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- Topic: German >
- "Es spielt."
75 Comments
When would you even use this? I can only imagine someone saying, "Day 3: Our subject has yet to speak. However, it is playing."
1521
One of the choices for "Es" is "e-flat." "E-flat"? Can someone give me an example sentence or something?
527
Sorry, es spielt for it works is indeed wrong. It is neither a German usage nor understandable in most cases. For things producing sound we use the verb spielen ( Radio/musical instrument) but for a car, a household machine or a computer we would not use spielen.
German doesn't have the distinction between the English tenses "it plays" and "it is playing" -- the sentence can be translated either way, with no helper verb in the German.
527
the first and logical step is naturally to think of the pronoun for neuters. But this would not explain the idiomatic usages:
es ist 10 Uhr
es spielt keine Rolle was Du willst
Es klappert die Mühle (Kinderlied).
es scheint die Sonne.
In most cases, where Es is the Subject and the verb follows directly, it must not agree with the gender of the virtual subject. But I think you have the same idea in English. Who is at the door? It is my sister.
'Spielt' is in English 'plays'. 'It is plays' is not correct either in English. The present progressive form 'is playing' doesn't exist in German. 'He is playing football' is in German: Er spielt (gerade) Fußball. Das Radio (es) spielt wieder (is playing again). But also 'das Kind' (the child) and 'das Mädchen' can be 'es' because the article is 'das'. For 'das Mädchen' I can also use the pronoun 'sie': sie spielt gerade.
832
I was just marked correct for 'it runs' which I put by mistake but it turns out I wasn't mistaken! Is it a valid translation?