Jan. 30th, 2006 09:22 am
German Word-of-the-Day for Owlet: Day 3
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muckefuckdas Jahr, pl. die Jahre "year"
It's nice to have a good obvious cognate once in a while, isn't it? The usage is pretty straightforward, too: "This year" is dieses Jahr, "next year" is nächstes Jahr, and letztes Jahr is "last year". [Time expressions use the accusative case, which in neuters is indistinguishable from the nominative.] Einmal im Jahr is "once a year" or, as an adjective, jährlich. A decade is das Jahrzehnt, a century is das Jahrhundert, and a millennium is das Jahrtausend--all neuter, all transparently derived from the numerals.
The most annoying quirk is probably the confusion of combining forms when Jahr forms compounds. Those above use the bare stem, but jahrelang "for years" uses an apparent plural. The vast majority, however, use an apparent genitive, e.g. die Jahreszeit "season", die Jahresgebühr "annual fee", der Jahrestag "anniversary", etc.
When giving years, you have two options: im Jahr(e) (with or without the archaic Dativ-e; both variants are probably equally common) 1999 or in 1999. Avoid the common mistake of crossing the two and saying *im 1999; if you're not using Jahr, then you don't need the article. Either way, there's no getting out of spelling out the year in full: Im Jahre neunzehnhundertneunundneunzig (yes, it's all written together like that; scary, huh?). Names of decades use the number + -er and Jahre is optional, e.g. die Achtziger Jahre or simply die 80er.
It's nice to have a good obvious cognate once in a while, isn't it? The usage is pretty straightforward, too: "This year" is dieses Jahr, "next year" is nächstes Jahr, and letztes Jahr is "last year". [Time expressions use the accusative case, which in neuters is indistinguishable from the nominative.] Einmal im Jahr is "once a year" or, as an adjective, jährlich. A decade is das Jahrzehnt, a century is das Jahrhundert, and a millennium is das Jahrtausend--all neuter, all transparently derived from the numerals.
The most annoying quirk is probably the confusion of combining forms when Jahr forms compounds. Those above use the bare stem, but jahrelang "for years" uses an apparent plural. The vast majority, however, use an apparent genitive, e.g. die Jahreszeit "season", die Jahresgebühr "annual fee", der Jahrestag "anniversary", etc.
When giving years, you have two options: im Jahr(e) (with or without the archaic Dativ-e; both variants are probably equally common) 1999 or in 1999. Avoid the common mistake of crossing the two and saying *im 1999; if you're not using Jahr, then you don't need the article. Either way, there's no getting out of spelling out the year in full: Im Jahre neunzehnhundertneunundneunzig (yes, it's all written together like that; scary, huh?). Names of decades use the number + -er and Jahre is optional, e.g. die Achtziger Jahre or simply die 80er.
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in 1999
Bastian Sick, in his column on German grammar and style Der Zwiebelfisch calls the latter "ein lästiger Anglizismus". You may wish to avoid "in" in such situations, therefore, and simply say e.h. "Ich bin 1974 geboren".