Here is a fun fact: Germans have this nifty little grammatical tense called Konjunktiv I. That translates as Subjunctive I, and we DON'T have it in English. Konjunktiv I is used to describe events; in other words, reported speech. If you are a reporter, reporting what someone said you have two options: direct quote (Hans said: "blah blah blah") or indirect reporting (Hans said that blah blah blah). Now in English, we don't differentiate grammatically between what Hans said that is now being said by you and something that you yourself said. For example, in English one might say: Hitler said that the Germans were the master race. There is no grammatical difference between "the Germans are the master race" and "Hitler said the Germans are the master race." Thus, were someone to walk in after you said the "Hitler said" portion of the sentence, he/she would hear only "the germans are the master race" and think you a Neo-nazi. Obviously nobody wants this to occur. Thus the Konjunktiv I.
In German, your options are direct quote (Hitler sagte "Die Deutschen sind das Herrenvolk") and Konjunktiv I (Hitler hat gesagt, dass die Deutschen das Herrenvolk seien). See how the verb is conjugated differently? The verb "to be" (sein, conjugated normally into third person plural as "sind") is changed to the Konjunktiv state "seien" in order to show someone who walks in after you mentioned the whole "Hitler said" portion of the sentence that you are not the one being racist.
Cool, huh. Whoopee.
Here's another interesting one. In German, there are indefinite pronouns much as there are in English: in English, these consist primarily of "one" and its various incarnations "someone," "anyone" and so on. A sentence might be "When one is invited to dinner, the host usually gives one something delicious, that is not always offered to one." Cumbersome, I know. Thats why people don't talk like that.
But did you notice how its all the same word? English has no declination of the indefinite pronoun: 'one' is at the same time the subject, indefinite object, and definite object of the sentence (even though it isn't a definite object in that example). In German, its not quite so simple. The equivalent of "one" is "man" auf deutsch.
That same sentence, translated back into German (because I stole it off of a sheet I'm studying) is: "Wenn man zum Essen eingeladen wird, setzen die Gastgeber einem meistens etwas besonders Gutes vor, Saghen die einem nicht jeden Tag geboten werden." Uh oh. Why are all my highlighted words not "man?" "Man" is the indefinite pronoun! Because Germans provide more information via grammar than we do - man = one as nominative, einen = one as accusative, and einem = one as dative.
Whew. Annoying, a little bit.
But wait: THERE'S MORE!
You don't just have indefinite pronouns for people, you also have them for things. For example, in English we have "some," "a," "something," "none," and so on. Germans have the equivalent, but slightly more confusing. "A" and "none" are simple translations: "ein" und "kein." "Some" gets a little more interesting: singular its "etwas," which is more like "something" or "one." Plural, it becomes "welch," which can also be translated as "which" when used in a question. Figuring out when and how to use these little words is far more important and far more difficult than memorizing the thousands of vocabulary words necessary for a daily language proficiency.
Enjoy the confusion! Study German, because then this post might make sense to someone other than me!
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