Past Perfect

Mar 09, 2023 15:46

Babbel is currently confusing me with past perfect. If the verb doesn't imply movement, you use the conjugated form of haben; if there is movement or something you can't control, sein ( Read more... )

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malbolge March 11 2023, 07:44:27 UTC
Your last sentence is hard to understand, apparently some words are missing there. No, "work a lot" does not imply movement. But anyway that doesn't matter. Forget that stuff about movement/not movement. Every verb is used either with SEIN or with HABEN. "arbeiten" is always used with HABEN.

There are some several verbs wich can be used with SEIN or with HABEN but they have different meanings. "ist gefahren" - went (to somewhere), "hat gefahren" - drove (a car).

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dandelion March 11 2023, 11:08:06 UTC
"If our farmer had plowed the field would the verb have been a form of sein?"
Duden says both pflügen and ackern use haben.

I feel like the movement-specific verbs which use sein are really obvious movement. Working doesn't have to imply movement, and it doesn't change for situations where it does involve movement. I also agree it's probably most straightforward to learn the verbs as that also covers the ones where there's no movement at all (werden, bleiben, einschlafen, etc).

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loupnoir March 11 2023, 19:17:27 UTC
"Working doesn't have to imply movement..." That makes sense to me. You can work at a desk, and Babbel says that haben is used without moving. I just have to change my image of what work constitutes.

My confusion sent me back to my early eighties text, Deutsch Heute, which was so basic we didn't get beyond the present tense.

Duden - I searched on Duden and found the website https://www.duden.de/. Amazon has the German-English dictionary available, but I'd rather have an online resource, since Babbel and Duolingo are both online. If there isn't a bilingual online Duden, is there a German-English site you'd recommend?

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dandelion March 11 2023, 19:25:42 UTC
Exactly. If you have to think too hard to say "is there movement? maybe sometimes?" it probably doesn't count - as long as you've learnt those non-moving verbs that take sein anyway ( ... )

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loupnoir March 11 2023, 20:46:58 UTC
Thank you! The cactus site just explained why Bär turned into Bären. DuoLingo did not discuss noun declension. This will really help.

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