Answers
Sep 29, 2014 - 12:39 PM
I believe when you say someone is cold or hot or the like, you use the dative in German. So it would be like saying "It is cold to/for me" (Es ist mir kalt).
Sep 30, 2014 - 04:54 AM
Hi AngeldelaMuerte
We teach this expression in German level 4 session 25 and unfortunately it's one of these expressions that are very different from English. In German the dative is used because - as timothyryan said - the phrase in English would literally be:
Is it cold to our grandmother?
It's warm to me
Note that the "it" - "es" is omitted. So instead of saying:
Ist es unserer Großmutter kalt?
Es ist mir warm
We just say:
Ist unserer Großmutter kalt?
Mir ist warm
So remember that if you want to express that you are feeling hot or cold, you need to use the dative and put it in the position of the subject - so before the verb in statements and directly after the verb in questions.
We teach this expression in German level 4 session 25 and unfortunately it's one of these expressions that are very different from English. In German the dative is used because - as timothyryan said - the phrase in English would literally be:
Is it cold to our grandmother?
It's warm to me
Note that the "it" - "es" is omitted. So instead of saying:
Ist es unserer Großmutter kalt?
Es ist mir warm
We just say:
Ist unserer Großmutter kalt?
Mir ist warm
So remember that if you want to express that you are feeling hot or cold, you need to use the dative and put it in the position of the subject - so before the verb in statements and directly after the verb in questions.