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Friday, June 09, 2006

Wo, wer, wie, was...warum?

These are words that I still mix up. Who wouldn’t? Listen to this. Wo means where (when you’d think it would be who). Wer means who (when you’d think it would be where – the total opposite). Wie could mean just about anything, whereas was actually (at least most of the times) means what.

Wie as in wie geht’s? Meaning how are you in a very lose sense. Correctly written or spoken it would be: Wie geht es Ihnen? But one of the charming qualities of the Swiss is that they don’t give a flying f..k. Which I like. Which is welche in German in case you wondered : )...or welcher or welches, depending how it is placed in the sentence. Go figure!

No wonder I’m getting confused over German...

posted by Annika @ 4:20 PM  

3 Comments:

  • At 11:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There is a broadcast for kids, you may know it, it's called Sesame Street.

    The signature song of the German TV version starts with:

    Wer? Wie? Was? Wieso? Weshalb? Warum? ....

    The last 3 words mean more or less the same --> why.
    Or may be it's just me who don't know the exact difference. And please don't ask me in which case I use wieso, weshalb or warum :-))

    May be a good question to address to your German teacher. Interesting whether he can answer this.

    I hope I remember correct: at school I was told that all German question-words start with a W.

    I'm just trying to find one that does not start with W but I can't find one.

    That's all information I have right now regarding question-words.


    Ze German

     

  • At 2:03 AM, Blogger Annika said…

    Good to know also ze Germans get confused :)

     

  • At 11:56 PM, Blogger Annika said…

    Checked with teacher, all question words in German begin with a w...

     

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