"there be" in Deutsch is "sein"?
Is the sentence"In Suddeutschland sind viele Berge." the same with " there are many mountains in South German"? in English we have "there be..." In Deutsch do we use the "sein" sentence to replace "there be " in English? I remember that sein also means exist in philosophy of German. Am i right?
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Answers · 2
5
there is / there are = es gibt = 有
You can in principle say "In Süddeutschland sind viele Berge" but it sounds extremely strange to every German. A much better sentence is: "In Süddeutschland gibt es viele Berge"
You can also say "es existiert" / "es existieren" instead of "es gibt", but that's rather independent of philosophy, haha.
0
A long time ago I learned the following:
Es gibt = there is....but ...you only use it when there is no expression of place.
In your example, you have "in den Bergen", and expression of place, so you use "sein".
Es sind viele Auslaender jetzt in Deutschland.
Es gibt viele Auslaender.
Actualy the two sentence are slightly different in emphasis. But the above rule applies! Generally with an expression of place in the sentence you use "sein".
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