- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Das wird ihm plötzlich klar."
27 Comments
That's exactly what I wrote. Is there something idiomatic going on here? 'Wird' usually means 'will be' in these exercises.
I would like to hear a German speaker provide a translation assuming that "ihm" is translated "it" rather than "him" in this sentence. Or, if that doesn't make sense here, please explain why. I put "That will make it suddenly clear" but this answer was not accepted. Such a sentence would make sense in English.
I'm not a native German speaker... but "ihm" is dative, and therefore translated as "to it", not just "it". The thing that's becoming klar is 'das' not 'ihm'. das is becoming klar to 'ihm'. It might make sense if it said "ihn", but that's a different sentence.
I think both would translate as "Suddenly he realizes it" there is a subtle difference in German, but as a German speaker, I would't know how to represent that in English, probably the context would tell.
"wird" would emphasize the change of his view, whereas "ist" would rather stress clearness and finality.
They say, though "Das wird ihm plötzlich klar." which I would have thought to mean something like "That will soon be clear to him." or in more slang-y English - "He'll get it soon."
"That will soon be clear to him." would be "Das wird ihm bald klar sein." With "soon" being "bald" and "plötzlich" being "suddenly". More familiar sounding, you would say "Das wird ihm schnell klar sein."
"He'll get it soon." would be "Das wird ihm schnell klar werden." or "Das wird er bald merken.", or informally "Das checkt er auch bald."
Don't forget that "werden" (wird) alone means "to become".
The literal meaning of this is "That suddenly becomes clear to him" (to him makes the dative case)
well i got this first on a listening. Don't ask what i wrote, tragic. and as often as i listen to it the "wird" never comes through.
Technically this could also be translated with the English present continuous: 'That is suddenly becoming clear to him'.
Without any context it is hard to get a perfect translation and this is a particularly strange one, with the inclusion of 'plötzlich'.
"Im" and "ihm" are homophones, I just realized. Obviously when my German gets better it should be clear which one should be used (as with ist/isst). Unfortunately I heard it as "im" and tried to translate something confusing like "that will be suddenly in the clear."
Other than "ist/isst", "im" and "ihm" actually sound different. "im" like "him" in English and "ihm" like "steam".
Does an "h" always make the vowel long? Is there also an "ehm" and "uhm"? So, for instance, "Bett" is short and "geht" is long. Is this always the case with an "h" following the vowel?
Ja, we call this "Dehnungs-h", "dehnen" meaning to stretch, and being itself an example of the Dehnungs-h. And even if there may be very few exceptions to the rule, none comes to my mind.
On the other hand you can't be sure, that a word missing the Dehnungs-h is short: "den, dem, dir, mir, wir, Hof, holen, tot, Tod, legen, Lage, wagen, sagen, Duden, Musik, ..." all with long vowels.
In case of the i, we have in addition to the Dehnungs-h "Ihnen, ihm" also a Dehnungs-e: "nieder, Liebe, siegen, fliegen".
This was very helpful! The "r" and the "e" also seem to make the vowel long, so I understand that. For "den, dem, Tod, Musik" etc. there seems to be no guideline.
