"Ich shaue" vergleich "Ich sehe nach"

[cyberjosh]

Was ist die Unterschied zwischen "Ich shaue" und "Ich sehe nach"? Was sind die Verwendungen von beidem in verschiedenen Situationen? Welche Situationen?

Wie sagt man auch die folgenden Sätze mit "look" auf Deutsch?

"I have been looking for that!"

"If you look through the bars you will see a large polar bear."

"One look in the mirror was all it took."

"Just look around and you will have your answer."

"Looking and finding are two different matters."

"Let me look that up."

P.S. Eine Bitte an Euch,wie immer, seiddoch so nett,meine Grammatikfehler zu verbessern.

Dankeschön!

[tiorthan]

Was ist die Unterschied zwischen "Ich schaue" und "Ich sehe nach"? Was sind die Verwendungen von beidem in verschiedenen Situationen? Welche Situationen?

Die Bedeutung ist meist gleich. Welches von beiden am häufigsten benutzt wird, hängt von der Region in Deutschland ab. Statistisch gesehen ist "schauen" im Süden häufiger.
Both means the same, most of the time. Which is used more often mainly depends on the region in Germany. Statistically, "schauen" is used more often in the South.

"I have been looking for that!"

Danach habe ich gesucht!

"If you look through the bars you will see a large polar bear."

Wenn/falls du durch die Gitterstäbe schaust/siehst/blickst, wirst/kannst du einen großen Eisbären sehen.

There is a problem with the translation of "will". English and German both use modal expressions for the future (because neither language really has a proper future tense) and all modal verbs have a future meaning. Thus, it's always a bit difficult to pinpoint one modal or another when translating from English to German or vice versa. The above sentence is a good example. "du wirst" is a more literal translation of "you will" but in this case, "du kannst" sounds less ... stiff, IMO.

"One look in the mirror was all it took."

Ein Blick in den Spiegel war alles, was nötig war.

"Just look around and you will have your answer."

Sieh/schau dich einfach um, dann bekommst du deine Antwort.

"Looking and finding are two different matters."

Suchen und Finden sind nicht das gleiche.
Suchen und Finden sind zwei Paar Schuhe. (using an idiom here)

"Let me look that up."

Lass mich das nachschlagen.

[Delfino]

"Looking and finding are two different matters."

Suchen und Finden sind nicht das Gleiche.
Suchen und Finden sind zwei Paar Schuhe. (using an idiom here)

See also
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfis ... 11593.html

[cyberjosh]

Danke sehr tiorthan!

Die Bedeutung ist meist gleich. Welches von beiden am häufigsten benutzt wird, hängt von der Region in Deutschland ab. Statistisch gesehen ist "schauen" im Süden häufiger.
Both means the same, most of the time. Which is used more often mainly depends on the region in Germany. Statistically, "schauen" is used more often in the South.

Ah, I see. (= "Ach, Ich verstehe." auf Deutsch? Are there any other ways of acknowledging understanding in German?). This is helping me out a lot! Thanks!

Wenn/falls du durch die Gitterstäbe schaust/siehst/blickst, wirst/kannst du einen großen Eisbären sehen.

Ein Blick in den Spiegel war alles, was nötig war.

Ich habe über "blicken/Blick" vergessen. Vielleicht sollte ich über die Unterschied zwischen "blicken" und "schauen" gefragt haben. Ich weiss das nicht.

Lass mich das nachschlagen.

Könnt Ihr auch "Lass mich das nachsehen" sagen?

Danke!
Josh

[tiorthan]

Ah, I see. (= "Ach, Ich verstehe." auf Deutsch? Are there any other ways of acknowledging understanding in German?). This is helping me out a lot! Thanks!

There's not much variation if you explicitly want to express understanding. You could of course use the perfective form "Ich habe verstanden" which can be shortened to "Verstanden."

Ich habe über "blicken/Blick" vergessen. Vielleicht hätte ich nach dem Unterschied zwischen "blicken" und "schauen" fragen sollen. Ich weiss es nicht.

Basically, "blicken" is not a verb of perception. It means, to direct the gaze (or rather the front side) toward. You can say "in den Spiegel blicken", "aus dem Fenster blicken" but it does not say whether you see anything in the mirror or outside the window, even inanmate objects can be said to do that (although it's perceived as poetic use).

Könnt Ihr auch "Lass mich das nachsehen" sagen?

In principle, yes, but "nachsehen" is just "look for, search" while "nachschlagen" means "to search in a reference book or similar" which is much closer to the meaning of "look up" in this context.

[cyberjosh]

There's not much variation if you explicitly want to express understanding. You could of course use the perfective form "Ich habe verstanden" which can be shortened to "Verstanden."

I saw written somewhere a sentence that began "Wenn ich recht verstehe...". So I guess you could turn that into a positive statement "Ich verstehe es/das recht" or perhaps better "Jetzt verstehe ich es/das recht" (Now I understand that correctly).

Additionally, on http://www.linguee.com this search shows that "to make sense" (as in "That makes sense" or "That is reasonable [to say]") is "vernünftig sein". So I guess you could say "Das ist vernünftig" (see linguee search results here).

Could you also say "Das macht Sinn/Unsinn"?

Basically, "blicken" is not a verb of perception. It means, to direct the gaze (or rather the front side) toward. You can say "in den Spiegel blicken", "aus dem Fenster blicken" but it does not say whether you see anything in the mirror or outside the window, even inanmate objects can be said to do that (although it's perceived as poetic use).

Aha, Heureka!

Könnt Ihr auch "Lass mich das nachsehen" sagen?

In principle, yes, but "nachsehen" is just "look for, search" while "nachschlagen" means "to search in a reference book or similar" which is much closer to the meaning of "look up" in this context.

Got it. Thanks!

[tiorthan]

I saw written somewhere a sentence that began "Wenn ich recht verstehe...". So I guess you could turn that into a positive statement "Ich verstehe es/das recht" or perhaps better "Jetzt verstehe ich es/das recht" (Now I understand that correctly).

The phrase "Wenn ich recht verstehe ..." will probably become an idiom in the future because "recht" is not used productively in modern German, we use "richtig" instead. "Ich verstehe recht" is not wrong but sounds somewhat peculiar almost, but not quite yet, archaic.

Additionally, on http://www.linguee.com this search shows that "to make sense" (as in "That makes sense" or "That is reasonable [to say]") is "vernünftig sein". So I guess you could say "Das ist vernünftig" (see linguee search results here).

Could you also say "Das macht Sinn/Unsinn"?

You cannot use "Unsinn" because it is not the opposite of "Sinn" but you can say "das macht/ergibt Sinn".

Note that the difference between "das macht/ergibt Sinn" and "das ist vernünftig" is about the same as the difference between "that makes sense" and "that is reasonable".

In formal writing you should not use "das macht Sinn" but "das ergibt Sinn" is fine. The reason is that "Sinn machen" is a modern import (most likely taken from the English phrase "make sense") that did not yet find its way into formal German.

[Duckduck]

Die Bedeutung ist meist gleich. Welches von beiden am häufigsten benutzt wird, hängt von der Region in Deutschland ab. Statistisch gesehen ist "schauen" im Süden häufiger.
Both means the same, most of the time. Which is used more often mainly depends on the region in Germany. Statistically, "schauen" is used more often in the South.

Perfectly right, this is just to add that us northeners (to coin a phrase) use "gucken" instead of "schauen". Another idiom but not greatly liked in formal German, I'm afraid. But in conversational German it's OK. Whereas I can't really imagine a situation where I would use the verb "blicken"...

Cheers
Duckduck