Preposition Problems

tattykitty

Hallo, I wonder if any accomplished German speakers could help me out on this one...I'm constantly confused by when I should be using "an", "in" and "auf". I always seem to get it wrong. I understand that they're two-way prepositions, so can be used with accusative (for motion) and dative (location) cases, but actually when they're supposed to feature completely foxes me! Does anyone have any advice?

Vielen Dank!

F.A.

Ah, prepositions. How any learner of a foreign language loves them! Unfortunately, there really is no logic to them. Very few rules exist, and even these are riddled with exceptions. A generalised rule for strictly geographical descriptions would be that in refers to inside, an to at, and auf to on top of. For more abstract usage, I'm afraid you will simply have to learn the varying meanings with each individul verb... It gets a little easier as you develop a feeling for the language. Here is a link:

http://german.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/PrepPitfalls.htm

tattykitty

Thanks for your help...guess I need to keep practising!

Vero

I'm a native german speaker and I think you'll just have to learn when to use what word...I really admire you that you learn german, I think it must be so hard (not sure if I use the proper grammar all the time )

tattykitty

Thanks for your encouragement Vero

I really enjoy studying the language, though you're right, I am finding it hard. Especially when it comes to stuff like prepositions, Konditional, Passiv, how to use "als", separable verbs... :eek: my head will probably explode with it all!

All the same...Ich muss versuchen.

Jamfan

tattykitty wrote: »

Thanks for your encouragement Vero

I really enjoy studying the language, though you're right, I am finding it hard. Especially when it comes to stuff like prepositions, Konditional, Passiv, how to use "als", separable verbs... :eek: my head will probably explode with it all!

All the same...Ich muss versuchen.

Ja, also, tattykitty...

Augen zu und durch!

German is a bothersome language to learn. You need to spend a year or two there. Go to Berlin for a year or two. Germany is awesomeness.

I know I'll come in for a hard time, but they speak a - janz jenau - relatively clean German in Berlin, too.

rio1

But if you go there you may find it hard to understand other areas, maybe it's better to go somewhere with a strong dialect, then once you understand that "high" German will never be a problem again. Where are you learning German? I am looking for somewhere to do a refresher course.

Jamfan

Sorry, I meant to post a more meaningful reply the last time.

As regards where to go in Germany, that's a hard one to call, although North Germany has - on the whole - cleaner dialects/accents than the South or Austria and Switzerland. They say the best German is spoken in Hannover.

As regards the original question, there are many prepisitions which are dative when stationary and accusative in motion; such as in, auf, unter, etc (usw)

A good idea is to go to the fora? (forums) on http://dict.leo.org. This is a truly excellent German language resource with pertinent discussions on the finer nuances of the Deutsch.

This is another excellent dictionary/resource, courtesy of TU Karl-Marx-Stadt:

http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/dings.cgi?lang=en;service=deen