![]() = Ganze 20 Jahre lebe ich jetzt schon hier. Gar die Lehrerin hat über dich gelacht! = Sogar die Lehrerin hat über dich gelacht! ("Even the teacher laughed at you!") Here, gar does not act as a modal particle. ")Īt the beginning of a sentence, especially in literary contexts, gar sometimes has a different meaning and is often interchangeable with sogar or ganz: Gar is used to intensify a statement, the completeness or a total lack of something: ("I don't watch much TV, but I do tune in if something good comes on.") In other contexts, doch indicates that the action described in the sentence is unlikely to occur:ĭu bist also doch gekommen! ("You came after all.") Ich sehe nicht viel fern, aber wenn etwas Gutes kommt, schalte ich doch ein. ("I was already at the party, but I had not (yet) been enjoying myself.") Ich war schon (/bereits) auf der Party, aber Spaß hatte ich ( noch) nicht. However, at least in writing, schon "already" must be either made unmistakable by the context, such as by additional adverbs, or replaced by its equivalent, bereits: That should not be confused with the adverbial meaning of the unstressed schon, "already". ("I was indeed at the party, but I did not enjoy myself.") Ich war schon auf der Party, aber Spaß hatte ich nicht. In that way, doch can be similar to stressed schon ("indeed"), but stressed schon implies an actual qualification of the statement, which is often made explicit by a phrase with aber ("but"): I was here last year, after all/as a matter of fact.") ("I did tell you that it isn't like that." or "I told you it isn't like that, didn't I?") Ich kenne mich in Berlin aus. ![]() ("Are you not going home?" "Oh, yes, I am going in a moment".) (Affirmation of a negative question obligatory.) Komm doch her! ("Do come here!") (Emphatically) Komm doch endlich her! ("Do come on! Get a move on!") (More emphatically and impatiently) Ich habe dir doch gesagt, dass es nicht so ist. Gehst Du nicht nach Hause? Doch, ich gehe gleich. ![]() In speech, the different meanings of doch can be told apart by different types emphasis: In other situations, it can have different effects.Ĭonversely, doch can also express doubt and in writing, the affirmative and the doubtful meanings may be ambiguous and depend on context. It can also be a reply to a real, imagined, or pre-emptively-answered disagreement, hesitation, or wrong assumption on the part of the listener or other people. (See also Yes and no § Three-form systems.) It can be used affirmatively or to convey emphasis, urgency or impatience. (lit.: "Let's take one look." meaning: "Let's just relax and then we'll see what we'll be doing.")ĭoch can have several meanings. Hör mal zu! (Listen!" or "Listen to me"!) Beeile dich mal! ("Do hurry up!") Sing mal etwas Schönes! ("Why don't you sing something pretty?") Schauen wir mal. On the other hand, it can give a kind of casualness to a sentence and so makes it sound less blunt: ("Heidi is a child as you can see.")Įinmal, shortened to mal (literally "once", roughly "for once") also indicates a certain immediacy to the action or can even imply a command. ("I gave him a book as, you know, he likes to read.") Heidi ist ja ein Kind. Ich habe ihm ein Buch geschenkt, er liest ja sehr gerne. Ja ("you know"/"everyone knows"/"I already told you") indicates that the speaker thinks that the fact should already be known to the listener and intends the statement to be more of a reminder or conclusion: ("He provoked me so I hit him – what did you expect?") Es ist nun einmal so. ("Good clothes are expensive, and it can't be helped." / "Good clothes happen to be expensive.") Er hat mich provoziert, da habe ich ihn halt geschlagen. In English, they could be rendered by "as a matter of fact" or "happen to": Halt and nun mal are more colloquial than eben. Halt, eben and einmal (in this context always in full) and nun einmal (shortened: nun mal) imply that the often-unpleasant fact expressed in a sentence cannot be changed and must be accepted. Most German words can be translated into English without any problems but modal particles are a challenge to translate because English has no real equivalent to them. ![]() It is a feature typical of the spoken language. Speakers sometimes combine several particles, as in doch mal, ja nun or ja doch nun mal. Often, a modal particle has an effect that is vague and depends on the overall context. Their dual function is to reflect the mood or the attitude of the speaker or the narrator and to highlight the sentence's focus. German modal particles ( German: Modalpartikel or Abtönungspartikel) are uninflected words that are used mainly in the spontaneous spoken language in colloquial registers in German.
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