“Du” vs. “Dich”
A real life chat log of today:
[13:33] Birger: 今日暑天
[13:37] Friend: wowowow
[15:40] Friend: ich mag kochen 😀
[15:52] Friend: dich mag nicht chicken feet
[15:52] Friend: 😉
[15:59] Birger: 🙂
[16:01] Birger: Unfortunately, our Grammar is more complex…without good reason, as I apparently understood you well. But correct would be:
“Du magst Hühner-Füße nicht.” oder, besser, “Du magst keine Hühner-Füße.”
[16:02] Birger: Ill-thinking people could, based on “dich”, interpret it the other way round: “Chicken feet do not like you” 😉
[16:15] Friend: u mean dich mag nicht chicken feet=Chicken feet do not like you?
[17:01] Birger: I mean: Can be interpreted as such. It’s not a correct sentence.
[17:01] Birger: But the form “dich” is used to express, TO WHOM something happens (so-called accusative case).
[17:01] Birger: While “du” is used to express, WHO DOES something.
[17:02] Birger: (nominative case)
[17:04] Birger: The Chinese language regulates that (to my knowledge) mostly with the position in the sentence:
Wo xihuan Chicken-feet [“du” case]
or
Chicken-feet xihuan Wo [“dich” case]
Wow, that’s Birger-grammar
[17:04] Birger: 😉
[17:06] Birger: Well, I just noticed I left out a few bu’s (不) here…
[17:07] Birger: And should have replaced wo with ni….well, I still need to practice Chinese a bit…
[17:07] Birger:
Ni bu xihuan Chicken-feet [“du” case]
Chicken-feet bu xihuan ni [“dich” case]
[17:09] Friend: Ich mag dich gramma
[17:10] Friend: Du gramma sounds interesting
[17:12] Friend: oh, should i replace mag with magst?
[17:22] Birger: No, was correct:
“Ich mag”
“Du magst”
“Er/sie/es mag”
“Wir mögen”
“Ihr mögt”
“Sie mögen”
🙂
But “Deine Grammatik”, instead of “Du Grammar” 😉
[17:23] Birger: Ah, maybe I got what you thought wrong….
[17:23] Friend: german magst complicated lauguage
[17:24] Birger: You can say:
“Ich mag dich.”
“Du magst mich”
But
“Ich mag deine Grammatik”
[17:25] Birger: German IS a complicated language when you come from Chinese and English.
It’s simple if you come from, hm, Latin, Russian, or some other easter European languages
[17:26] Friend: ok, can’t change that
[17:26] Friend: but ich mag german, du magst chinese?
[17:26] Birger: genau!
[17:28] Friend: but i am not sure whether german mag mir, or chinese magst dir 😉
[17:29] Birger: well, me neither…
[17:30] Friend: hehe
Added 10-Oct: Ja/Nein
[17:51] Friend: ich bin serious!!
[17:52] Birger: Du meinst das ernst?
[17:54] Friend: genau!
[17:55] Friend: ich meine
[17:55] Birger: That’s again a very Chinese way of saying ‘Yes’. 😉
[17:56] Friend: warrum?
[18:01] Birger: Chinese sentence structure (sorry don’t get that in Chinese now that quicky):
question: 你去上海吗? Ni qu Shanghai ma?
Anwer: 我去! Wo qu!
English:
Q: You’re going to Shanghai?
A: Yes. […I will go]
german the same:
Q: Du gehst nach Shanghai?
A: Ja. […ich werde gehen]
We answer primaril with Ja/Nein. The additional part […I will go] is optional.
Chinese, however, usually repeats the verb like you just did.
[18:02] Friend: got it
[18:03] Birger: We westerners struggle quite a bit with the fact that the Chinese language has no simple “Yes” or “No”! 😉
[18:03] Friend: ahh??!!
[18:06] Birger: Probably closest comes 是 / 不是. But it would be the wrong answer above:
question: 你去上海吗? Ni qu Shanghai ma?
answer: 是! Shi!
(according to my books that’s wrong, or at least unexpected)
Categories: Shanghai
Originally Created: 09/19/2005 12:39:54 PM
Last Edited: 10/10/2005