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Year 11 German Exam Tomorrow

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Special At Specialist:

--- Quote from: nina on November 26, 2011, 09:41:12 pm ---I think the problem is that you are translating literally, which almost never works because most languages will have different structures to English (and vice versa).

Try dividing it into smaller, more manageable chunks. For example:

[I used my spade] /to dig in the garden/ consists of two parts.

[I used my spade]
"Used" is past tense. Pick a past tense form and look up the words if necessary.
to use: benützen; used (past tense): habe ... benützt (remember the participle is always at the end of the sentence)
my spade: mein Spaten (m); the spade is the object of the sentence, therefore it takes the accusative form - meinen Spaten

[Ich habe meinen Spaten benützt]

/to dig in the garden/
Your mistake here is that you've translated it literally (to -> zu). If you look closer at the sentence, it actually means "in order to dig in the garden".
So you would use an um...zu clause here (which roughly translates to "in order to"). Remember that with such clauses, the verb goes to the end.
to dig: ausgraben; separable verb
in the garden: in dem/im Garten (im is just a shortened form of in dem)

/um in dem/im Garten auszugraben/
auszugraben rather than zu ausgraben, because ausgraben is a separable verb.

---> Ich habe meinen Spaten benützt, um in dem/im Garten auszugraben.


re: in den vs. in dem/im (and any other preposition which takes both accusative and dative forms) -
in den (accusative form) is movement
in dem/im (dative form) is location

e.g.
I am going to the park = movement = Ich gehe in den Park.
I am sitting in the park = location = Ich sitze in dem/im Park.

--- End quote ---

Wow! No-one has ever analysed a sentence to me that much before. Thank you :D
I'm still in the process of learning the difference between akkusativ and dativ, but your "going" vs "sitting" idea makes a lot of sense to me :)

ninwa:
Yeah, the forms are a real pain in the arse

Special At Specialist:
I got my mark back for German and I did better than I thought (though still bad):
Listening - 8 / 20
Grammar - 19.5 / 26
Reading - 5 / 20
Writing - 7 / 20
Total - 39.5 / 86 = 46% (E+)

I have a lot of German catching up to do over the summer holidays :(

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