Question
Updated on
17 Jun 2021
- Spanish (Colombia) Near fluent
-
German
Question about German
I have a question about "als". How many definitions do you have? It serves as a comparative, for simultaneity, for posterity, as a property. How many definitions do you have? Can you explain each deficiency?
I have a question about "als". How many definitions do you have? It serves as a comparative, for simultaneity, for posterity, as a property. How many definitions do you have? Can you explain each deficiency?
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- German
You can use it for comparisons:
• When there is an 'imbalance' after a comparison.
> "Er ist schneller als sie." [He is faster than her.]
• When something is being compared with something else that is only hypothetical (sorry I phrased this weirdly,, look at the examples).
> "Es kam mir so vor, als säße ich schon seit Stunden hier." [It felt like I have been sitting here for hours.]
> "Sein Zimmer sah aus, als wäre eine Bombe eingeschlagen." [His room looked like a bomb had gone off. ;; that's an expression to say that it's really messy]
Sometimes people add it to sentences with "wie" ("als wie") but that's only in spoken language, not really that important. Still, here's an example:
> "Er fühlt sich hier nicht so wohl als wie zuhause." [He isn't as comfortable here as he is at home.]
** in my opinion this sounds kind of odd and I'd suggest you don't do this but I wanted to add it~
In the same way you can add it to "insofern" or "insoweit" to make it "insofern als" but, again, you don't have to do it, even though it's correct and doesn't sound odd either.
> "Ich würde gerne auf Urlaub fliegen, insofern als das möglich ist." [I'd like to fly somehwere for my vacation, if that is even possible.]
Then you can also use it if you are going to explain something further that you just talked about, refering to something.
> "Herr A hat dort als Arzt gearbeitet." [Mr A worked there as a doctor.]
> "Ihre Erklärung hat sich als erfunden herausgestellt." [Her explanation was proven to be made up.]
There's a sentence structure "zu [adjective], als dass..." which you use to express a consequence of the adjective.
> "Es ist viel zu spät, als dass jetzt noch Geschäfte offen haben könnten." [It's way too late for shops to still be open.]
And there is another expression with "umso ... als ..." to express a reason.
> "Er war umso trauriger, als ihn das weiter darin bestärkte aufzugeben." [He was all the more sad, as this confirmed him in giving up. ;; this translation is a little wobbly, sorry]
I hope that helped & that was what you were asking for!
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