Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch

[Durro]

Danke !

[Regina]

Bitte! or Gern geschehen!

[Evolving]

Vergelt's Gott!

[Evolving]

[quote="Regina";p="1269433"]Haben die Entspannungsübungen gewirkt? [/quote]

...zzzz.....zzz......zzzzz- eh? what? Who? Where am I? What's happening?

Oh, it's you.

[Regina]

[quote="Evolving";p="1269790"]Vergelt's Gott![/quote]
Don't teach him the filthy stuff!

[Durro]

Another question please. I thought that a/an was ein or eine (for female) and the colour red, rot. But in some notes I've copied from about.com, I've come across the sentence :-

Ich habe einen roten Wagen

I don't understand why ein/eine has become "einen" and why does "rot" appear as "roten" ? If I'd written "Ich habe ein rot Wagen", what would that have actually meant ?

Thank you for your assistance and patience.

Edit : OK, I've found the answer to the red/rot one - adjectives before nouns usually end in "e" or "en", right ? Does the same apply to the ein becoming einen ? Is it also an adjective ? I thought it was an indefinite article.

[Mazille]

It would mean nothing. It'd be wrong.

You say "einen roten Wagen" because "Wagen" is the object in the sentence. You (the subject) have it, thus it needs to be in the accusative case. If you have a noun in a specific case, every pronoun, adjective, etc. that goes with the noun ("ein" and "rot", in this example) need to be in the same case, else you wouldn't know which adjective goes to which noun, if you have several of them. (The relatively fixed sentence structure makes that easier to get in German, but in - say - Latin, you're fucked if you don't know the cases and their respective suffixes.)
Anyway, this is why you say "einen roten Wagen", because you need the accusative forms of "ein" and "rot" as well, to signify that it is indeed the car that you have, which is red.

[Durro]

Danke, Herr Blobbeh.

[Durro]

Mein Hund ist Schweizer. Er nicht spricht Deutsch.

[Mazille]

Er spricht kein Deutsch.

[Durro]

I'm beginning to think the puppeh's German might be better than mine regardless.

[punter18]

[quote="Durro";p="1270854"]Mein Hund ist Schweizer. Er nicht spricht Deutsch.[/quote]

Shouldn't that be mein Hund is schweiz, mit klein 's'?

Herr Durro's Hund ist groß! Er ist weiß und schwarz.

Jetzt, meinen fragen:

Wir wohnen in einem Haus. Ist das richtig?

Also,

Ich wohne in einer wohnung? How does one differentiate between einer, einem and einen?

[Regina]

Durro says his dog is Swiss.
Wir wohnen in einem Haus. Richtig.
Ich wohne in einer Wohnung. Richtig.



http://german.about.com/library/blcase_sum.htm

[Mazille]

[quote="punter18";p="1271307"][quote="Durro";p="1270854"]Mein Hund ist Schweizer. Er nicht spricht Deutsch.[/quote]

Shouldn't that be mein Hund is schweiz, mit klein 's'?[/quote]

Nope. Schweizer is a noun. As is Amerikaner, Deutscher, Inder, etc. "My dog's an American, German, etc." That's how it was meant and Durrito was absolutely correct.

Herr Durro's Hund ist groß! Er ist weiß und schwarz.

True. That's because the colours are adjectives, though.
Also, as a minor nit-pick:
In correct German we don't use the apostrophe before the s to signify possession, unlike the anglophone weirdos, who do that. It's: "Durros Hund ist groß."

Jetzt, meinen fragen:

Wir wohnen in einem Haus. Ist das richtig?

Also,

Ich wohne in einer wohnung? How does one differentiate between einer, einem and einen?

See my last longer post above. It's a question of matching the pronouns, adjectives, etc. to the nouns.

"Wir wohnen in einem Haus." is absolutely correct. Why, you ask? Well, the house, being the object of the sentence in which you (the subjects) live needs to be in the accusative. In German, "Haus" is the same in the nominative and the accusative case, so you don't see an immediate difference there. However, to check for yourself: The question you have to ask is "Where do we live?" - "Wo wohnen wir?" Since that question makes sense, we know that we need the accusative for "Haus", since "wo" requires us to use it. (That's just the way it is, basically.)
Now, since we now know that "Haus" in this case is in the accusative case, we also need to match the pronouns, etc. to the noun, for the reasons I laid out in my last post. Since we know - because we've learned it by heart - that "Haus" has a neutral grammatical gender (das Haus), that it's only one house and that we need the accusative case, it logically follows that we need to change the "ein" into the correct form: "einem". The singular, neutral, accusative form of "ein". That is why we say "Wir wohnen in einem Haus."



The same reasoning applies to your flat-example. Wir wohnen in einer Wohnung. We know - since we learned it by heart - that "Wohnung" has a female grammatical gender. (die Wohnung) We also know that it's just one flat you live in. Also, you live in it (Wo wohnen wir?), so you need the accusative case. Hence: "einer". The singular, feminine, accusative form of "ein". And that is why we say "Wir wohnen in einer Wohnung."


Do go on asking questions should it turn out that I was unclear.

[Regina]

Or you could just learn the case table I posted.

[punter18]

Seriously, though, fine response from Regina (I don't know if Fraulein would be the right title ) and Herr Mazille.

Learning language by rote is probably more easy to me than learning mathematics or doing science anyway.

[Regina]

If you want to be formal, you use Frau, but not with a first name, although there are exceptions. There's a guy who calls me Frau Regina, but that's a joke. Fräulein is very old-fashioned, but sometimes still used by older people.

[Mazille]

[quote="Regina";p="1271394"]Or you could just learn the case table I posted. [/quote]
Well, yes. You're going to have to learn those tables anyway. I just explained how you use them.

[quote="Regina";p="1271411"]If you want to be formal, you use Frau, but not with a first name, altough there are exceptions. There's a guy who calls me Frau Regina, but that's a joke. Fräulein is very old-fashioned, but sometimes still used by older people.[/quote]
It's actually rather common around here, especially when talking to waitresses. Then again, I'm a waiter/barista in the first district of Vienna, so the old-fashioned, posh mindset is bound to pop up here more often than otherwise usual.

[Regina]

Punter! Bear in mind that everything is different in Austria! And Bavaria. And Switzerland!

[Mazille]

Yup.

The word you were looking for is "better", though.