Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new episode of Spoken German Bits. In this series, we look at all the stuff that you can only find in spoken German – weird grammar, new phrases, slang and colloquinsali.. colonilasi… man this word and beers really don’t go together very well. I mean all the stuff that people say every day but that isn’t part of those stupid textbooks.
Today, we’re gonna be dealing with one topic you all reeeeaaaally love. No, not gender. No, not cases either. What? Adjective endings?! No, we’re not gonna be talking about those. Oh no and it’s not word order… man you really love quite a bit about German :).
The thing we’ll look at today are what in jargon is called “pronominal adverbs”. We know them as …
The da-words
Sigh, the da-words… darauf, darum, daraus, dafür and so on.
The da-words are basically a twisted way to combine a preposition with an article. Instead of saying of that or about that like a sane language would do in German you say thereof and thereabout like you’re some sort of poet or something.
We’ve taken a detailed look at the da-words so if you feel like you want to get the theory down, then check out this post here:
They actually do have a big benefit and they’re really not that difficult once you get the hang of them.
But even if you have the black belt in Da-Word-Fu, you might get really really confused when you talk to native speakers because… there’s a new twist in town.
You see, Germans are really good at splitting things. They split their verbs, they split hairs, they were heavily involved in first splitting the atom, heck they even split their own country once. But it’s never enough. And so they’ve come up with something new. Drumroll please:
the da-word split
And this is how it looks like.
Hmmmmmmm… soooooo tasty. I’d sure love me some da-word split rig…. oh wait, wrong split. Haha.
The da-word split looks like this:
- “In zwei Tagen fährst du zu dem Festival, oder?”
“Ja Mann, da freu ich mich schon seit Monaten drauf.” - “In two days, you’ll go to the festival right?”
“Yeah dude, I’ve been looking forward to that for months.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Da……………… mn.
So let’s take a look at this mess.
The da-word split – What it is
The idea is as simple as it is annoying for the learner. The da-word gets split apart and then stuff gets put between the parts. Here’s an examples with the standard da-word.
- Katzenprojekt? Davon weiß ich nix (nichts).
- Cat project? Of that I know nothing.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is proper German and people do say that, but they also say this
- Katzenprojekt? Da weiß ich nix von.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
or this
- Katzenprojekt?! Ich weiß da nichts von.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This works with all the da-words and all kinds of contexts and sentences, as long as it is spoken.
- Ich hab’ da nichts von.
- Lit.: I have nothing of that.
- I have nothing to gain by/from that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Und wie alt ist sie?”
“Keine Ahnung. Da hab’ ich nicht nach gefragt.” - “And how old is she?”
“No idea, I didn’t ask for that.“ - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Kennst du dich mit String-Theorie aus?”
“Nee, ich hab’ da zwar ein bisschen was drüber gelesen, aber richtig verstanden hab’ ich’s nicht.” - “Do you know string theory?”
“Nah, I’ve read a bit about it but I didn’t really understand it.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Jeden Tag Meeting… ich hab’ da einfach keine Lust mehr drauf.
- Meeting every day… I don’t want to do that anymore.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich hab’ da fast 2 Stunden mit meinem Professor drüber geredet.
- I talked about that with my professor for almost two hours.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Kannst du bitte nicht so rummeckern?”
“Ich hab’ halt schlechte Laune.”
“Na und. Da kann ich ja nichts für.”
(regular would be “Dafür kann ich ja nichts.”) - “Could you stop bitching?”
“I’m in a bad mood, is all.”
“So what, that’s not my fault.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das Katzenprojekt? Da hab ich mich, seit ich da mit Maria letztens beim Meeting drüber gesprochen habe, nicht mehr mit beschäftigt.
- The cat project? I haven’t done anything with that since I talked about it with Maria.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, looking at these examples, I’m sure many of you have a few questions so let’s take a look at how the da-word split works in detail… because… there are still some rules, even though it’s strictly colloquial. Grammar gone rogue is still grammar, right?
I mean… it’s not like you’d need to do a proper da-word split in a test or something. Technically you don’t need the mechanics. But I think it’s still interesting because we can get a glimpse into the deeper structures of German.
So, we’ll do kind of a little da-word split Q&A and after that we’ll have a good impression of the whole thing.
Or we’ll be pretty confused and awfully tired :). So let’s find out.
What’s up with the dr-stuff?
The first thing we’ll talk about- and I’m sure you all noticed it in the examples – is the weird dr-stuff. What do I mean by dr-stuff?
Well, I said that the da-word gets split into two parts. So, davon becomes da… von, dafür becomes da…für and so darauf should become da…rauf. But it doesn’t. It becomes da… drauf.
- Da freu ich mich drauf.
- I’m looking forward to that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And believe it or not… saying rauf here would sound pretty wrong. That’s what I mean by dr-stuff. All the da-words where the preposition starts with a vowel, so all the ones that have an r in the middle will get an extra d. Darauf becomes da… drauf, daraus becomes da… draus, darum becomes da… drum and so on.
Now you might be like “Wait, isn’t drauf short for darauf? Do we have a double da now?”
Well, yeah… that’s pretty much how it is. And in fact, doubling down on da is sometimes even done when the preposition alone would be enough
- Ich hab’ da nichts davon gesagt.
- I didn’t say anything about that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
or if there’s no da-word split at all.
- Ich freu mich da drauf. (instead darauf)
- I’m looking forward to that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich hab mich sehr da drüber geärgert (instead darüber)
- I was very angry about that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is not only super colloquial, though, it’s also super not nice. Like… it sounds a bit dumb.
Anyway, so if the da-word has an r, then the da-word split will get an extra d. Cool.
Now let’s talk structure for a bit.
Where do the parts go?
Looking at the examples, you can quickly see the following trend: da comes somewhat early in the sentence. But where exactly?
Well, of course it can come in position 1.
- Da hab’ ich schon drauf gewartet.
- I was already waiting for that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Da hab’ ich noch nie von gehört.
- I have never heard about that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But position one is NOT a regular part of the sentence and kind of a free for all. What’s more interesting is the area after the verb.
As usual with word order, there are tendencies and defaults and special emphasis and we could spend a whole article discussing all the finer points of where da- goes and how it sounds. But as a wise man once said: finer points are not as cool as finer pints. So we’ll just pick the one aspect that most resembles a fixed rule and leave it at that :).
To sound idiomatic, da- should come AFTER all the pronouns, especially ich, du and es.
- Gestern hat er da zum ersten Mal von gehört… natural
- Gestern hat da er zum ersten Mal von gehört. … SUPER strong, almost unnatural emphasis on “er”
- He heard about it for the first time yesterday.
- Ich hab’ ihm da gestern von erzählt.
- Ich hab’ da ihm gestern von erzählt…. sounds quite weird. (lit.: make myself an image of it”)
- I told him about it yesterday.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich weiß, dass es da nicht doll von abhängt.
… , dass da es …. SUPER NOPE! Sounds wrong. - I know that doesn’t depend so much on that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
If you’re interested in why this is the case then I’d suggest the mini series on word order (I’ll add a link below) but yeah… if you want to do a da-word split yourself, either put da in position 1 or right after all the pronouns like ich, mich, dir, ihm, es and so on.
Cool. And what about the other half?
And this is is pretty simple and coherent. The second part of a da-word split comes pretty much always right in front of the final verb slot. So it’s either in front of ge-forms or prefixes or other verb left overs or, if the final verb slot is empty, it is at the very end.
- Ich wart’ da nicht drauf [empty].
- I’m not gonna wait for that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe da seit fast zwei Monaten jeden Tag für trainiert.
- I’ve been training for that every day for almost two months.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Die Katze von meinem Mitbewohner miaut jeden Morgen, wenn die Sonne aufgeht.”
“Süß.”
“Schon, ich wach da aber von auf.” - “My flatmate’s cat meows every morning when the sun comes up.”
“Cute.”
“Well yeah, but I wake up of it.“ - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
My god, “...da aber von auf”... this must be soooo confusing for a beginner :).
Anyway, so the second part comes right before the verb. And that actually makes sense. The second part is the preposition and the preposition completely depends on the verb. Warten auf, freuen über, reden von… the preposition is almost a part of the verb so it makes sense that this part comes so late.
And that actually brings us to the last, and maybe biggest question of all.
Da-word Split – Why the hell?
I already mentioned that German has a penchant to splitting thing… like… with the whole verb stuff and all. The native speakers’ brains are trained to this kind of “arch of suspense” and I think Germans subconsciously kind of dig that moment of resolution and closure at the end. So splitting the da-word is not all to crazy a concept to begin with.
But I think there’s more to it. Splitting the da-word fits very well with the underlying structure of German. That’s a huge topic and I don’t want to get into it too much so I’ll just put out there the following two aspects of word order:
- the verb as the most defining element is at the end
- pronouns and other reference words come very early on
So on the left side we have a bunch of stuff that has been part of the conversation already and on the right side we have the verb. What does that have to do with the da-words? Well, a da-word belongs to both worlds.
- “Magst du dein neues Fahrrad?”
“Ja, ich habe sogar davon geträumt.” - “Do you like your new bike?”
“Yeah, I even dreamed of it.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The da-part is a reference, so it belongs to the old stuff and its natural position would be somewhere on the left. And now… do you remember what the preposition belongs to? Exactly… the verb. The preposition is “supplied” by the verb and that’s why it’s natural position is on the far right (because that’s where the verbs dwell).
A conflict of interest :). The da-word gets pulled in opposite directions and breaking it up is actually kind of natural. Take this sentence
- He told her about it yesterday at the company party.
He, she and it have been established in the conversation before and telling is the main action of the sentence.
- Er hat ihr gestern bei der Firmenparty zum ersten Mal davon erzählt.
- Er hat ihr davon gestern bei der Firmenparty zum ersten Mal erzählt.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Both are technically correct and idiomatic (though the second one does sound a bit stilted) but as you can see, the da-word forces a part out of its natural habitat, so to speak. With the da-word split the parts are where the natural forces pull them.
- Er hat ihr da gestern bei der Firmenparty zum ersten Mal von erzählt.
Here’s another example.
- “Wollen wir Sushi essen?”
“Nee, da hab’ ich heut’ irgendwie keinen Appetit drauf [final slot empty].” - “Should we eat Sushi today?”
“Nah, I don’t feel like eating that today.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The verb is Appetit haben auf so with the drauf at the end, the preposition is in it’s natural position. And the da, being a reference, is in the beginning and makes for a nice connection to the stuff that has been said before.
All right.
Phew… so this was our look at one of the biggest fads in contemporary spoken German. The da-word split. And I have to say… for something that is purely colloquial this post wound up pretty darn intense.
German® – when even explaining improper language gives you a headache
Seriously though. I hope you got a good impression of the da-word split and have some idea how it works and maybe how it ties in with the deeper structure of German.
It’s really super common these days and I’m sure you’ll hear it sooner or later and if you manage to do it correctly, you’ll “up your native”… big time. Like.. your friends will there be incredibly impressed by :).
If you have any questions about any of this go ahead and we’ll clear it up in the comments. And also… I’m curious. If you’ve spent time in Germany, have you come across the da-word split? Was it confusing? Do you have tricks to understand it? And if you’re a native speaker of German, how is it for you in your region and dialect? Do you know it, is it common? Or were you like “What the hell is he talking about?”.
I’m really curious for your experiences so share them and in the comments.
I’m out for now. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
“Nee, ich hab’ da zwar ein bisschen was drüber gelesen, aber richtig verstanden hab’ ich’s nicht.”
What role does the word “richtig” play in this sentence? May the word “richtig” be excluded while remaining a proper sentence?
“richtig” is an adverb modifying “verstehen” here. It’s a bit like “properly” or “completely”. So you’re saying that you maybe “kind of” understood it but not “fully”.
If you take out “richtig”, you’re negative plain understanding, so you didn’t understand it at all.
You see, Germans are really good at splitting things. They split their verbs, they split hairs, they were heavily involved in first splitting the atom, heck they even split their own country once. But it’s never enough. And so they’ve come up with something new.
LMFAO!!!!!
Could you tell us what regional dialect you speak, so we can blame the gosh darn (germans of specific region) when we try this on native speakers and they look at us sideways?
Joking aside, I often encounter natives who have somewhat different perspectives on the language (as you’d expect) and it would be interesting, and a useful contextualizing tool, to be able to say “This is the perspective I heard from a language hobbyist from Niedersachsen (or wherever)”
If that’s too personal of information, no trouble at all.
I have nothing else to contribute at the moment, sadly. If I’ve encountered this in my time in NRW so far, I can’t tell. My listening comprehension is terrible because I am currently caught in an english-speaking bubble in my free time. The natives might have used it and I just completely missed it haha
I’m from Berlin, but Cari from Easy german definitely also does it, and she is from Münster, so based on this, I’d say it’s at least the entire North.
It is REALLY easy to miss for non natives because you’d have to associate a random “da” with a random lonely preposition, but for your brain it’s much easier just to ignore them and fill in the meaning from context.
I don’t think the da-word split is region specific, but I can’t tell for sure. Maybe if other native speakers read this… weigh in please :).
OK so just to be absolutely sure on this, what if a verb uses the same preposition and prefix such as aufpassen auf or durchsuchen durch ?
“Ich passe auf die Koffer auf”
“Da pass ich drauf auf”
“Da such ich durch durch”
If no would a native just avoid it by fitting it into slot one or does this type of thing just not happen in everyday German ?
“Da pass ich drauf auf” is a totally idiomatic sentence for spoken German!
The one with “durchsuchen” does not work, because that doesn’t go with “durch” as a preposition typically.
But yeah, “drauf auf” is perfectly normal.
Great lesson. I have done two one- month study terms at the Goethe Institute (Berlin and Bonn), but I never heard of the da-split. if I heard it in conversation, I was not aware of it. it’s wonderful to learn about the concept. it does help one to understand German structure and grammar better as you pointed out. I absolutely love grammar. in the meantime, I will concentrate on learning the use of the standard da-compounds. before trying to use the split ones. I am not at all comfortable trying to converse with those. I do, though, appreciate the rules you gave for use. That helps immensely. BRAVO!
Fredrick Adams
It’s definitely colloquial, so that might be why they don’t address it in the curriculum.
And it’s really really easy to miss in conversation, but I think now you might start picking up on it :).
Good call to stay with the normal da-compounds till you feel comfy about them!
So how does this split work with trennbar verbs. For example:
Es hängt davon ab, blabla
Da hängt’s von ab, blabla
Es kommt drauf an, blabla
Da kommt’s drauf an, blabla
Well done, BUT… you’d ONLY use the second version if the stuff the da-word is refering to is already established. You can’t say this:
– Da kommt’s drauf ob, ob du Zeit hast.
I mean, you can, but it’s a different phrasing structurally.
Hi Emanuel. My questions of the day relate to da-words, so I thought I’d put them together here.
Many thanks for all your ongoing help in my struggles!
Nice questions :)!
1)
Yes, there CAN be a difference. But when and what that completely depends on the verb and the context. Only that it’s usually colloquialisms, but not always.
I usually mention these cases in my dictionary, but I would recommend picking this stuff up over time through exposure (instead of making a list).
2)
Do I say that in the article? I’d have to check again :).
Anyway, I did a few tests in my head right now and with the pure “r”, it usually becomes an r-version of a prefix verb.
This sentence to me “feels like” (post-linguistics category) my verb is “ranmachen” with a standalone “da”, and not “machen” with a split up “daran”.
And edge case would be:
Take this with a grain of salt though. There might well be a split up da-word out there with just “r” and not “dr”.
3)
Your hunch is correct, it’s just a “da”.
If you wanted to use a preposition, it would be “mit” or possibly (depending on context) “in”
It’s not “über”, because… well… it just isn’t the preposition of choice in German. No logic here.
I’m sure there are other phrasings where you might expect a da-word but there’s none in German, but I can’t think of one right now, let alone list them.
Another one of the things to pick up along the way :)
I hope this is a little bit helpful.
Thanks once again for your responses. As always, very helpful. Where would I be without you!
(although I dont really know about separable prefixes with r yet – I thought it was just short for her – but that’s a topic for another day, most likely tomorrow!).
take care!
Sehr hilfreich
Hallo Emanuel,
My name is Bruna, and I am a member of German is Easy.
I don’t know if this sounds inconvenient, but I’ve been studying German for a few months, I live in Germany, and I’m currently an Au pair, and I only speak German as my host family doesn’t speak English. for a few months I’ve been feeling that I’m not going any further, that I’m stuck on the A2. I study b1 currently, but it doesn’t seem to evolve, I try every possible method, the words scramble in my mind and I can’t record them, and I seem to be limited only in A2 vocabulary. As you are a great teacher and your blog is very good and useful for me, I thought I would write to you and see if you have any tips.
Thank you! Have a great week!
LG Bruna Vieira
The one tip I can give you that works for me is… READ!
Find a couple of books in a genre that you like and read them. COllect the words that you see repeatedly and create flashcards.
And read out loud to yourself. Half a page a day is enough in the beginning. Make sure to really read what’s written on the page, so all the proper endings and so on. That’ll be exhausting, but you train your brain AND your muscles.
[…] 在口說的情況下，也會出現da和介係詞分開的狀況，可參考German is easy!的文章Spoken German Bits – “Da-Words Undone” […]
Vielen Dank!
Kann man das auch mit den wo-Wörter machen? Zum Beispiel, “Ich bin mir nicht sicher, wo die Veranstaltung drum geht.”
Ich will auch einige Beispiele versuchen, um die Wortordnung besser zu verstehen:
– Ich freue mich die große Party sehr drauf.
– Er hatte da viel Angst vor gehabt.
– Ich melde mich da mit meinem neuen Computer dran.
– Er hat sie da nur letzte Woche von erzählt.
Stimmen diese Sätze?
Der erste Beispiel mit der Party macht kein Sinn, denn das “da” fehlt. Und in meinem ersten Satz sollte ich ‘mit den wo-Wörtern’ (mit ‘n’) geschriebt haben, oder? Ich sollte ein bisschen mehr Aufmerksamkeit meinem Deutsch gegeben haben, und ein bisschen weniger dem Indien-Neuseeland Kricketspiel. Leider bin ich mehr nicht sicher, wie und wenn ich mein Post bearbeiten kann.
Wenn es noch mehr Fehler gibt, kannst du die weiteren Korrekturen machen :)
Ich glaube, man kann seine Kommentare nicht editieren. Deine Fehler bleiben für immer :D. Ja, “Wörtern” ist korrekt.
Ja, mit wo-Wörtern geht das teilweise auch. Bestes Beispiel ist:
– Wo kommst du her?
Hier noch ein Beispiel:
– Das Bier ist, wo ich mich am meisten drauf freue.
– The beer is what I am looking forward to most.
Aber bei wo-Wörtern funktioniert es nicht immer. Es kann auch sehr falsch klingen.
Zu deinen Beispielen:
1) Das funktioniert nicht. Wenn du doppeln willst, dann musst du die Präposition doppeln. Jetzt ist “die große Party ” ohne Verbingung zum Satz. Und das “sehr” muss vor beide Teile.Thechnisch wäre es:
– Ich freue mich sehr auf die große Party drauf.
Aber das ist ein Beispiel, das NICHT idiomatisch ist. Du hast ja auch nicht “gesplittet” sondern “gedoppelt”. Da braucht man schon muttersprachlermäßiges Sprachgefühl für :).
2) Perfekt.
3) das funktioniert nicht, da das Verb “anmelden” ist. Du brauchst also auf jeden Fall ein “an” am Ende.
– Ich melde mich da mit meinem neuen Computer an.
Das wäre idiomatisch.
4) Ist richtig, aber ich glaube du meinst “erst” anstatt “nur” ;)
Dieses Wort is manchmal so der Hammer! XD
S gibt ja schon in 3 Sprachen;
Malayalam: da- nimm es
Japanisch: da- ist (lassig)
Marathi: da- 10 (eigentlich ist es Daha, aber wenn man schnell spricht, kommt es so raus)
Russisch: “да” = “ja”.
“da” as “ja”… something is there/present as opposed to not there. Simple :D.
(Disclaimer: this is a made up connection and logic, no background for it whatsoever)
Kannst du alle diese Sprachen sprechen??
I pondered a bit whether this phrasing can have any mesurable quality. I mean beside what you explained about ordering the sentence such that it feels more natural. Are there occasions where the “split” changes the meaning or at least makes clear which meaning in an ambiguous sentence is meant? And I came up with Red Bull. Well, I did not drink it to boost my mental capabilities. I don’t believe in that. I just thought about the advertisement. “Red Bull, verleiht Flügel. (grants wings)” So you could say that: “Man fliegt davon.” = “One flies because of that/away.” Okay, normally to make that clear you would write or say: “Davon fliegt man.” which eliminates the possibility to confuse this with the separable verb: “davonfliegen” = “to fly away”. But you could also use this split: “Man fliegt da von.” Or in speech: “Man fliegtda … von.” with a really short pause between “fliegt” and “da” but a longer one between “da” and “von”.
Another example: “Ich laufe darum.” = “I jog around it/because of that.”, “Darum laufe ich.” = “I am jogging because of that.” , “Da laufe ich drum.” = “I jog around that.”, “Da laufe ich rum.” = “I am walking around over there.” , “Ich laufe da drum.” = “I walk because of that/around that.”, “Ich laufe da rum.” = “I am walking around over there.” Okay, I think I confused myself. I should have omitted the thing with “rumlaufen” that only complicated the matter. So “Darum laufe ich.” and “Da laufe ich drum.” are not ambiguous even though “Ich laufe da drum.” and “Ich laufe darum.” are (although in speech a stronger pronunciation of “da” would hint to the meaning “because of that”).
So it can make a difference. Although I do not have the slightest clue, how that works in the last example. I mean, okay, you could argue “darum” as “thus” has a stronger binding, so you cannot so easily separate it that far and “um etw. laufen” wants the preposition after the verb. But that is not really an explanation just an observation.
Anyway, the issue is highly interesting. And I am really grateful that you brought it up. Cool article, and thanks for the insights on the “old” and the “new” part of a sentence, that has opened my eyes for a completely new view on sentence structure.
Can the da-word split changes meaning… That’s a really interesting question, actually. And your Red Bull example is perfect! The one with “darum” doesn’t really work though, because I think there we’re dealing with “herumlaufen” and a stand alone “da”. But the example is nice, too, because it shows how prefix verbs and da-words have blurry edges. Like… the preposition part can sometimes join either one, the “da” and the verb. Have you read the series on word order, by the way? There’s mroe about this “new” vs “old” in there.
This is a little note to the members of the German community who have donated towards scholarships- thank you!! I am so grateful to be able to learn German despite my situation and it’s so encouraging to know there is a community here who wants to help me learn. I can’t wait to get to learn German alongside all of you :)
Hi Emanuel. I really like your site and I’m grateful for all the great work you put into it: every time I have a doubt about German, I come here first to see if you have talked about it… and most of the time you have done it.
I was following this article quite well up to the next paragraph:
“The da-part is a reference, so it belongs to the old stuff and its natural position would be somewhere on the left. And now… do you remember what The preposition on the other hand
A conflict of interest :). The da-word gets pulled in opposite directions and breaking it up is actually kind of natural.”
I hope you can rewrite it because it looks like it was something that was at the very core of what you were trying to say about the grammatical aspect of the “da-word split”.
Keep up the good work! I really enjoy reading your articles.
Ops… wow… what a big big editing mistake And nobody actually said anything, including my intern who did the proofreading. Damn it :)
I fixed it now. It was really just that I started the same sentence twice, with a different phrasing in mind and then I didn’t finish it.
You’re right, it’s an important bit… not so much for the split but for German structure in general.
I hope it’s clearer now :)
I definitely do hear this (also in Berlin), although I’ll have to keep my ears open to who actually tends to do it. It strikes me as either a slightly more blue-collar or younger-crowd sort of phrasing, but it’s also not always all that easy for my non-native ears to notice.
How common would you say “da” in position one versus later in the sentence actually is? Like:
– Gestern hat er da zum ersten Mal von gehört…
vs.
– Da hat er gestern zum ersten Mal von gehört…
The first one feels a little awkward to me, even though I understand the logic. I’m not sure how much I’ve heard those kinds of sentences in real life, but of course it might just be easier to hear the second construction and not mentally “autocorrect” the first one to “Gestern hat er zum ersten Mal davon gehört.”
That’s a hard question to answer. I’d actually say that the version with the “da” in the beginning is slightly more common, but not for all kind of sentences. Maybe we could put it this way… if you could add the thing “da” is referring to to the beginning of the sentence as a sort of question, and have it sound idiomatic then a “da” at the start is definitely common and “natural”
– “Abwaschen?! Da hat er gestern zum ersten mal von gehört.”
Hallo German is Easy and the community for helping me out learning german. I’m gonna start to devour the articles now and hopefully be able to write my comments in german like some I’ve seen around here!
You will be. Homework: leave a comment in German. It’s due in 2 months :)
Hallo!!! Ich habe mich soooo sehr über diesen Post gefreut :) :) !! Ich habe seit einigen Jahren Deutsch gelernt und habe vor eineinhalb Jahren mein Erasmus in Berlin gemacht. Irgendwann meinte jemand zu mir “Muttersprachler sagen normalerweise nicht “darauf” sondern “drauf” und nicht “darüber” sondern “drüber” usw”. Ich habe dann angefangen auf diese kleinen da-words zu achten und ich habe bemerkt, dass manchmal man noch ein zusätzliches “da” gesagt hat und mir sind Sätze aufgefallen wie “wie kommst du denn da drauf?” oder die, die du hier beschreibst. Aber ich dachte es lag daran, dass man dieses “da” in “drauf” verkürzt und man vielleicht fühlt dass ein “da” irgendwohin im Satz muss. Aber dann habe ich einmal das gleiche mit “davon”, “dafür” und “dazu” gehört und es hat mich sehr gewundert! Ich hatte nicht erwartet dass man es auch mit diesen Präpositionen auch macht und dass man dann “von”, “für” oder “zu” fast am Ende vom Satz allein stehen lässt. Einmal in einer Übung an der Uni hat der Lehrer einen Satz mit “dazu” gesagt und er hat es so getrennt, dass das “zu” zwischen ein Modalverb und ein Verb am Ende gefallen ist und für einen Moment war ich sehr verwirrt und dachte “ein zu nach einem Modalverb!” :O. Dann merkte ich das “zu” war ein Teil vom “dazu”, hahah. Ich war sehr überrascht aber ich fand es sehr cool! Mein Bruder arbeitet jetzt auch in Deutschland und manchmal reden wir über das was wir am Deutschen komisch oder schwierig finden und über diese Trennung haben wir ein paar Mal gesprochen. Also, das ist meine Erfahrung mit dem Thema, hehe :) Ich finde deine Erklärung super! Du siehst immer die Sachen mit denen die Lernenden Schwierigkeiten haben können und als Muttersprachler gibts du eine unglaubliche und wertvolle Einsicht in die Sprache :) Ich freue mich auf weitere spoken bits :) !
Ohh, und ich hätte auch eine kleine Frage. Wie hört sich es an, wenn man das da-word wiederholt in Sätzen wie zum Beispiel “das kommt auf den Tag drauf an”? Ich habe diesen Satz gehört aber ich weiß nicht ob man das auch in anderen Fällen sagt. Danke! :)
“Das kommt auf den Tag drauf an.”… oh, das hört sich für meine Ohren nicht so gut an. Ein bisschen wie Kindersprache :).
Da wird übrgens nicht wirklich das da-Wort wiederholt, sondern es wird ein da-Wort verwendet obwohl das Objekt selbst da ist
– Das kommt [auf den Tag] an.
– Das kommt [darauf] an.
Das einzige, was im Satz wirklich doppelt ist, ist die Präposition.
Sowas funktioniert aber nur mit da-Wörtern, die man verkürzen kann… drauf, dran… aber nicht mit “davon”
– Ich habe von der Band davon gehört.
Das klingt für mich falsch und ich würde es nicht sofort verstehen, weil ich denken würde, das “davon” hat irgendein “Ziel”.
Aber wie gesagt… es klingt eigentlich nie gut.
Danke dir für deine Erfahrungen mit dem Thema :)
All those lonely “da” triggered this in my head: Ich lieb’ dich nicht du liebst mich nicht, da da da! ;-)
Such a great song :)