Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Week.
And this time, we’re in for some tag team action, because today, we’ll look at the how to say either or in German.
entweder … oder…
Overall, the usage of “either … or” and “entweder … oder” is pretty similar, but there are a few small differences that we need to talk about.
Nothing big.
Just a couple of cute little quirks.
You’ll be like “Awwwww, look at that tiny difference. So cute.”
But let’s start with some “normal” examples.
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So you’re saying it can be EITHER in position 0 OR 1? hahaha
Huh. My small A1 attempt to speak German.
-Am liebsten schlafe ich, wenn ich mit dem Flugzeug fliege. Etweder lese ich Zeitungen, oder schlafe ich. Und machmal fuhle ich mich nicht wohl.
-Und warum isst du nicht?
-Naja.. Entweder schmeckt die Essen nicht gut, oder habe ich kein Hunger.
(sorry for the absense of one small umlaut :)
“oder” counts as position zero, so after that comes one item and THEN comes the verb
“… oder ich schlafe”
“oder ich habe keinen Hunger”
Also: “das Essen”
Ansonsten sehr gut!! Du bist jetzt A2!
Hi Manuel ..i have a half-knowledge back in my mind that says… conjunctions like und and aber keep the structure of the previous sentence for example: Es tut mir leid, dass ich dich belogen HABE und dein Herz gebrochen HABE ( hope it makes sense in German) …does not fall your sentence with entweder in this category when it’s placed in position 1? enweder + verb….oder+ Verb
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, to be honest.
My comment referred to main sentence, while you’re using a side sentence example. Could you do one with “entweder … oder” so I can actually see what you have in mind?
What about this sentence:
– I can either give my wife a kiss or a beating.
Would that become:
– Ich kann meiner Frau einen Kuss oder einen Prugel geben.
I am asking because what if you wanted the sentence to appear innocent at first, and then become not so innocent:
– Ich kann meiner Frau eninen Kuss geben….. oder einen Prugel!
The closest to “a beating” if we want to stay close to the phrasing would be “eine Tracht Prügel”
– Ich kann meiner Frau einen Kuss oder eine Tracht Prügel geben.
This version is pretty neutral; much like the English would be if you take out “either”. For the effect you have in mind, your second phrasing is perfect … well, except that it’s eine Tracht Prügel again.
Vielen dank für deine Antwort.
Ich werde meiner Frau diesen Kuss geben und dann lasst uns hoffen, dass sie niemals diese Unterhaltung sehen wird.
Wenn du nichts schwatzt, werde ich auch nichts.
:-)
XD hahaha… ich sage nichts. Kleine Korrektur:
– Wenn du nichts schwatzt, werde ich auch nichts [sagen].
Du hast im zweiten Teil das Verb vergessen.
Thank you so much!!
I just read this sentence. “Jedes deutsche Nomen hat ein Geschlecht, das entweder maskulin, feminin oder neutral ist.” Does that mean that entweder/oder and weder/noch can correctly be used with more than two things (unlike in English)?? Thank you.
Yeah, definitely.The normal use is with just two items but it sounds fine with 3 and in theory you can use dozens.
– Ich will entweder Pils oder Hefe oder Schwarzbier…
– Ich will weder Pils noch Hefe noch Schwarz noch….
das ist ja eine super Erklaerung. danke Ihnen schoen.
Gerne.
This helped a lot!
I am just a beginner but I learnt that the syntax in “Entweder du machst deine Hausaufgaben, oder ich stelle Babyfotos auf deine Facebookseite.” would rather be “Entweder machst du deine Hausaufgaben, oder ich stelle …”. Please note Entweder O S rather than Entweder S O. Is this correct?
Both versions are fine and they are equally idiomatic and correct… Entweder can be used as a conjunction (Entweder S O) or as an adverb (entweder O S) and as such you can even move it to other places
“Du machst entweder deine Hausuafgaben, oder ich stelle….”
This is a bit ambiguous with regards to what parts entweder connects though
HI !
Alles is nicht klar.
Du machst entweder deine Hausuafgaben, oder ich stelle….”
Is entweder still referring to the whole first half of the sentence, “Du …..Hauseaufgaben,”
Or
Referring to “machen deine Hausaufgaben”
Or
Referring to “deine Hausaufgaben”
If the first fine, but the last two don’t seem to make sense.
Out of curiosity how many suffering souls visit your site daily? If this is too personal a question I understand and apologize for asking.
Jeff
Good question, it’s still understood to refer to “Hausaufgaben machen” but only from the context.
– Du machst entweder deine Hausaufgaben oder Yoga.
Here, the verb ‘machen’ is valid for both. Like
– You do either your homework or Yoga.
In the example from your comment, I think having it at the beginning would be the better, more idiomatic chioce.
As for daily users… it’s kind of hard to say actually because some people come many times per day while others come for two seconds and then leave.
It’s definitely dropped because of Ai but I’ve stabilized and am about to turn it around, I think :)
In response to:
“-I can either read the book or sell the book.
-Ich kann das Buch entweder lesen oder verkaufen.
So due to the flexible word order the book only has to be said once in the German sentence whilst the English constraint to have the verb before the object forces you to say book again or replace it by the pronoun ‘it’.”
In English, it is common to read/say: “I can either buy or read the book.” = [subject] [verb] [either] [verb] [or] [verb] [direct object].
In this structure, one does not have to replace ‘the book’ with ‘it’. The configuration only differs from the German configuration by the placement of the direct object.
Hope this helps!
It does help a lot lot lot. I really have no idea why I wrote what I wrote there and it really feels strange now in retrospect. I actually feel a bit embarrassed… not for the mistake but for lecturing people about English grammar, which I do not know too much about after all. … I changed the whole paragraph and now it is definitely a better article so …. 1000 dank for telling me this :).
Very interesting