1. to create (Not too common and it sounds fairly epic. Ge-form is "geschaffen" and the real past form is "schuf".)
2. to get done, to pull off (Extremely common in daily life for all kinds of achievements and challenges. Even if they're as small as being on time. Also common for finishing your food.)
3. to bring (A variation of the theme of "successfully do". Used colloquially for bringing somewhat heavy objects somewhere.)
4. to work (Rare. Does not take a direct object. Usually used in contexts where people say WHERE they work or WHAT they work.)
5. to tire, to wear out (ONLY for people, not for material. )
I saw in Duden that “an etwas zu schaffen machen” can be dativ or accusative. Do you have an opinion on which case you’d use it with?
Hmm, I don’t think it’s flexible.
To me, using Accusative for either object sounds wrong.
Weird that Duden would say it’s primarily Accusative.
I did a quick Google search for phrases but that was inconclusive, as all I found was people talking about which case to use.
But I might well be wrong here, at least as far as the official narrative goes.
But yeah… “habe mich zu schaffen gemacht” sounds dead ass wrong to my ears.
Ok then I’ll stick with Dativ, thanks!
Actually, I thought about it a bit more and I can give you a logic for either version.
Accusative:
The logic is the same as “keeping oneself busy” or the German “ich beschäftige mich”.
Or you could see “schaffen” as “arbeiten” and say “ich mache mich an XYZ (zu) arbeiten.” but that’s not really an idiomatic phrasing in German, with or without “zu”.
Dative:
You’re the recipient of of busy-work, you
So the Dative is the indirect object, just like in
I find the Dative version much more convincing, honestly.
cool!
question 1.
can I rely on a simplified mnenomic below from which i can trigger the detailed meanings?
a] schaffen schufen to create
b]schaffen schafften to manage
question 2
in the dictionary, definitons are numbered 1. 2…. and so on. Is this listing in order usage/importance or somewhat random.
I ask because for schaffen the list has as 1. ‘not too common’ and 2. as ‘extremely common’ ?
Thanks for your help and a happy enjoyable and prosperous new year 2023 for you and yours.
1)
Yes, that works.
2)
Unfortunately not. They ordered based on how I added them. I do have a “common-ness” ranking in the pipeline and eventually, I’ll order them based on that, but that’ll take a while to do the data entry. I hope the usage notes are helpful enough until then.
Same to you and I’ll see you in 2023 :)!
Regarding reply 2. thanks so much that will really help me, because those i still have difficulty with i can re-order without feeling i’m interfering … Cheers :)