Hello everyone,
and welcome back to the if-est series ever… the series on Conditional. It’s been quite the journey. We learned what the heck I mean by conditional, we learned about the würde-conditional and the real conditional and when to use which. We learned about the past conditional and that there’s a simple system with two to four easy steps… depending on how you count. We went down the abyss of Past Conditional with modal verbs in sentences that have their verb at the end. And we came back out, with entirely new insights.
But now, the learning is done. Now it is time for the showdown.
Brabbabbbabbammmmm.
Us and what we’ve learned vs. dozens of sentences. One more ferocious than the next. But all vicious and full of guile, constantly looking to throw us a curve. Beat us. Break our brains and our spirits. But we shall not falte…
“Erm… we get it, Emanuel. Could we get going already, we don’t have that much time.”
Oh sure sure… ladies and gentlemen.. get ready for the epic
Past Conditional Workout
If you haven’t read the other parts of the series, you can of course give it a try. But if you want to read them first or you want to review them, then here are the links:
Conditional 1: Overview + würde conditional
Conditional 2: Real conditional (how and when)
Conditional 3: Work out (also epic, but not as epic as what we’re about to do)
Conditional 4: Past Conditional
Conditional 5: Past Conditional With Modals
And now I’d say let’s jump right in….
We’ll do two kinds of exercises. The first one is translation. So I’ll give you a sentence in English and you have to translate it into German.
The second exercise is what . I’ll give you a statement in German, and you have to say the mirroring statement in conditional. Like… the statement would be this, for example..
- I wasn’t hungry. That’s why I didn’t eat.
And here’s what you have to do…
- If I had been hungry, I would have eaten.
So you don’t just have to modify verb forms, but really make a new sentence. A bit tricky :). But take your time and follow the system we learned.
The sentences are pretty difficult, so please please don’t beat up yourself if you make lots of mistakes. What matters is that you understand why you made the mistake and you get it right the second or third time around. Actually, unless you really rock it right away, you should do it twice or three times. The goal is that you can look at the German statement and build the mirror statement in your head without writing it down. If you can do that, then your a true Conditional master :).
To see the solution, just click the button or just listen to the audio. Oh and someone asked me to add a text field so you can type your version and compare it. Well… I did :). You don’t have to use it though. Like…. it doesn’t validate your input or anything. It’s really just there, so you can compare.
Cool. So I’d say….Viel Spaß :)
Part 1
Thomas behauptet, dass er mehr hätte essen können.
Was hättest du gemacht, wenn du deinen Flug verpasst hättest?
Oh man, ich hätte nicht den fünffachen Espresso trinken sollen . Jetzt sind meine Hände zittrig.
Wenn Maria diesen morgen ihr Yoga gemacht hätte, wäre sie jetzt ungefähr 25% entspannter.
Ich wäre mit dir ins Ballet gegangen – wenn “Ballet” der Titel des neuen Avengers-Films gewesen wäre.
Wenn sie gewusst hätte, dass Thomas da ist, hätte Maria mehr Motivation gehabt, zu kommen.
Du hättest auch mit dem weisen Baum reden können. Du hättest nur den Tee trinken müssen, den der Schamane dir angeboten hat.
Wenn du nicht eine Stunde über Fortnite-Taktiken geredet hättest, wäre dein Date nicht eingeschlafen.
Wenn du wolltest, dass dein Date wach bleibt, hättest du nicht anfangen sollen, über Fortnite-Taktiken zu reden.
Wenn ich pünktlich gewesen wäre, wäre ich nicht zu spät gewesen.
***
Part 2
Wenn ich nicht vergessen hätte, mein Portemonnaie mitzunehmen, müsste ich dich nicht fragen, ob du mir Geld borgen kannst.
Wenn gestern abend nicht schlechtes Wetter gewesen wäre, wären wir zu Marias Grillparty gefahren.
Wenn wir gestern abend feiern gewesen wären, wären wir heute nicht fit.
Wenn ich gewusst hätte, dass wir keine Milch mehr haben, hätte ich welche gekauft.
Wenn ich gewusst haette, dass du was kochst, haette ich nichts gegessen, bevor ich gekommen bin.
Wenn wir Karten vorbestellt hätten, müssten wir jetzt nicht anstehen und hoffen, dass wir noch reinkommen.
Wenn mich meine Mitfahrgelegenheit nicht versetzt hätte, hätte ich kein superteures Bahnticket kaufen müssen.
Wenn ich abends nicht hätte arbeiten müssen, hätte ich länger am See bleiben können.
Ich wäre gestern zur Comedy-Show gekommen, wenn ich nicht super melancholisch gewesen wäre.
Maria hätte gestern Yoga machen können, wenn sie keine Rueckenschmerzen gehabt hätte.
Wenn Paris nicht unglaublich teuer wäre, hätten wir lange bleiben können.
Wenn Thomas ein Pferd gehabt hätte, hätte er mit seinen Freunden uber den Strand in den Sonnenuntergang reiten koennen.
Wenn ich nicht zu spät aufgestanden wäre, hätte ich mich nicht total beeilen müssen und hätte frühstücken können.
Wenn ich mich nach der Arbeit nicht noch mit Maria getroffen hätte, um über das Projekt zu reden, hätte ich es geschafft, einkaufen zu gehen.
Ich wäre nicht so nervös, wenn ich nicht so viel Kaffee getrunken hätte.
Ich hätte das Hemd gekauft, wenn es nicht so teuer gewesen wäre.
Thomas wäre zum Festival gefahren, wenn er genug Geld gehabt hätte und nicht zwei Hausarbeiten hätte schreiben müssen.
Maria hätte ihren Job nicht gekündigt, wenn er nicht so schlecht bezahlt gewesen wäre.
Wir müssten uns nicht unterhalten, wenn Thomas nicht vergessen hätte, den Fußball mitzubringen!
Wenn der Check-In nicht so lange gedauert hätte, hätte ich Zeit gehabt, im Duty Free Shop teure Parfums auszuprobieren.
Wenn es im Märchenwald einen Geldautomaten gegeben hätte, hätte das Einhorn Geld abheben können.
Wenn das Einhorn Bargeld gehabt hätte, hätte es sein Uber nicht mit seiner American Express Centurion bezahlen müssen.
Wenn Emanuel kein Bier getrunken hätte, hätte er nicht angefangen, Einhornbeispiele zu machen. (#nottrue)
Wenn Thomas taub wäre, hätte ihm die Oper gefallen.
Wenn ich nicht Emanuels super-mega-über-tollen Artikel über Konditional gelesen hätte, hätte ich diese Übung nicht machen können.
You made it :) !!
How’d you do? I know it was hard, but was it too hard? How many did you get right? Where did you have problems? Let me know all your questions and thoughts in the comments. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
hi! i’m a little confused on how “wäre gewesen” would work if you tried to add a modal verb, specifically whether “gewesen” would return to the infinitive? if you were trying to form a sentence like “i should have been more sad”, would it be correct to say “ich wäre trauriger sein sollen” ? vielen dank :)
“wäre gewesen” is the past tense conditional of “to be”. You can’t really connect a modal verb to “to be”. Like
– I am caning/could/can… this makes no sense.
– I’ve been must… makes no sense
You example is based around a MODAL verb, not around to be. The modal verb is “guiding”.
– Ich bin trauriger. (to be is “guiding”)
– Ich soll [trauriger sein]. (based around sollen, sollen is guiding)
“trauriger sein” is just the action that you “soll” now. Any tense and conditional transformations you do go onto “sollen”, not “to be”.
– Ich sollte [trauriger sein].
– Ich hätte [trauriger sein] sollen.
Does that help?
yes, thank you!!
“Wenn ich !nicht! Emanuels super-mega-über-tollen Artikel über Konditional gelesen hätte, hätte ich diese Übung nicht machen können.”
I really-really want to move that nicht to before “gelesen”, as in ”
.. nicht gelesen hätte,…”, is that bad? Would that change meaning of the sentence in a major way? I feel that it would negate the sentence as a whole, while “nicht” at the start moves emphasis to the “Übung”.
Perfekter Satz!!
You can also move the nicht before “gelesen”, it doesn’t really make a difference. Having it there makes the article and what it’s about part of the “scene” (theme in linguistic terms) and it sounds a bit more like the listener already knows this is a thing. The way you did it in your original is more like “if I hadn’t done THIS” as a whole unit of information.
But for all intents and purposes the two positions both work here.
Ich habe angefangen, dieser Übung zu hassen, weil es scheint mir viel zu lang, aber ich hab es geschafft. Schreib das an meiner Gruft!
Und dann lese ich Harry Potter und habe ich in 10 Minuten ein Konjunktiv mit Präteritum gesehen. Es ist nicht so unsinnig wie ich dachte!
Ehmus, Portemus, Conditional-Verstehmus.
Seit ich die Artikel über Konjunktiv gelesen habe und die Übungen mehrmals durchgearbeitet habe, habe ich endlich ein Verständnis zu diesem Thema. Vielen Dank, Emanuel!
Super, das freut mich!!
> Weil wir gestern abend nicht feiern waren, sind wir heute fit.
Shouldn’t “feiern” use “haben” as an auxiliary verb instead of “sein”?
Careful, this is NOT past tense of “feiern”. That would indeed go with “haben”.
– Wir haben gestern gefeiert.
But this is past tense of “sein”, with “feiern” basically being a “location”.
It’s a very important phrasing in German and you can find all about it in this article here:
https://yourdailygerman.com/einkaufen-gehen-why-no-zu/
Danke, jetzt ist es mir klar!
And one more silly question. Of course I’m learning hard everything what’s offered here but having mental breakdown while practicing sentences here.. Are these way of talking used often in daily life?
Difficult question to answer. They’re just as common as in English or any language. If you don’t use structures like this often in your language, then you won’t need them a lot on German. If you use them often (because you speculate a lot or like what if scenarios) then you’ll need them.
They’re definitely HARD though, and I think most certified B2 students would struggle.
Question!
in this question, technically had p.p happened earlier and have p.p is later like this person missed the plane and then what would this person do after.
So can I then also say “Was wuerdest du machen, wenn du deinen Flug verpasst haettest? ”
It’s not easy to even ask a question :D
What I mean is don’t I always have to always adapt the tense same in one sentence
(main clause, subordinate clause) ?
Thank you in advance!
– Was würdest du machen, wenn du deinen Flug verpasst hättest?
This is asking what the person would do now, if they had missed a flight that they didn’t miss.
– Was hättest du gemacht, wenn du deinen Flug verpasst hättest.
This is asking what the person would have done as a result to missing the flight (which they didn’t miss).
Does that help?
If not, please help me better understand what you’re asking.
19. Ich bin gestern nicht zur Comedy-Show gekommen, weil ich super melancholisch war.
Ich wäre gestern zur Comedy-Show gekommen, wenn ich nicht super melancholisch gewesen wäre.
25.Ich bin so nervös, weil ich so Kaffee getrunken habe.
Ich wäre nicht so nervös, wenn ich nicht so viel Kaffee getrunken hätte.
I am confused when exactly to use gewesen ; in the first sentence i had written only wäre and in the second one i had added gewesen;
Is there any rule or any specific context where we need gewesen ?
You only need “gewesen” if you want to build past conditional of “sein”.
– Ich bin.
– Ich wäre. (present conditional)
– Ich war.
– Ich wäre gewesen. (past conditional)
In the first example, the first half has the verb “kommen”, the second half has “sein” and they’re in past tense. Hence “wäre gekommen” and “wäre gewesen”
In the second example, the first half in present tense in my solution. I am nervous “now” and I wouldn’t be, had I not had so much coffee.
I now realize that we could also make the first half in past tense and THEN you’d indeed need gewesen.
– Ich wäre nicht so nervös, wenn ich nicht so viel…
– I wouldn’t be this nervous….
– Ich wäre nicht so nervös gewesen, wenn ich nicht…
– I wouldn’t have been this nervous…
Let me know if that helps :)
Yes, now its clear… Thank you
#11 – Ist es richtig auch so was zu sagen?
Wenn ich nicht vergessen hätte, mein Portemonnaie mitzunehmen, hätte ich dich nicht fragen müssen, ob du mir Geld borgen könntest.
Das ist auch okay, ja. Bedeutung ist die Gleiche.
I don’t understand the verb word order here in the subordinate clause.
Please tell me which sentence you mean.
Thomas behauptet, dass er mehr hätte essen können.
That’s a niche rule. Instead of at the end where you’d expect the “hätte” based on the normal rules, it goes in front of the verb block. Some people, when speaking, also put it in the middle.
– …, dass er mehr essen hätte können.
This is mainly because Germans too get confused by this :).
I think I talk about this in the series on Conditional, but I don’t remember where.
Does that mean that it’s wrong to say
— …, dass er mehr essen können hätte
or are you saying that “hätte” can be placed anywhere in the verb block, in this case?
Not really. Either before the verbs or in the middle, but at the end it sounds weird.
Well, if you wrote about it in your series on the conditional, I’ll finish reading that before I ask more questions. For now, my brain is crying out to understand why following the normal rules, in this case, “sounds like an accident.”
It’s really just a new rule you have to learn and accept. There is no deeper logic to be found unfortunately. Get used to the reverse-nes of the flow, that’s the best approach, in my opinion. Embrace how weird and messed up it feels compared to what you’re used to from German.
Diese Übungen waren für mich ein tolles Abenteuer. Ich hab gelacht, geweint und neue Freundschaften geschlossen. Abschließend bin ich mit Konjunktiv II mehr gewohnt… danke sehr
I’m confused about when we need to add an extra help verb.
For example, for #23 I had:
Wenn ich nicht zu spät wäre aufstehen gewesen
And for #28 I had:
… wenn er nicht so schlecht bezahlt wäre
Maybe I need to re-read some of the blogs but I can’t understand why gewesen is needed in #28 but not in #23. Is there something I missed?
–
Also why is #28 worded like this:
wenn er nicht so schlecht bezahlt gewesen wäre.
instead of this:
wenn er nicht so schlecht wäre bezahlen gewesen.
I thought wäre would have to come first with three verbs and that the other two should all be in infinitive form
In #23, using “gewesen wäre” is kind of doubling up the past.
– Wenn ich nicht aufgestanden gewesen wäre….
– If I hadn’t been done getting up…
But the sentence is about you getting up or not, not about having gotten up already at that point in the past.
In #28 the verb is “to be”. “bezahlt” is pretty much an adjective here. So to put “sein” into past tense conditional, you need “gewesen wäre”.
– Ich bin müde.
– Ich wäre müde.
– Ich wäre müde gewesen.
As for the structure of #28… “bezahlen” is not a verb here, it’s an adjective. You can maybe try and replace “schlecht bezahlt” with “langweilig”. That might let you see the structures better.
I didn’t do well at all…………..!!
Any systemic mistakes? Finding a pattern in the mistakes might help fixing them.
This is what i wrote for 11. Is this an instance of the meaning being the same as your answer but me just using konjuntiv 2 when its not needed or does my sentence just mean something else entirely?? ” wenn ich vergessen hätte, mein portmonaie mitzunehmen, hätte ich dich fragen müssen, ob du mir geld hättest borgen könnten”
The meaning is the same except for the “ob”-part.
You can think of “reported speech” in German as something that comes after a colon.
It is not affected by the configuration before it.
The question is “kannst du mir Geld borgen?”, in reported form that is “ob du mir Geld borgen kannst.”
And that stays the same, no matter what happens.
It doesn’t make sense to me logically to modify it, because THAT’S the question we’re talking about. That’s the question the person would have had to ask.
Not “would you have borrowed me money?”.
Ok cool.Thats very helpful.
By the way “lend” is prefered in english to “borrow” when we are talking about the person (or organisation) that is temporarily giving their property to someone.
The library lends me a book. I borrow a book from the library. But saying “the library borrows me the book” wouldn’t be regarded as correct.
This is something you might very occasionaly hear some people saying (and is a common mistake among english learners) but its not considered correct.
conditional exercise edit- oooops meant to make a note to myself
“Weil Thomas kein Pferd hatte, konnte er nicht mit seinen Freunden ueber den Strand reiten in den Sonnenuntergang reiten.”
Dieser Satz scheint, ein extra ‘reiten’ zu haben…?
Ja, stimmt. Die sind echt lange geritten, aber zweimal ist zuviel :D
Vielen Dank für diesen Artikel (und eigentlich für alle Artikeln auf diesem Blog). Man merkt, wie viel Arbeit dahinter steckt, und ich lerne immer was Neues – auch bei den Wörtern, die ich schon zu verstehen glaube. Danke sehr :)
Super, freut mich :).
Oh, und “… die ich schon zu verstehen glaube.”… wow!! Du bist C1-Level, oder?
In #24, “Ich bin habe” should be “Ich habe”. In #31, the answer text is plainly visible.
Wenn du deine Artikel gut überprüfen würdest, hätten sie ja viel weniger Kommentare!
Haha… ich mag Kommentare ;).
Seriously though… sorry for the mistakes but I can’t make promises. These things sometimes just slip through because you’re not really paying attention to what’s written there but what you think it’s written.
Almost perfect sentence, by the way. The only thing that makes it weird is that you switched from “du” to “sie”
Weird, that Anonymous was me, I thought I was logged in. I was making a joke using Konjunktiv.
I had “du” at first, but then I switched it to “sie”, because I wanted to refer to the articles themselves. In English, I could get away with making the direct object of the first clause the subject of the second, especially since one is singular and one plural. Does that not work as well in German?
I was reading the German Wikipedia article about the Amish (because sometimes that’s part of my job), and came upon this beauty:
– Allerdings war zu diesem Zeitpunkt die Spaltung [zwischen den Amischen und den anderen Mennoniten] schon zu weit verfestigt, als dass sie hätte rückgängig gemacht werden können.
It’s the kind of sentence we as German learners forever aspire to.
German. Because saying “to be reversible” should take a whole afternoon.
Hahahahahahaha. :D
Hahaha… with a passive :). Yeah, whenever I utter something like this, I do have a small feeling of satisfaction.
whats your job out of curiosity, if i may ask?
Not sure if he’ll see this… I think he’s a Presbyterian priest and scholar.
ah ok, actually maybe i saw some other Biblical language related comments from this person. Definitely an impressive sentence he found!
I think he has read/studied versions of the bible in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and the older Germanic translations. I don’t know if he really “speaks” all those languages but he does know a LOT about them.
I did get the notification! Emanuel got it right, although “scholar” is probably a stretch. I’m a Presbyterian pastor and a missionary to Germany, serving in Munich (though I’m home in the States until August right now). I also teach for a seminary in Germany, so I work with biblical languages, but I don’t read real classical Greek or speak modern Hebrew or anything. My familiarity with “older Germanic translations” only goes back to Luther’s original, too. But I know the Bible enough in those languages that that’s the lens I tend to bring to a lot of the etymology and comparative conversations on here, which are always super interesting.
I’m guessing I was looking up something for a sermon illustration when I posted that comment. :)
Thanks for your answer : ) How do you find studying the German of Luthers period comapred to studying modern german? Is it farily easy to find resources aroudn the language of this time ? Actually Luther came up during a conversation about the history of the word “alle” to mean “all gone” or “empty” as he apparently uses it in this sense.
Well, again, the only “studying the German of Luther’s period” I’ve done is reading some old editions of the Luther Bible and little scraps of Luther’s other writing, so definitely don’t overestimate my expertise! I really don’t have any exposure to other 16th-century German writings.
I think aside from the usual issues of spelling and such, non-native German speakers may have an advantage, since it’s still a foreign language for us and we’re deciphering it the way we learned to with modern German. It also helps if you’ve had exposure to some different dialects and accents, so you can kind of sound out the writing and (sometimes) figure out what he means that way.
You can find the complete Weimarer Ausgabe of Luther’s works for free online, though they’re all in the old Fraktur font. But if you’re interested in getting a feel for his writing in a more legible way, biblegateway.com has the 1545 Luther Bible as one of the German options. There are quite a few sites out there where you can read some of his writing, but I think a lot of those modernize it quite a bit (which is great if you want to know what he’s saying but less great for getting a feel for his German).
This website is AMAZING! thanks to recent sponsors i am able to use the website. Since i’ll be spending a year in Die Schweiz this website has become a real life saver, thanks to those that have sponsored me! And thanks to this website for allowing me to excel in German (:
I hope you don’t get ht with too much Schweitzerdeutsch. That sounds quite different :)