Location - Location - Location

The prepositions an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen are all about location in relation to an object (two or more objects for zwischen). I hadn't thought about them for years in terms of being a group of words about location because I'd learnt them as a list of prepositions that can govern either the dative or accusative in the substantives that follow. I find it very useful to go back to the basics of grammar from time to time and work through exercises to check out my competence with things I've often taken for granted.

So what determines whether the substantive ends up in the dative or the accusative? Let's take a look at some sentences about birds and windows.

1. Die Vögel warten im Winter vor dem Fenster.
2. Ein Vogel war vor das Fenster geklatscht.
3. Ich habe vor dem Fenster ein Futterplatz für die Vögel eingerichtet.
4. Das Tarnnetz wird vor das Fenster gespannen und sorgt dafür, dass Bewegungen im inneren des Autos für die Vögel  weniger sichtbar sind.

Number 1 is obviously dative because what is happening has no movement, it's about being in a place in relation to an object. Typical verbs for these nicht-zielgerichtete Geschehen are warten, sitzen, stehen, wohnen.

Number 2 is accusative because there is movement in relation to the object. Grammar books say things like: Akkusativ erscheint bei zielgerichtetem Geschehen, das richtungsbetont ist (setzen, stellen, kommen).

Number 3 is not quite so obvious at first because putting something up seems to imply movement. However, the movement is not related to the window. The sentence only says the action happened somewhere in front of the window, there is no movement in any direction in relation to the window. So this time it's dative.

So how does number 4 differ? I struggled with the reasoning and ended up thinking in English. What is happening is something is being stretched over the window rather than something being stretched between two points that happen to be somewhere in front of the window. The action directly involves the window, it's not an action at a point some distance in front of the window. I've never come across an example that has puzzled me as much as this and my reasoning may be false. I would welcome a clearer explanation for this one.

Flash Cards

quizlet.com lets you create and share your own online flash cards as well as providing plenty of Germany vocabulary with which to learn and test yourself. You can read about quizlet's features or just dive in an give it a try.

If you want to pick and mix and save yourself some typing then it looks like you can lift some of the entries from other people's flashcard sets.

Eyes

When I had my eyes examined in February my optician was a little concerned about the readings she got when testing for Glaucoma so I had to book another test. That was today and all is well. I'm much relieved but realised there are some limits to my ability to discuss this in German. Glaucoma has a very similar name in German - das Glaukom - and this is also know as der grüne Star. Der graue Star is the cataract, also called der Katarakt.

Last week I was watching some videos about training for jobs from the series Ich mach's and two had some relevance to the subject - Augenarzthelferin 30.03.2009 and Augenoptiker 14.09.2009.  If you want to watch or download these go to BR-alpha Ich mach's and look down the list for the download you want. To start the download: Right click on the down-arrow button and choose Save Target As ... if you are using MS Internet Explorer or Save link as ... if you are using Google Chrome. The guidance in German is: Download starten: Rechte Maustaste und "Ziel speichern unter ..." wählen.

Here's some German vocabulary to look up:

• der ophthalmologische Prüfplatz - der Phoropter - das Ophthalmometer - das Augenrefraktometer - der Sehzeichenprojektor - der Probiergläserkasten
• die Brille - die Brillenfassung, das Brillengestell - der Brillenrand - die Brücke, der Steg - der Nasensteg, der Seitensteg - das Brillenglas - das Brillenetui - der Bügel - das Bügelscharnier
• die harten/weichen Kontaktlinsen - die Aufbewahrungsbehälter - das Pflegemittel, das Reinigungsmittel
• das Auge - das Oberlid - das Unterlid - die Augenbraue - die Pupille - die Iris, die Regenbogenhaut - der Augapfel - die Hornhaut - die Netzhaut - die Wimper