after the verb... then it follows the pronoun). In this case "morgen" is the adverb, and "Zeit" is not a pronoun, so "morgen" goes right after the verb, making it, "Hast du morgen Zeit?"
Hope that helped you all!
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Same question. I presume it has something to do with the fact that Zeit is a noun and morgen is not (it's an adverb?). Would be good to have it clarified..
DieDeutscheMan clarified above on why "Zeit" is last in the sentence: "Zeit" actually has to go last in the sentence. This is because in German, if an adverb does not go before the verb, it follows directly after (unless there is a pronoun after the verb... then it follows the pronoun). In this case "morgen" is the adverb, and "Zeit" is not a pronoun, so "morgen" goes right after the verb, making it, "Hast du morgen Zeit?"
OK, you and DieDeutscheMan hav clearly articulated a useful rule. Thanks for that. My problem is that it seems to contradict other rules that I have noted on sentence structure, specifically those for a simple declarative sentence: [slot 1 = subject] [slot 2 = finite, inflected verb] [slot 3 = object of the verb (phrase)] [slot 4 = adverbial modifiers (in order by time, why, manner or how, place)] [slot 6 = verb complement].
Now by this rule "Zeit" would appear to be the direct object and would go in slot 3 before the adverb modifiers.
Can you help me reconcile this difference?
I was also trying to rationalize the rules. Rule-1, Rule-2, Exception-1, Rule-3, Rule-4, Exception-2 ....
Now, I treat "Duolingo" my mother. She is always perfect. I take each sentence as a "word" and try to learn. If I am not wrong, that is how children learn their mother tongue!
Learning mother tongue is never a problem till the age of three. At school, even that mother tongue is a problem to learn. It is all the more crazy learning a second or third language by comparing it with the known language.
Enjoy learning.
