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- "Multaj germanoj trinkas bier…
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Not in this sentence. In "John is off drinking" I would use drinki, to show that he is going to drink alcohol at the local pub or something. But when you specify what kind of drink, I would just use trinki, like in the in the sentence with the germans.
Actually I think the meaning is subtler ... Trinki can also be used to refer to drinking alcoholic liquid. Although Drinki is used just is the sense of drinking (and i think that it also means drinking excessively) alcoholic liquid (often till you get drunk). Here is a sentence you find in first reference books by Zamenhof (source vortaro.net) "la gastoj trinkis po glaseto da vino" . Note he uses trinki to say the guests have drunk a small bottle of wine each. :D So I think the sentence is right if you wanna say that it is common to drink beer in Germany without saying necessarily that they drink (too much/excessively) beer :D I may have got the definition wrong, so please double check it. Ĝis! :D
vortaro.net is very useful to check the definition of words. drinki is not just to drink alcohol, but to drink too much alcohol, so if you drink in moderation you can use trinki even for alcohol.
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question: "... germanoj.." me: What is the plural of German in English... ? Ah. Germen of course ! DL: WRONG! me: UGHHH
(I hate getting marked wrong for mistakes in my ESL.)
I would also like to understand the multe/multa distinctiom better. Im guessing it's to do with multe being the adverb and multa being an adjective. Would multe be 'Multe da Germanoj...' ?
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We have special expressions for drinking too much alcohol in Dutch, to drink is ''drinken'' But if it's alcohol in excessive amounts you can say ''zuipen''. Also to say ''He drinks'', ''Hij drinkt'' is used to imply somebody is drinking too much alcohol.
Maybe someone can clarify. Why is the sentence "Multaj germanoj trinkas bieron" and not "Multaj germanioj trinkas bieron"?
Germanoj means Germans, Germanioj means Germanies. I doubt a country can drink beer. Only its people can.
Also, there is only one Germany, it is safe to assume that Germanioj is nonsensical (unless you are talking about multiple universes that combined have more than one Germany).
Yeah, it would have to be a truly freaky alternative universe to have ever had both a German Democratic Republic and a Federal Republic of Germany.
Multaj is an adjective that modifies "germanoj' here. You don't need a preposition to connect them.
If you're comfortable messing me on Facebook or on Yahoo (my username in both places is the same as here) I'd be interested in spending half an hour working with you via skype. I regularly teach via skype on italki and your comment has gotten me thinking. It certainly sounds frustrating, but I'm not sure how to help you with hearing if we only write text back and forth.
Actually I have written "A lot of Germans drink a beer" ... and it's wrong... What ? Excuse-me but we can say that, especially when the proposition "a beer" is clearly written among the translations...
"A lot of Germans drink a beer" seems like a very unlikely sentence in English. If you think it should be accepted, go ahead and report it and see what happens.
