Hello everyone,
and welcome to another lecture of the slowly growing German is Easy Online course.
And this time we will start to learn how to talk about:
Time
As always, our lines are open for you during the show, so feel free to call whenever you have a question. The number is 0800 – 151-vocab-4-u, I’ll repeat, 0800 – 151-vocab-4-u. We are going to discuss time today, so stay tuned… here is Prince:
What a truly great song, … timeless really.
All right, so… time. Talking about time is an essential part of daily conversations. And that is not limited to schedules and due dates. In fact, most of the time when we talk, we give at least some indication of time. Even if we just put a verb into the past tense, we bow before the all ruling god that is time.
But using conjugation is not the only way to give time information. Every language offers a load of ways ranging from pretty unspecific phrases like “back then” to very precise indications like “22.11.2014 12:00:01 pm MET” or the no less precise “60 seconds from now“. And all these can be an adequate answer to “when?”
Because time is so important, we will take our… time … with it. So this will be a time mini series of 3 or 4 episodes… I don’t really know yet. What we’re going to do today is learning how to say time of the day and maybe, if we get to it, the date as well. I have learned some languages too, so I know how yawn-inducing and rather mechanical this agenda sounds… honestly, I think no one really ENJOYS learning how to say the time of day and everyone would much rather go right to the interesting stuff and learn about bevor, nachdem, danach, dann, bis, seit and all those functional words that allow you to use the language freely.
And yet, knowing how to say “It is 12 pm.” in German is kind of mandatory so we’ll get it over with today, and then go to the more interesting stuff next time.
However, I do want to give you some insight that goes beyond the average “Learn German” web source, so we’ll start this mini series with a little background that’ll be helpful later on… a look at the big picture :).
Answering “when?” – a general overview
When you are to answer the question when, you have to specify a certain point or span of the ever floating stream that is time. Think of time as a long line. Giving time information then means to verbally point to a certain position on that line. There are different ways to do that.
First, there is the direct way, which is simply “naming” the time. The most obvious example for this is of course the time of day:
- Call me on Thursday the 4th of June 2012 at 8:15 am.
This is as clear as it can be. In daily life, if it actually was Thursday the 4th, we would probably trim some fat and just say:
- Call me at 8:15.
The rest of the information will be hopefully assumed correctly by the listener, and usually this does work pretty well.
But there are more ways to “name” time directly. Today, tonight, yesterday, in the morning, at night, Monday, April, 2004, the 90s, the stone-age and even extremely vague things like at some point, sometimes, never,always etc. are all “names” for time. And there is more.
Also, all the words that use now (the moment in which something is said) as a reference can be called “names”. Immediately, soon, shortly, later, earlier, just now, next week can all answer the question when satisfyingly.
- “Honey what are you doing?
“Watchin’ cartoons, mom'”
“And when will you start doing you homework?”
“At some point, mom.”
“All right honey, just wanted to know.”
Hmmm… ok I guess not all names are ALWAYS satisfactory. The mom probably would have liked a more precise indication.
And this brings us to another possibility of indicating time… by giving a time difference to a reference. A prime examples for something like that would be 5 minutes ago.
- Your boss called 5 minutes ago.
The speaker wants to tell the listener when the boss called, and he does it by using the reference point now, the moment in which he is speaking, and then giving the time difference to the moment the call occurred. In theory, he could have also said this:
- Your boss called today at 12:40 am.
Uttered at 12:45 am, this would convey the same info. And yet he opts for the relative indication. Other examples for indicating time by using a reference and a time difference would be earlier, later, in or after.
- Marie woke up at 9. Thomas woke up 1 hour earlier and thought about making her breakfast, but then…
He logged out of Facebook 2 hours later and said:
“Oh crap, I forgot the time… I must be at work in 15 minutes. Damn.”
All right. So far, we’ve referred to time by “naming” it or by giving a time difference to a reference.
But there is a third way. You can simply put one action into an time relation with another action . Here is an example for what I mean:
- Before I go to bed, I brush my teeth.
The actions are “going to bed” and “brushing teeth”. The real life order is obvious and the introductory word before reflects that in speech. Other introductory words are after, as, as soon as, while and also when and whenever.
And if we have to order one action and one “thing” in time? How would we do that?
Well, in English you will use mostly words we’ve already mentioned.
- After his graduation, Marc plans to travel.
- During the ceremony, his mom had to shed a tear.
- Before her birthday party, Jane was very excited.
Now some of you may be asking: ” Hey Emanuel, you make up all these different ways to talk about time but then you keep giving us the same words? I mean…. why make it seem all complicated? Just translating the words should be enough, right? … ”
That is a good question. But there is a reason for making a distinction… the thing is… in English, many of those time related words like later or before have different functions. And, you might have guessed it, in German they will translate to different words depending on what they do in the English sentence… Are the German translations not to be interchanged ? Of course not. So the reason why we have to kind of lay down the different ways of talking about time first, is because in German every way will have its own vocabulary. After can be nach, nachdem, or danach in German and they all have totally different mechanics. Mixing them up will sound extremely strange and might not even be understandable anymore. German just isn’t as flexible as English.
Take the word during. If you arrange 2 actions in time you’d use while. If you arrange one action and one “thing” in time you’d use during.
- During the phone call with his mom, Thomas was doing the dishes.
- While he was on the phone with his mom, Thomas was doing the dishes.
Both sentences are essentially the same, and yet you need different time-words. This illustrates how it works in German perfectly. German has WAY more of these “different-function – different word” situations, so knowing a bit of background won’t hurt…. By the way, the during-while pair is actually translated with the same German word während… so much for the exception that makes the rule :).
So, knowing about different ways to indicate time will help to organize all those German words that you need to know… now don’t be scared… It’s not that hard after all.
Anyway, there is one last way to indicate time and that is to simply point to a time that has been specified earlier in speech…. you use a sort of stand-in or temporal pronoun if you will. The best example is then. Then alone doesn’t mean anything.
- “Son, when will you start looking or a job?”
- “Then dad.”
Then only points to some time that has been mentioned before, and if there hasn’t been anything, the word is empty. This is different to for example later. If later has no reference specified, people will assume that now is the reference and still understand it. If you compare it to words for persons, later would be for example some guy… not very precise and yet understandable. Then on the contrary wold be something like he. It just doesn’t mean anything if I don’t know who he is referring to.
So… other time-stand-ins besides then are thereafter, before that, after that, at the same time or meanwhile. In fact let’s go back to the during-example and add a version with meanwhile.
- During the phone call with his mom, Thomas was doing the dishes.
- While he was on the phone with his mom, Thomas was doing the dishes.
- Thomas was having a phone call with his mom. Meanwhile he was doing the dishes.
Always the same information conveyed… and yet we have to use different words. Welcome to the world of German time indications.
So, let’s recap. We can indicate a point on that loooooong horizontal line that is time by … well saying a “name” or coordinates for it, we can use a time difference to a reference point (which we will have to indicate in some way too of course), we can do it by relating 2 actions or an action and a thing to each other and finally we can use a stand-in that just refers to a point in time we have mentioned earlier.
Sounds a lot but it isn’t… well.. okay it kind of is. But talking about time in German is not that big of a deal if you compare it to how INSANELY specific German is when talking about place. German is so incredibly precise when in comes to location, you have no idea, it’s like… you don’t just sit ON a chair, you have to give the Gaussian coordinates for every molecule your butt is in contact with, plus the momentum of said part of your butt… hence BE SCARED :)… time is simple compared to place.
So… and now that we have looked at the big picture, who feels like starting right away with the time of day?
Awesome!!!!
Me neither… :)
So let’s just call it a day or a night or a morning or a working hour… whenever you read this… and continue next time with
Time 2 – The time of day (in 3D and IMAX 3D)
If you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next … time.
Emanuel, good job buddy!
I’ve just missed more examples in German.
Keep it up!
I’m looking forward to the next post.
Hey Eddie, thanks man for the feedback… sorry for the lack of German in that post but it is really more of an introduction to lay the foundations … it is not specifically for German… putting German examples would have raised question that I wasn’t going to answer at that point but … we’ll do all of that in German in the upcoming posts :)
Spot on with this write-up, I truly believe this website needs
far more attention. I’ll probably be back again to read more, thanks for the info!
Cuss words such as “shit” and “fucking” don’t make you any hip or cooler. They merely coarsen what is otherwise a witty and enjoyable experience for the reader. Please don’t get angry with me. I just don’t understand why it is necessary to lace your lessons with base language.
No, why should I get angry… you are right in that it is not really necessary, and there are other ways and words to use to still have the article being somewhat conversational and casual. It is okay you point that out, I did change the 2 instances in this post and I will pay more attention to it in the future..
This particular piece has more than the usual number of typos and on occasions has things that an English native speaker just would not say. For that English native speaker it does not matter but it possibly could concern others. Do you want them corrected and if so what is the best way to give you the info?
Oh god, I am afraid to read it now :). I don’t ever prove-read my stuff although I should,mainly because of the very reason you said … to avoid confusing others. I will read it again and see what I can purge myself. But I guess I won’t find the things that are not idiomatic so having them pointed out would be infinitely helpful and I’d really appreciate that. You could just leave the really bad blunders in a comment and tausend Dank im voraus!!!
OK here we go:
into (the) past tense
we will take our… time … (with) it
miniseries You have this everywhere but I believe it should be two words although when I Googled it there where some entries that were one word. I always try to read it as Missionaries or Ministries which could both roughly fit the context.
rather mechanic(al) this …
no(-)one No hyphen
that allow (for) you to use the Take “for” out
Just translat(ing) the words should …
All the stuff below is correct, I just cannot understand the distinctions you are making and I therefore could not transfer the concept.
“Take the word during. If you arrange 2 actions in time you’d use while. If you arrange one action and one “thing” in time you’d use during.
•During the phone call with his mom, Thomas was doing the dishes.
•While he was on the phone with his mom, Thomas was doing the dishes.
”
There were not as many as I thought on first reading but finally
hence BE SCARED … So when is the scary episode appearing
Firstly, thanks for the corrections. There were indeed some others in there which were really confusing (to instead of 2) but I removed them before you re-read it :).
Now on to the part that was unclear. My point is basically to illustrate that there is distinction between subordinating conjunctions, prepositions and temporal adverbs. The words “before” or “after” can be used in all 3 functions and many people do not realize that those functions are very different. German will have different words for most of those functions and I want people to see how that works. And during/while is an example where English has different words for different functions. Both, during and while, express that things happen simultaneously. However, during is a preposition and while is a subordinating conjunction. During tells us that something happened at the same time as another THING… for instance a concert or a meeting. While on the other hand talks about activities. You can’t say
– During I was on the phone…
and you can’t say
– While my phone call…
And that is exactly why it is important to realize that “before” can mean “bevor”, “vor” and “vorher” and you must not mix them up. Understanding the function is the key to picking the correct word.
Let me know if that is more clear now. If not, please tell me and I’ll try to express my thought better.
Finally for the scary episode…
it won’t be a scary episode but a scary mini series. And I call it scary because you need to distinguish between cases for that and learn all kinds of prepositions and when to use which. But I have a lot of loose ends to tie up in the course section first (past, adjectives, participle constructions, sentence structure)… so I think I won’t talk about place for a while.
Thank you for the explanation. Obviously I know which one to use in English but although I can readily see “while” as a subordinating conjunction I have difficulty thinking of “before” as a preposition. I vaguely thought that prepositions modified/related to verbs.
I think it is probably best to let me brood over it for a while. (no pun intended)
The way I look at prepositions is that they connect what I call entities (things, persons, pronouns) to the sentence (or another entity). Conjunctions, at their very core, connect activities.
Here are some examples for “before” as a preposition:
– Before diner…
– Before the meeting…
– Before class…
You use (well, misquote) the expression “The exception proves the rule”.
I found a German translation of this expression written as “Ausnahmen bestätigen die Regel” wherein the use of the word ‘confirms’ is chosen over ‘test’ or as I would have expected ‘Prüfung’. The expression dates from Roman times but there is no certainty as to which Latin word is the root of the word ‘probate’ in the expression – test or confirm.
The exception confirms (the existence of) the rule is the most common meaning – eg “you may play your tuba on the weekend” is an exception which *suggests* that a general rule exists – ‘you may not play your tuba during the week’. The less common understanding is that “you may play your tuba on the weekend” tests (by putting to proof) the existence of a general rule banning the playing of tubas.
There is an unrelated but similar legal principle to the ‘confirms’ usage; by creating a list you exclude items not in that list – thereby creating a general rule and exceptions.
So either während is a single exception (but from this post it is hard to figure out a general rule) or the existence of während evidences that there is no general rule.
As a lawyer starting to learn German (at a very advanced age) I would like to thank you for your work creating this hugely educational and entertaining blog.
And don’t worry about the prudes who can’t find humour in the use of occasional profanity – fuck ’em. Onwards, to Time 2 …
I don’t even know why I wrote “make” :)… and I never thought about the saying on such a logical level. To me, it was always just kind of a joke, like… “A rule is only a good rule if there are exceptions”. Then,one day, it occurred to me that the German translation might actually be wrong because “prove” can also be “test” as you said. That made a lot more sense to me. But I asked in a discussion board and I got a very interesting and enlightening answer that mentioned who coined the phrase and that it was indeed a topic of discussions about law. So pretty much what you said, too:
http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/11227/herkunft-von-ausnahmen-bestätigen-die-regel
As for “während”… I think that there is a tendency that German uses different words for different functions especially when it comes to prepositons vs. adverbs (aus vs. raus, in vs rein etc.)
“Während” is one of the rare cases where German uses one word while English has two… which is good actually because it makes it much easier to explain why it matters whether you say “bevor” or “vor”. So it’s not really a rule but there is something :).
Thanks for your kind feedback by the way und viel Glück beim Lernen!
As always I love the entertaining tone of voice that you use Emmanuel! It makes my climb-up-the-huge-mountain-that-is-learning-German much more enjoyable. Here is one correction to the early section of this piece: in English it’s incorrect to say “call me 8:15”. In almost all cases, you would have to say “call me at 8:15”. Sometimes in a crime story, you might have the Chief of Police grumble angrily to the smart-mouthed detective, “Call me, 8:15” but the “at” is so longed-for in the sentence that even this tough guy needs to add a comma to stand in for the preposition. (The Police Chief’s first-grade teacher would probably correct him, but the detective would know what he means.)
Ah super, danke. Und danke auch für das schöne Feedback :)
Video does not exist/play. So, here is another one related to Time…fab.