Answers
Apr 12, 2012 - 05:13 PM
Hi! Sorry for the confusion. Both would be right, only that "nicht" usually goes before adjectives, and here "meine" is a possessive adjective that modifies the noun Adresse. So that is why the translation is set up in that way. Therefore, both translations are ok. Here are two good links you can look at to clear doubts on where to put and how to use "nicht":
http://german.about.com/od/grammar/a/...
http://german.about.com/od/grammar/a/...
Hope this helps! Cheers
http://german.about.com/od/grammar/a/...
http://german.about.com/od/grammar/a/...
Hope this helps! Cheers
Apr 12, 2012 - 07:06 PM
Thanks for the help. I'm trying to understand this. So would "This is not a coffee" be "Dies ist ein Kaffee nicht" while "this is not my coffee" be "Dies ist nicht mein Kaffee"? Or would nicht come after ist in both?
Apr 14, 2012 - 08:26 PM
According to what the German grammar expert told me, "nicht" sounds much more natural before "mein", that is before the possessive adjective. So the two sentences you wrote are perfectly correct, and I would write the "nicht" at the end of the sentence when you're making a description as in "Dies ist ein Kaffee nicht". Hope this helps!
Apr 16, 2012 - 01:48 PM
Thanks for all of the help, Leo!
Apr 16, 2012 - 03:09 PM
No problem! Keep up the good work! Auf wiedersehen
Apr 17, 2012 - 12:12 PM
Hi Sindy! Negation can be quite confusing so here's a summary that we hope can help clear things out :)
Negation in German is a bit complex, so in level 1 we simplified things, for you to get used to it little by little.
So far we taught:
Session 1: Nicht generally comes just after "to be",
e,g,: Das ist nicht Niklas
Session 16: With verbs other than "to be", nicht generally comes at the end, i.e. after all the complements, but before the infinitive verb when there's one,
e.g,: Ich verstehe Sie nicht, Er möchte nicht essen etc
Now, this is a bit simplified, in later levels we get into more depth, but here's a quick summary which we hope will give you a better idea of how it works:
The general rule is that: Nicht usually goes before the element(s) that is(are) negated, as in our examples:
Das ist nicht Niklas
Er möchte nicht essen
And it goes at the end of a phrase when the negation concerns the whole phrase, as in:
Ich verstehe Sie nicht
Now here are a few more specific rules:
- Nicht is always before the second part of the verb (infinitive/past participle),
e.g.: Sie können nicht kommen
- Nicht usually goes before a Complement with preposition,
e.g.: Er möchte nicht zum Bahnhof fahren
BUT
- Nicht usually goes after a Complement without prep,
e.g.: Ich weiß es nicht, Sie möchte das Handy nicht kaufen
- Nicht goes after all Time Complements (with and without prep),
e.g.: Er kann heute nicht gehen
-except if you want to emphasize that you're precisely negating the time complement (a very specific situation)
e.g.: Er kommt nicht heute. Er kommt morgen.
So, to come back to your specific example, a German speaker would rather say:
Das ist nicht meine Adresse, with "nicht" before the complement "meine Adresse" because here we're negating "meine Adresse" right? (like most of the time with "to be", what is negated is what comes after it, so: Das ist meine Adresse nicht -is not wrong, yet it sounds strange to a native speaker)
We hope this helps clarify things a bit, yet we know it is not easy and takes time to grasp.
Also, usage, context, and the speaker's intention play a great part to determine where the negation goes, but you'll see it will come more and more natural with practice and with the help of the workouts..
Tschüss!
Negation in German is a bit complex, so in level 1 we simplified things, for you to get used to it little by little.
So far we taught:
Session 1: Nicht generally comes just after "to be",
e,g,: Das ist nicht Niklas
Session 16: With verbs other than "to be", nicht generally comes at the end, i.e. after all the complements, but before the infinitive verb when there's one,
e.g,: Ich verstehe Sie nicht, Er möchte nicht essen etc
Now, this is a bit simplified, in later levels we get into more depth, but here's a quick summary which we hope will give you a better idea of how it works:
The general rule is that: Nicht usually goes before the element(s) that is(are) negated, as in our examples:
Das ist nicht Niklas
Er möchte nicht essen
And it goes at the end of a phrase when the negation concerns the whole phrase, as in:
Ich verstehe Sie nicht
Now here are a few more specific rules:
- Nicht is always before the second part of the verb (infinitive/past participle),
e.g.: Sie können nicht kommen
- Nicht usually goes before a Complement with preposition,
e.g.: Er möchte nicht zum Bahnhof fahren
BUT
- Nicht usually goes after a Complement without prep,
e.g.: Ich weiß es nicht, Sie möchte das Handy nicht kaufen
- Nicht goes after all Time Complements (with and without prep),
e.g.: Er kann heute nicht gehen
-except if you want to emphasize that you're precisely negating the time complement (a very specific situation)
e.g.: Er kommt nicht heute. Er kommt morgen.
So, to come back to your specific example, a German speaker would rather say:
Das ist nicht meine Adresse, with "nicht" before the complement "meine Adresse" because here we're negating "meine Adresse" right? (like most of the time with "to be", what is negated is what comes after it, so: Das ist meine Adresse nicht -is not wrong, yet it sounds strange to a native speaker)
We hope this helps clarify things a bit, yet we know it is not easy and takes time to grasp.
Also, usage, context, and the speaker's intention play a great part to determine where the negation goes, but you'll see it will come more and more natural with practice and with the help of the workouts..
Tschüss!
Jun 23, 2012 - 03:24 PM
I just saw this last post. Thank you, this helps a lot!