#the difference between ''ma'' (we) and ''ma'' (general you) is the verb that is conjucated differently | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

airenyah · 11 months ago

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the interesting thing about austrian is that the little word "ma" can mean three different pronouns. it can be a first person singular pronoun, a first person plural pronoun or it can act as a general "you" pronoun. so how do we austrians know which of these three pronouns "ma" is supposed to be in a sentence? well... grammar

#it's always extremely clear what the meaning of ''ma'' is based on the grammar #the difference between ''ma'' (we) and ''ma'' (general you) is the verb that is conjucated differently #when it comes to ''ma'' in the first person then it's actually the dative so it actually means ''me'' not ''i''#meaning it has a different relation with the verb of the sentence compared to ''we'' and general ''you''#so the verb conjugation depends on the subject of the sentence #for example: ''Am Sonntag mach ma Schnitzel'' = on sunday we're making schnitzel #note: mach ma (= machen wir) (= we make/we're making)#vs. ''Am Sonntag macht ma Schnitzel'' = on sunday one makes schnitzel #note: macht ma (= macht man) (= one makes)#vs. ''Am Sonntag machst ma Schnitzel'' = on sunday you're making me schnitzel #note: machst ma (= machst (du) mir) (= you make me/you make ... for me)#just by ''mach ma'' vs ''macht ma'' vs ''machst ma'' i can tell if ''ma'' means ''we'' or ''one'' (general you) or ''me''#i love languages #airenyah plappert #languages are fun #german #austrian #this post was brought to you by: me discussing the austrian ''samma'' and ''gemma'' and ''damma'' with a german learner friend #(samma = sind wir = we are / gemma = gehen wir = we go / damma = tun wir = we do)#(the latter aka ''damma'' is often used in the sense of ''shall we [xyz]?'' or ''let's (do) [xyz]'')#(like ''damma wås essen'' translates to ''shall we eat something?'' or ''let's eat something''#depending on whether the person said it like a question or like a statement/exclamation)#but word for word it's ''do we something eat''#so it's like ''we (do) eat something.'' or ''do we eat something?'')

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