Knowing relations between words can help understand their meanings and build a more connected vocabulary network. Here, you can explore parents and offspring and discover the whole family.
- shows how many children or parents the word has
- get the translations and a link
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Sources for Etymology:
- Check "could-have-been" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "could-have-been" on Wiktionary (English version)
(For etymological connections across European languages. Not always accurate) - Etymonline.com - Origins of English words
My favorite source for the origin of English words.
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This one is really getting to me. My american english speaking brain can accept hätte as ‚would have‘, but could have when there’s already a können in the sentence it is a little rough. Why is hätte at the beginning and not können? Subjunctive past tense, right? The concert could have been better.
I’ll give you the progression, that’ll might clear it up:
Let me know if that helps :)
Der Satzbau in deine Beispiel macht/ergibt sinn.
But…uggh…right now in Easy German there is a series where they do the man on the street thing, and have people fill in sentence blanks. It is excellent for learners like me to hear the rhythm of the sentence structure. However, Ich müsste ________ (the template) is being translated as both I have to and I should do. Mostly as should. Sometimes, the same person says the same thing twice, and the should/would changes in the translation. I know they can be similar, but I think your definitions here match my feeling: Sollen /Should is a man made obligation, usually with guilt, and Müssen is have to by external forces – as you say “obligation by reality” (love that!) Thus for me, doing a presentation for work is Müssen as I will be fired if I don’t. It isn’t about if a ‘person’ told me to or not. I HAVE TO DO IT to keep my job. KI is coming bro!
I SHOULD go home so that my mother isn’t worried.
I HAVE TO go home because she will ground me if I don’t.
DeepL usw often changes its transition just by flipping it back and forth Eng>Ger>Eng>Ger a few times. I read here that the 4th Commandment of German Learning is not to get stressed about it using Sollen.
I’m not even sure I have a question that can be answered here. I should just go…I have to get milk before my wife gets home.
“müssen” and “sollen” have significant overlap.
As soon as someone told you to do something in some way, you CAN use “sollen”, but you can also use “müssen”.
In your example with the presentation, someone assigned this to you, so there is space for “sollen”.
If you use “sollen”, you underline this aspect “Someone told me to do this!”, if you use “müssen” you shift more toward the reality of things at the moment and if you want to add the “or else” then this is the way to go. “sollen” does not combine well with “or else”.
But generally both are correct. It depends on what you want to say.
Then, when you throw in conditional, things get even more blurry, because “sollen” LOSES the “man-made obligation” aspect and becomes general.
– Ich müsste mal mein Zimmer aufräumen.
– Ich sollte mal mein Zimmer aufräumen.
These two mean the exact same thing.
I’m doing a post on “sollen” and “sollte” soon, so maybe that’ll help clear things up further.
Thanks. For sure in English there is overlap; Can and May are also common (in questions Can I go to the bathroom vs May I go to the bathroom” for school kids). But the meaning is still clear ENOUGH that no one is scratching their head about the general meaning, I was hoping that was the case in German as well. I am slowly learning where my answers and DeepL’s answers are Ok to be different. In your example, would the general translation be “I gotta clean my room” (at some point, I guess, maybe….like….) “I lowkey gotta clean my room” ??
I’d say “sollen” and “müssen” are not really the same as “can” vs “may” insofar as that not like we just accept one used in place of the other. The two legit work. So there’s no “Technically sollen would be more correct but müssen is okay.”
– I gotta clean my room.
This is as good a translation as “I have to” and “I need to ” and “I should”. I guess you’re trying to capture the “mal”, but in order to do that, you have to put in something that makes it clear that you’re not talking about NOW.
– I have to clean my room at some point.
– I should probably clean my room.
– My room really needs a cleaning man.
You can also skip this part of “mal” like in your example, but if you want to be sure to “catch” it, then yeah you need to make clear that you’re not talking about NOW because that’s part of what “mal” adds.
It’s all nuances though.
I did. “I gotta clean my room” (at some point, I guess, maybe….like….). I should’ve put the quotes at the end of the parentheses