“im” is often used as an abbreviation of “in dem” which is the direct translation of “in the/this” but it is also used as an abbreviation of “in einem” which directly translates to “in a” and somtimes “im” is just translated as “in”
Let’s take “Der Saft ist im Glas” as an example.
If you are trying to say that it is in a specific glass that you could point to, you would use “in dem”. If you are just talking about the general method of storing juice you would either use “im” or to be more precise “in einem”. Using “in einem” tells you that it is in a glass but the actual glass isn’t really specified or relevant right now.
“Der Saft ist in einem Glas” is basically the same as “Der Saft ist im Glas”. But it is very different from “Der Saft ist in dem Glas” which is also basically the same as “Der Saft ist im Glas”.
To translate these:
“Der Saft ist in einem Glas” => “The juice is in a glass”
“Der Saft ist in dem Glas” => “The juice is in the/this glass”
“Der Saft ist im Glas” => “The juice is in the/this glass” or “The juice is in a glass”
As a bonus:
“Das passiert im echten Leben” => “That’s happening in real life”
Always fun to think about the weirdness of my mother tongue :)
Edit: These abbreviations are mostly used when the context already makes it clear which it is going to mean. Otherwise they are just confusing.
Yeah thanks, after posting that I noticed someone else had linked the community.
BTW you link communities starting with a ! then starting to write the name, and lemmy should start autocompleting. It ends up like this: [email protected]
How do I get these German memes?
Subscribe to [email protected] - it’s the German me_irl.
And now I finally know what ich iel means, thank you
Ich im echten Leben
Perfect! Thanks 😄
Is that what it stands for? I love trying to decipher those
Ich = me
iel = im echten Leben = in real life
Doesn’t im means ‘in the’?
“im” is often used as an abbreviation of “in dem” which is the direct translation of “in the/this” but it is also used as an abbreviation of “in einem” which directly translates to “in a” and somtimes “im” is just translated as “in”
Let’s take “Der Saft ist im Glas” as an example.
If you are trying to say that it is in a specific glass that you could point to, you would use “in dem”. If you are just talking about the general method of storing juice you would either use “im” or to be more precise “in einem”. Using “in einem” tells you that it is in a glass but the actual glass isn’t really specified or relevant right now.
“Der Saft ist in einem Glas” is basically the same as “Der Saft ist im Glas”. But it is very different from “Der Saft ist in dem Glas” which is also basically the same as “Der Saft ist im Glas”.
To translate these:
“Der Saft ist in einem Glas” => “The juice is in a glass”
“Der Saft ist in dem Glas” => “The juice is in the/this glass”
“Der Saft ist im Glas” => “The juice is in the/this glass” or “The juice is in a glass”
As a bonus:
“Das passiert im echten Leben” => “That’s happening in real life”
Always fun to think about the weirdness of my mother tongue :)
Edit: These abbreviations are mostly used when the context already makes it clear which it is going to mean. Otherwise they are just confusing.
Top of past hour all
Hmm not on my instance. I’ll have to join lemmy.world to get the sweet memes apparently.
Nah just subscribe to ich_iel on feddit.de (how do you link communities here?
c/[email protected]
Yeah thanks, after posting that I noticed someone else had linked the community.
BTW you link communities starting with a ! then starting to write the name, and lemmy should start autocompleting. It ends up like this: [email protected]