One of my favorite words in German is "doch." It took me a while to get used to using it simply because it doesn't exist in English, but it is quite an important little word. Since so many English terms have been adopted into German, I would like to suggest a little two-way movement and adopt doch into English.
In it's simplest form, it contradicts with a statement.
Ex: "Did you not get tickets after all?" "Doch." - meaning, yes, I actually did get tickets.
This clears up that vague uncertainty in English when you run across those types of questions and aren't sure if answering "yes" agrees with the statement or means that you actually got them.
Another example overheard at a train station:
"We have to get to platform 5." "We are doch on platform 5." "Doch."
However, doch can also be used as a modal word to strengthen statements, like "Versuch's doch mal," which roughly translates to "Just try it." Doch can really be thrown around in all sorts of sentences, and if you want to get a better feel for the word, there are several pages of phrases here: http://www.dict.cc/?s=doch.
1 comment:
Great post, Elena -- I agree that "doch" is a great and useful German word. Such a simple way to contradict what someone else says.
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