Anybody know anything about the German language?

[valis2]

In tLS I originally went to some website and translated "the manor house" to "das Herrenhaus".

I am told that this is incorrect, that "das" should be "der", and that "das" actually meant "that".

Can anyone tell me which is correct? Thanks!

Comments

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Knowing only Hogan's Heros German, I'd say Das is That and Der is the.

("Das is correct, Herr Hogan!")

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Aha! Well, I wish it had been pointed out to me twenty chapters ago. heh...oh well! *revises*

[aerynstales.livejournal.com]

I feel for ya, sweetie! We've had similar problems with French. However, I've learned the hard way (both from my writing and conversing with a fan of our Holmes stories that is from Argentina and only speaks Spanish - yes, she can read English, but can't write it) that online translators are utter crap.

If you like, Mugglenet fanfiction has a forum that is under Obscurous Books that you can ask help for translating words or sentences (I help with translation of Latin). here is the forum link.

Hope this helps!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the online translators make me insane!! Wah!

I really thought it was such a completely SIMPLE concept that I wouldn't have trouble. It's not like I was trying to translate "She goes to nowhere with her long lean fish, her embryonic shoes glistening with ire". I mean, it is THE, MANOR, and HOUSE. Simple, right? *sigh*

Thanks for the link!

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

it's 'das Haus', but the article inflects in German, depending on what function the word is taking in the sentence.

'das' is also the 'pointing word' in German, too.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

So if she is thinking simply "The Manorhouse" in her head, it would be "das Herrenhaus"? If she is saying that she went to the house, would it be the same?

It would be so much easier if I had just set it in Spain...argh.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Hehehehe. HAHAHA. Oh, do you know what can of worms that opens? :)

German *always* distinguishes between 'to' as in 'at' and 'to' as in 'into', and there are subtly different prepositions in addition to the change of case.

Ask a native speaker...

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I give up. I'll leave it as "das" and not worry over it any longer. :)

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

If she's just thinking about the house, that's the right way to go. If you want to her to say something about being at the house or going into the house, that's more complicated...

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Thanks for trying to explain it to me...I appreciate it!

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Trying to explain it to you makes me think about how little I actually understand it and need to study harder. :)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Now if we could just get Goren to lecture about it naked, we'd be set.

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

Or you could just burn down the f'ing house.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

That does happen, actually.

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

Oops

[aerynstales.livejournal.com]

*perks up at mention of Goran*

You know...I'm sitting here waiting for L+O: CI to come on...and just checked...it's a Logan episode! Not that I mind him, but I'm really needing a Goran fix. *sigh*

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Mmm...don't we all need a fix! Yum, yum.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Goren speaks German--there's an episode in the first season when he does it.

mmmmm.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Wow...he really ismulti-talented. And delicious. Though that might just be conjecture on my part.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

I may be in the minority here, but I'm really enjoying the split season with the new episodes, too. Barek is still really feeling out the character, but Logan is so great to see again--older and wiser. And then you get a totally different partnership with Goren and Eames, who is the underappreciated one of the two. She has the nastiest zingers. She rocks.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I missed Eames when she was out on medical leave. I watched a couple of episodes with the temporary replacement, but she just didn't have the same chemistry, and I missed Eames.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Goren would not be Goren without the enabling of Eames. I loved in the last G&E episode:

Goren: *fidget twitch*
Eames: BOOKS!
Goren: *goes over and starts looking*

[absurdwords.livejournal.com]

If you want complete sentences:

She went to the manor: Sie ging zum Herrenhaus.
She went into the manor: Sie ging ins Herrenhaus.

(zum= contraction of 'zu dem', to+dative of zu 'to, ins= contraction of 'in das', in+accusative, which is the same as the nominative, of das. German can be complicated ;) )

[valis2.livejournal.com]

*hugs gratefully* You are awesome!

[mimbulus.livejournal.com]

Anybody know anything about the German language?

Yes, it is terribly difficult to learn. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

hee! Thanks, mimbie. ;)

[kleio-the-muse.livejournal.com]

Sorry, don't have time to read all the comments, so don't know if somebody already told you this, hence making my post utterly unnecessary, but... das Herrenhaus is correct.

"Das" = "the". Or actually there's three of them: der/das/die, all the same as "the". And all of them can be used as meaning "that", depending on the genus of the thing that is referred to. "Das" is simply the most commonly used as "that" because it's Neutrum (neutral, not gender specific) whereas "der" is Masculinum and "die" Femininum/plural.

So, yeah. It's correct, rest assured:)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much. :) This became much more of a complicated issue than I imagined...glad that everybody is so helpful!

[catsintheattic.livejournal.com]

First: "das Herrenhaus" is correct. To add some more information:

As kleio_the_muse correctly pointed out, German articles refer to the gender of the word. Here is a short example to illustrate:

"der" - male gender, as in "der Hahn" = the rooster
"die" - female gender, as in "die Henne" = the hen
"das" - neutral, as in "das Huhn" = the chicken

Sometimes the gender of the word differs from the gender of the object classified. For example, "the girl" is obviously female, but is translated as "das Maedchen". It's tricky, I guess.

Feel free to ask me, whenever you have questions about translations into German. I will be happy to help. Translations will be easier in the context of whole sentences, as different prepositions or cases will effect the declination of an article or word ending or who knows what else. It is so much harder to explain the rules behind a correct form, when it comes to your native language. There, I don't think about the grammar, I just use it.

I always hope I don't use too much German when I try to write English.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Well, wow!

So many people are knowledgeable about the German language on my flist!

The thing is, I am using it only as a reference to a person's house.

If I were using it in Spanish, for example, it would be:

She thought of La Casa Roja with a pang of longing

All I want to do is do roughly the same thing:

She thought of das Herrenhaus with a pang of longing

I would like for it to make sense even if the person reading is fluent in German.

[catsintheattic.livejournal.com]

From your example it seems to me that the article is a part of the name of the house. Therefore the article should be capitalized as well, like you did in the Spanish example: "Das Herrenhaus".

Alternatively, the house could be named "Herrenhaus". Then I would go for "She thought of the Herrenhaus...".

Both sentences make sense to me. I tried to look up a rule for the use of the article as a component of names, but found none. As we have some newspapers in Germany which use the article as a part of their name (for example "Die Zeit"), I guess it should be okay to write about Das Herrenhaus.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

You are right about the capitalizing. Thank you so much for thinking about this and commenting! It's helped tremendously.