Random German questions

[#1procrastinator]

A thread for my random questions about German grammar and stuff 

1) What's the difference between 'mein' and 'meiner' (e.g. 'meine Freizeit' or 'meiner Freizeit'?)

2) When do you use 'im' and when 'in'? (e.g. 'Im meine Freizeit' or 'In meine Freizeit')

3) Is there any difference between 'lebe' and 'wohne'?

4) When is 'einer' used (I only know of 'ein' and 'einer')

5) When do you use 'seine' rather than 'es' to say 'his', and what is th feminine version of this?

EDIT: 6) Why is it 'Wie geht es dir?' and not 'Wie geht es du?'?

[Limista]

1) What's the difference between 'mein' and 'meiner' (e.g. 'meine Freizeit' or 'meiner Freizeit'?)

It's to do with case (i.e. nominative, accusative, genitive, dative). "Meine Freizeit" can be nominative or accusative case. "Meiner Freizeit" can be dative or genitive case.

2) When do you use 'im' and when 'in'? (e.g. 'Im meine Freizeit' or 'In meine Freizeit')

It would be "In meine Freizeit". "Im" is a shortening for "in dem". Because "Freizeit" is a 'die' word, you cannot apply "dem" to it, so "im meine Freizeit" would be incorrect.

3) Is there any difference between 'lebe' and 'wohne'?

"Wohne" is a more sophisticated term than "lebe". "Wohne" is more direct; as soon as you use it, the person knows you're trying to talk about where you live. "Lebe" just sounds awkward.

4) When is 'einer' used (I only know of 'ein' and 'einer')

When you want to say that you have 'one' of something. The "er' on the end of "ein" is obviously case sensitive, just like your first question.

5) When do you use 'seine' rather than 'es' to say 'his', and what is th feminine version of this?

"Sein (e) (er) etc.." means 'his'. So in short, you use it when you want to say 'his'. "Es" means it. You don't use 'sein' in place of 'es' because they mean two completely different things. 

Feminine version = "ihr (e) (er) (en) etc."

EDIT: 6) Why is it 'Wie geht es dir?' and not 'Wie geht es du?'?

Dative idiomatic expression. It is convention.

I've answered the questions inside the quote. Hope it's helpful

[FlorianK]

As starfish said, however:

 it needs to be "In meiner Freizeit" for 2)

And for 3)
"Wohnen" pretty much means like permanently resident, so where you live in the sense of you house or apartment.
It's not really a synonym for "leben" though. You can't translate "Where do you live?" into "Wo lebst du?", it would need to be "Wo wohnst du?". "Leben" just means living so the antonym of being dead. Mostly you can use it as like "I try to  live healthy" - "Ich versuche gesund zu Leben"

[#1procrastinator]

Vielen Dank....why is 'Dank' not 'Danke?' :p

[FlorianK]

Danke means thank you
Dank means the 'thank' or 'gratitude'

So vielen dank means literally translated Much gratitude or Much thank or alot of thank or alot of gratitude

[#1procrastinator]

If you have a male and female cousin, is there any other way to refer to them other than 'Meine Kusine und mein Vetter...'? I guess I'm looking for a plural form that refers to both genders.

EDIT: And if you say like the above, would you still have to put the 'mein' in front of 'Vetter'? Meine Kusine und Vetter...

[FlorianK]

You can say cousin for male cousin and cousine for female cousin and that is pretty much what every german would say. Vetter is kinda archaic.

Mein is for male and meine is for female as always

So you can say something like "Letzten Sonntag war ich mit meinem Cousin und meiner Cousine im Kino", here it is "meinem" instead of "mein" and "meiner" instead of "meine" due to the akkusativ

[#1procrastinator]

Danke 

I'm still trying to learn the difference between accusative and nominative - whole class is way ahead of me lol (for all my courses actually  )

[#1procrastinator]

If 'wie' means 'how', then how come it's used in 'Wie heissen Sie?' where it's interpreted as 'what'? My text doesn't talk about it (amazingly shit text by the way, pisses me off everytime I try to learn something from it...)

[FlorianK]

"Wie heissen sie?" or "Wie heisst du?" means "How are you being called?" literally translated

[#1procrastinator]

There's an example in my text that goes, Hans möchte einen iPad zum Geburstag. 'zum' translate to 'for/to the', so why isn't it something like 'Hans möchte einen iPad zu sein Geburstag'?

EDIT: What does 'räumt' mean in this sentence, 'Helga! Sigrid! Räumt eure Schuhe auf!'

[ninwa]

I'll let Florian explain the "zum" part, because I don't know the reasoning behind that either... other than that Germans don't seem to like possessive pronouns very much? (e.g. for whatever reason I broke my leg = "Ich habe mir ein Bein gebrochen" rather than mein Bein)

"räumt" is actually part of a separable verb in that sentence - Helga! Sigrid! Räumt eure Schuhe auf!
The verb is aufräumen, which means to clean up, tidy up, put away etc.

[FlorianK]

There's an example in my text that goes, Hans möchte einen iPad zum Geburstag. 'zum' translate to 'for/to the', so why isn't it something like 'Hans möchte einen iPad zu sein Geburstag'?

EDIT: What does 'räumt' mean in this sentence, 'Helga! Sigrid! Räumt eure Schuhe auf!'

Well 'zum' is basically like 'zu dem' kind of, well that is the origin of the word.
Examples:

• die Tür zum Wohnzimmer
• sie lief zum Telefon
• zum Schluss
• zum Spaß
• zum Beispiel
• etwas zum Kochen bringen
• and of course zum Geburstag
  
  • Er bekam viele Geschenke zum Geburtstag
  • Er freute sich über die vielen Geschenke die er zum Geburtstag bekam

You could use 'sein', but then it would have to be
'Hans möchte ein iPad für seinen Geburtstag'.

[#1procrastinator]

Danke ninwa und FlorianK 

[#1procrastinator]

Could you say Welche Farbe ist der Rock? rather than Welche Farbe hat der Rock?

Or even Was Farbe ist der Rock??