# Das bin nicht mehr ich



## hlritter

The above appeared as a quote on the cover of _Der Spiegel_, in reference to the debilitating symptoms of 'long COVID'. I take it to mean "This is no longer me", as we'd say in conversational English. Literally, with the verb _bin_, it should translate as "I'm no longer that", which rather turns the sentiment backwards. Nevertheless, DeepL, Google and several other systems all render it as "This is no longer me" or slight variations. When I ask them to translate back, I get the same input. None translate _Das bin nicht mehr ich_ as "I'm no longer that" or something like it, and none translate "This is no longer me" as _Das *ist* nicht mehr ich_.

Why not say _"Das *ist* nicht mehr ich"_? 

What is it about the original construction that makes the translation "This is no longer me" apparently compulsory, rather than "I am no longer that"? And in the other direction, what makes the translation of "This is no longer me" inevitably _Das *bin* nicht mehr ich_ and never _Das *ist* nicht mehr ich?_


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## Demiurg

The sentence structure is inverted. "Ich" is the real subject:
_
Das bin nicht mehr ich._ = _Ich bin das nicht mehr.
_


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## Sowka

Demiurg said:


> The sentence structure is inverted. "Ich" is the real subject:
> _
> Das bin nicht mehr ich._ = _Ich bin das nicht mehr.
> _


I think the purpose of this inversion is to place emphasis on "Das", and it conveys a certain dismay.


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## διαφορετικός

hlritter said:


> what makes the translation of "This is no longer me" inevitably _Das *bin* nicht mehr ich_ and never _Das *ist* nicht mehr ich?_


I think that "Das ist ich" is generally wrong. It must always be "Das bin ich" or "Ich bin das" - first person conjugation, if first person and third person are linked (as subject and predicative) to the verb "sein". (This rule does not apply in English.)

PS: The same applies to the second person: "Das ist du" and "Du ist das" are wrong; we say "Das bist du" or "Du bist das". (Equally in the plural: "Das ist ihr" / "Ihr ist das" --> "Das seid ihr" / "Ihr seid das"; "Das ist wir" / "Wir ist das" --> "Das sind wir" / "Wir sind das")



hlritter said:


> What is it about the original construction that makes the translation "This is no longer me" apparently compulsory, rather than "I am no longer that"?


I have to guess:
"X is/am no longer Y" - probably in English (as well as in German) the position of X and Y before and after "is" determines their meaning: X is the thing that is described by the rest of the sentence (it is the grammatical subject). Here, the rest of the sentence "is/am no longer" describes a development (change). This means that X changes. Not Y, which (probably) is rather constant (because it is only used for comparison to X) (Y might be called the "predicative").


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## manfy

Demiurg said:


> _Das bin nicht mehr ich._ = _Ich bin das nicht mehr._


That's not true, I'm afraid. There's a clear semantic difference.
If you must, you could show a semantic similarity in these forms:
_Das bin *ich *nicht mehr.  ≈  Ich bin das nicht mehr._​But
_Das bin *ich *nicht mehr. ≠ Das bin nicht mehr *ich*._​is clearly different.

Same is true for the English form, of course:
_That is no longer me  *≠*  I am no longer that._​
The explanation for 'das *bin *ich = That *is *me' vs 'ich *bin *das = I *am *that' is simple.
English has evolved from a fully conjugated language to an SVO language somewhere on its path from Old English to Modern English, but the basic structure of German hasn't changed much.
In German you can identify subject and object with inflection and conjugation, in English you're forced to use subject, verb, object word order (or assume the use of SVO if there are no other markers that allow identification of subject and object). 
Granted, you still have subject/object inversion in certain cases, but that's basically a relict from the past.


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## διαφορετικός

manfy said:


> In German you can identify subject and object with inflection and conjugation


But in the case of "Das bin nicht mehr ich", the role of subject ("Das") and predicative ("ich") cannot be distinguished this way, since both are in the nominative.


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## manfy

Nope, not really!
'Ich' is clearly identified as subject by the conjugation of 'sein' as 'bin'.

cf. another copula construction: Ich bin krank -> Krank bin ich.
You wouldn't call 'krank' the subject just because it is in the first position. 'Krank' is the subject complement just as 'das' is the subject complement in the OP. Word order is very flexible in conjugated languages; moving a word to another position doesn't automatically change its syntactical function.

That's what makes German so flexible...and easy.


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## hlritter

Thanks to all for your comments. 

To clarify my confusion, I'll restate the sentence as "The person with long COVID (LC) is no longer me," auf Deutsch _Die Person mit LC bin nicht mehr ich. _Semantically, the implication is that the way I feel now is so awful that it's like not being myself any more.

_Die Person mit LC bin nicht mehr ich_, translated literally into ordinary English, would be "I am no longer the person with LC." Semantically, this is not equivalent to "The person with LC is no longer me," where "The person with LC", _Das_ in the original, is the subject and "me" the complement. Rather, "I am no longer the person with LC" actually implies the _opposite_, "I am no longer that person who had LC," that I have recovered and am no longer the way I was. Why is it not so in German?

I recognize that _Die Person mit LC bin nicht mehr ich, _where _ich _is the subject and _Die Person_ the complement, to a German speaker means "This person with LC is no longer me," as if "This person" were the subject, rather than meaning "I am no longer that person who had LC," as it would in English.

What I'm curious about, and there may be no explanation except that it's just German semantics, is why it's stated _Das *bin* nicht mehr ich _instead of_ Das *ist* nicht mehr ich. _Apparently, it's such a typical German construction that even the machine translators consistently render "This is no longer me" with _Das bin_ and not _Das ist_.

How would _Das ist nicht mehr ich_ sound to a native German speaker?


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## Limette

hlritter said:


> How would _Das ist nicht mehr ich_ sound to a native German speaker?


Absolutely incorrect.


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## Thersites

hlritter said:


> How would _Das ist nicht mehr ich_ sound to a native German speaker?


Wrong. It is just the wrong conjugation of _sein

Ich bin
Du bist
Er/Sie/Es ist
Wir sind
Ihr seid
Sie sind

Ich_ and _ist_ absolutely never go together._
_


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## hlritter

Thomas(CH) said:


> Wrong. It is just the wrong conjugation of _sein_
> 
> ...
> 
> _Ich_ and _ist_ absolutely never go together.


Well, I've known that since I was 13 and in the first day of my first German course! But _ist_ isn't the wrong form of _sein_ if _Das_ is the subject! Why can't that be the case here?



Limette said:


> Absolutely incorrect.



I get that now. My uncertainty is about _why_ – why_ Das ist nicht mehr ich _is incorrect instead of having the meaning of its simple word-for-word English translation, "That is no longer me" [lit., "no longer I"]?


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## Thersites

hlritter said:


> Well, I've known that since I was 13 and in the first day of my first German course! But _ist_ isn't the wrong form of _sein_ if _Das_ is the subject! Why can't that be the case here?


The 3rd person singular always refers to another person or thing (a human or material "object") while the 1st person singular (Ich) can not be used in any other way than in "Me as a subject". In German there is no "Me as an object".

Das (Er) ist mein Bruder  (3rd person, people)
Das (Es) ist mein GoPro  (3rd person, object)
Das (Ich) ist ich (1st person, only _bin_ is possible)


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## Perseas

manfy said:


> Nope, not really!
> 'Ich' is clearly identified as subject by the conjugation of 'sein' as 'bin'.


Yes, if you know that the correct structure is "Das bin ich", it's easy to identify the subject.
For learners though it isn't that easy, as it seems from the basic question in this thread, which is "Why not say _"Das *ist* nicht mehr ich"_?" (#1)


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## manfy

hlritter said:


> But _ist_ isn't the wrong form of _sein_ if _Das_ is the subject! Why can't that be the case here?


Yes, if 'das' _*were *_the subject, 'ist' would be correct -- but it seems, 'ich' does not work as a subject complement or as an object.
Here's another sentence with a OVS form: Diese Kinder kenne ich nicht.
(You can recognize that 'ich' is the subject because the verb is conjugated in singular and not plural, which would be necessary if 'Kinder' were the subject!) 

The only paraphrase - just off the top of my head - where 'das ist' works, is "Das ist nicht wer ich bin" or "Das ist nicht der, der ich bin"... but actually both forms convey a bit of a different sentiment.


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## Thersites

manfy said:


> "Das ist nicht wer ich bin" or "Das ist nicht der, der ich bin"... but actually both forms convey a bit of a different sentiment.


Hier würde das "Das" jeweils aber für "Er" (3. Person singular) stehen.


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## manfy

Perseas said:


> Yes, if you know that the correct structure is "Das bin ich", it's easy to identify the subject.
> For learners though it isn't that easy, as it seems from the basic question in this thread, which is "Why not say _"Das *ist* nicht mehr ich"_?" (#1)



 Yeas, of course! For all learners whose language is not inflection-based, this is a troublesome concept - particularly because most of the time German also _does _use SVO word order as standard form. So, if you suddenly come across this form it seems counter-intuitive to swap subject and object when your own native language retains the SVO order.


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## manfy

Thomas(CH) said:


> Hier würde das "Das" jeweils aber für "Er" (3. Person singular) stehen.


 Hmm, actually I'm not sure.
Since subject and object is now not readily identifiable, I'd actually assume that 'das' really is the formal subject and 'wer ich bin' is the subject complement.
But I really don't know what formal grammar says about this. I gueass it's a bit of a grey area.


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## Perseas

manfy said:


> Yeas, of course! For all learners whose language is not inflection-based, this is a troublesome concept - particularly because most of the time German also _does _use SVO word order as standard form. So, if you suddenly come across this form it seems counter-intuitive to swap subject and object when your own native language retains the SVO order.


I agree. Also, it's important to take into consideration that "das" is a demonstrative pronoun and as such it refers to a known person, thing or situation and not the other way around. When both "das" and "the person/thing/situation" are in a sentence and are linked with the verb "sein", the latter is that which determines the form of the verb "sein". In our case ("Das bin ich") "ich" determines that the verb will have the form "bin". This would be my description.


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## διαφορετικός

manfy said:


> 'Ich' is clearly identified as subject by the conjugation of 'sein' as 'bin'.


Well, I "overlooked" this possibility to find the subject.
But in this case it is wrong because (in German), for the conjugation, the first and second persons have priority before the third person, even if they are the predicative.


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## berndf

manfy said:


> Yes, if 'das' _*were *_the subject, 'ist' would be correct -- but it seems, 'ich' does not work as a subject complement or as an object.


That is the core of the issue. Personal pronouns don't work as predicatives. As object they work through and need to be declined: The accusative of _ich_ is _mich_ and the dative is _mir_.

It is no different in English. Until in early 1900s the predominant phrase was _that am I_. In the now prevalent form _that is me/that's me_ the pronoun appears in the objective case form although there is no grammatical reason for this. It is just that _I_ doesn't work as a predicative only as an object, i.e. _me_.


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## manfy

berndf said:


> That is the core of the issue. Personal pronouns don't work as predicatives. As object they work through and need to be declined: The accusative of _ich_ is _mich_ and the dative is _mir_.



So we can formulate a simple rule (or rule of thumb, at least): Whenever you find _ich, wir_ or _du _in a German sentence, it will be the subject of that clause.

I had to change _rule _to _rule of thumb_ because I just found one exception (which is not surprising because German grammar is full of exceptions...but well, _exceptions prove the rule_ they say!):

GF: Let's play a game. Let's swap places for a day: *you are me* and *I am you*.
-> Freundin: Lass uns mal was ausprobieren. Wir machen nen Rollentausch für einen Tag: *Du bist ich* und *ich bin du*.


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## JClaudeK

berndf said:


> This is simple, *if *you analyse _ich _as the subject pronoun and _das _as the predicative pronoun. It is not simple *why *_ich _can only be analysed as the subject pronoun and _das _can only be analysed as the predicative pronoun and not the other way round. I have no answer for that.


Inzwischen scheinst Du die Antwort gefunden zu haben:


berndf said:


> That is the core of the issue. Personal pronouns don't work as predicatives. As object they work through and need to be declined: The accusative of _ich_ is _mich_ and the dative is _mir_.


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## berndf

JClaudeK said:


> Inzwischen scheinst Du die Antwort gefunden zu haben


Ich weiß immer noch nicht, *warum* _ich_ nicht als Prädikativ benutzt werden kann, nur *dass* es so ist. Aber vielleicht reicht das ja auch.


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## berndf

manfy said:


> GF: Let's play a game. Let's swap places for a day: *you are me* and *I am you*.
> -> Freundin: Lass uns mal was ausprobieren. Wir machen nen Rollentausch für einen Tag: *Du bist ich* und *ich bin du*.




True, that seems to be the proverbial exception that confirms the rule. Interesting, by the way, that you use _me _and not _I_ in the English version of _du bist ich_. Both, _you are I_ and _you are me_ exist but the latter seems to have become the more popular one today.


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## Limette

Another thing to keep in mind here is that German is an inflected language with a much more flexible word order than English. "*Das bin ich*" and "*Ich bin das*" are both correct, and the verb, "bin", stays the same – and indeed HAS TO stay the same – in each case. In English, "*That is me/I*" is correct, but "*Me/I is that*" isn’t. So if you (incorrectly) say "*Das ist ich*", you create a sentence that violates this symmetry because "*Ich ist das*" is also wrong. In fact, "*Das ist ich*" and "*Me is that*" sound very similar in their wrongness. 😊


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## berndf

I don't think _that is I _is possible in English, only _that is me _or _that am I_.


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## Thersites

OP,  have you been helped ??


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## διαφορετικός

berndf said:


> Ich weiß immer noch nicht, *warum* _ich_ nicht als Prädikativ benutzt werden kann, nur *dass* es so ist.


Ist also "Ich bin immer noch ich" eine Ausnahme? Oder einfach falsch?


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## berndf

διαφορετικός said:


> Ist also "Ich bin immer noch ich" eine Ausnahme? Oder einfach falsch?


Das hatten wir in #21 und #24 schon. Wenn beide Seiten einer Gleichsetzung Personalpronomen sind, geht es offensichtlich nicht anders. Das ist eine Ausnahme.


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## διαφορετικός

berndf said:


> Ich weiß immer noch nicht, *warum* _ich_ nicht als Prädikativ benutzt werden kann, nur *dass* es so ist.


Darf man (erstaunlicherweise, aus meiner Sicht) daraus folgern, dass keiner der vier Sätze ...

Das bin nicht mehr ich.
Das bin ich nicht mehr.
Ich bin das nicht mehr.
Ich bin nicht mehr das.
... eine Übersetzung von "This is no longer me" ist, da ja in diesem englischen Satz "me" ein Prädikativ ist (wenn ich mich nicht irre), und dass alle vier Sätze dem Englischen Satz "I am no longer that" näher sind?

Und kann man "This is no longer me" auf Deutsch nur etwa wie folgt ausdrücken?

Das ist nicht mehr, was ich bin
(Nach dem Ansatz von @manfy )


manfy said:


> The only paraphrase - just off the top of my head - where 'das ist' works, is "Das ist nicht wer ich bin" or "Das ist nicht der, der ich bin"... but actually both forms convey a bit of a different sentiment.


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## manfy

διαφορετικός said:


> Darf man (erstaunlicherweise, aus meiner Sicht) daraus folgern, dass keiner der vier Sätze ...
> 
> Das bin nicht mehr ich.
> Das bin ich nicht mehr.
> Ich bin das nicht mehr.
> Ich bin nicht mehr das.
> ... eine Übersetzung von "This is no longer me" ist, ...


I think you're overthinking this!!

_Semantically_ these senteces below express the very same idea:

Das bin nicht mehr ich.
This is no longer me.
The syntax is different, of course, because of the strict SVO-nature of English.
My example "Das ist nicht, wer/was ich bin" was only intended to show a German form that does start with "Das *ist *..." while expressing a very similar idea as "*That is* no longer me" does.


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## διαφορετικός

manfy said:


> _Semantically_ these senteces below express the very same idea:
> 
> Das bin nicht mehr ich.
> This is no longer me.
> The syntax is different, of course, because of the strict SVO-nature of English.


Maybe this means that the distinction between subject and predicative is meaningless in this case. It is formally present, but does not contribute to the meaning of the sentence, because the meaning is symmetrical like an equation that can be turned around: "a = b" means the same as "b = a".


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## Forero

berndf said:


> I don't think _that is I _is possible in English, only _that is me _or _that am I_.


Yes, "That is I" is possible, though much less common that "That is me", and "That I am" is also used. "That am I" is most uncommon and I would not expect it to mean "That is me."


διαφορετικός said:


> Maybe this means that the distinction between subject and predicative is meaningless in this case. It is formally present, but does not contribute to the meaning of the sentence, because the meaning is symmetrical like an equation that can be turned around: "a = b" means the same as "b = a".


"That is no longer me" and "I am no longer that" do not mean the same thing, and each has multiple possible meanings.

"I am not that" and "That is not me" are very different sentences, as are "I am not your parents" and "Your parents are not me."

So I really doubt the German sentences are symmetric equations, semantically speaking.

By any chance, do the German sentences have different meanings depending on intonation?


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## διαφορετικός

Forero said:


> "That is no longer me" and "I am no longer that" do not mean the same thing, and each has multiple possible meanings.


This is intriguing. Which meaning, for example, is possible only for one of the two sentences?


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## berndf

Forero said:


> "That am I" is most uncommon


Today, yes. Until the 19th century it was common.


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## διαφορετικός

Forero said:


> By any chance, do the German sentences have different meanings depending on intonation?


Maybe, but currently I can't think of a convincing example.

By the way, I don't think that these sentences all mean the same:


διαφορετικός said:


> Das bin nicht mehr ich.
> Das bin ich nicht mehr.
> Ich bin das nicht mehr.
> Ich bin nicht mehr das.


The difference is the thing which has changed - "ich" or "das". In the first two sentences, the change is more likely in "das" than in "ich"; in the last two sentences it's the opposite.


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## Forero

διαφορετικός said:


> This is intriguing. Which meaning, for example, is possible only for one of the two sentences?


For example, in the right context "that" can mean "a carpenter", so "I am no longer that" can mean I don't do carpentry any more. In "That is no longer me", "that" might refer to the mental image of a stereotypical quintessential carpenter, but that's different.

On the other hand, in different context, "that" can mean "that kind of clothing" and then "That is no longer me" means that I don't wear that kind of clothing any more. "I am no longer that" cannot have that meaning.


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## διαφορετικός

Forero said:


> For example, [...]


Thanks! From these examples (and from similar ones I vaguely remember), it seems to me that "That is (no longer) me" is used for classification of people ("that" represents a class, a category), whereas "I am no longer that" can be used if "that" represents a possibly detailed description of a person. I think that in German there is no such syntactical distinction between these two cases.



hlritter said:


> *Das bin nicht mehr ich*
> The above appeared as a quote on the cover of _Der Spiegel_, in reference to the debilitating symptoms of 'long COVID'. I take it to mean "This is no longer me", as we'd say in conversational English.


But presumably "Das" here does not represent a classification, but the actual state of somebody who suffers from "long COVID" (the "ich" has been transformed into a state (called "das") which is clearly different from the "normal" "ich" (known from the time before the illness) - this is my interpretation of the German sentence in the above context). Therefore, I think the translation to "This is no longer me" might be wrong. What do you think, @Forero ? Maybe I have misunderstood or over-generalized your examples.


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## Forero

I tried to find the picture in question online, but all I see is a blurry portrait and I don't know how to access the article text.

Assuming the original idea is that the portrait shows an obviously healthy individual, "This is no longer me" is probably appropriate, meaning that the portrait no longer faithfully depicts the person.

Physically it would have to be the person that changed, not the picture, but if the subject is a picture, it makes sense for "is" to mean "faithfully depicts".

I hope the German sentence allows the same interpretation, but I remember long ago my German professor used to hold up a picture of a house and ask "Ist dies ein Haus?". We were supposed to answer, "Nein, das ist nicht ein Haus. Das ist ein Bild von einem Haus." I think it was just to keep us engaged and give us practice in using the dative, but now I am starting to wonder ....


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## διαφορετικός

Forero said:


> I remember long ago my German professor used to hold up a picture of a house and ask "Ist dies ein Haus?". We were supposed to answer, "Nein, das ist nicht ein Haus. Das ist ein Bild von einem Haus."


You can also answer "Ja, das ist ein Haus". (Assuming that the question meant "Ist das, was man auf dem Bild sieht, ein Haus?", which is not unlikely.)



Forero said:


> I tried to find the picture in question online, but all I see is a blurry portrait and I don't know how to access the article text.
> 
> Assuming the original idea is that the portrait shows an obviously healthy individual, "This is no longer me" is probably appropriate, meaning that the portrait no longer faithfully depicts the person.


This is a possible meaning of "Das bin nicht mehr ich", even if "ich" has changed instead of "Das": "Ich bin nicht mehr das, was man auf diesem Bild sieht, ich habe mich verändert." (By the way: Why wouldn't you say "I am no longer that" to say this in English?)



διαφορετικός said:


> Das bin nicht mehr ich.
> Das bin ich nicht mehr.
> Ich bin das nicht mehr.
> Ich bin nicht mehr das.





διαφορετικός said:


> The difference is the thing which has changed - "ich" or "das". In the first two sentences, the change is more likely in "das" than in "ich"; in the last two sentences it's the opposite.


What I wrote here might be wrong - I have to apologize. At least in the case just described - "Ich bin nicht mehr das, was man auf diesem Bild sieht" -, I think nobody would say "Ich bin das nicht mehr" or "Ich bin nicht mehr das" (if this is the complete sentence and does not continue with ", was man auf diesem Bild sieht"), but only "Das bin nicht mehr ich.". Maybe because it's natural to emphasize "Das", by placing it at the beginning of the sentence, when the picture is in front of your eyes and then you compare it with ... yourself.


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## Forero

διαφορετικός said:


> You can also answer "Ja, das ist ein Haus". (Assuming that the question meant "Ist das, was man auf dem Bild sieht, ein Haus?", which is not unlikely.)


Good. That's what I thought.


> This is a possible meaning of "Das bin nicht mehr ich", even if "ich" has changed instead of "Das": "Ich bin nicht mehr das, was man auf diesem Bild sieht, ich habe mich verändert." (By the way: Why wouldn't you say "I am no longer that" to say this in English?)


First, the demonstrative we use in a caption accompanying a picture to refer to the picture or to what it depicts is always "this", not "that".

Second, "to be" does not always express identity, and it is generally not symmetric like "=". "A house is this" is not an impossible sentence, but it is not merely another way to say "This is a house." Similarly, "I don't know who is this" is a valid sentence, but it is not a valid substitute for "I don't know who this is."

I don't have a ready explanation as to how we choose one thing to be the subject and another to be the complement, but here are some observations:

I wouldn't say "I am no longer this picture" because I never was a picture, but I could say "This picture is no longer me" because the picture was a picture of me when it was taken. "This" in "This is no longer me" means "this picture", but it is not clear what "this" in "I am no longer this" would mean.

On the other hand, I could say "I am no longer the healthy person shown in this picture" but not "The healthy person shown in this picture is no longer me." (Maybe the subject of "is" ought to still exist.)

"I am no longer like this" and "I am no longer this way" are valid sentences that mean the right thing in the given context, but "like this" and "this way" cannot be subjects (without changing their meaning) because here they act like adjectives, not nouns or pronouns.


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## Forero

Are any of the following workable?

A. _Nicht mehr kann das ich sein._
B. _Nicht mehr ist das ich._
C. _Nicht mehr bin das ich._
D. _Nicht mehr bin ich das._

Which one is closest in meaning to "Das bin nicht mehr ich"?


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## Thersites

B is ruled out. The rest are not grammatically wrong but are only imagineable in a poetic context.


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## διαφορετικός

A has a different meaning, because of "kann".
B, C and D have the same meaning, but

B is not acceptable / workable (because there is "ist" instead of "bin")
In D, "das" has a confusing position, rather unsuitable (at least in a simple picture caption)
Of course, the position of "Nicht mehr" is also strange. The emphasis on "Nicht mehr" needs an explanation.


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## Forero

διαφορετικός said:


> A has a different meaning, because of "kann".
> B, C and D have the same meaning, but
> 
> B is not acceptable / workable (because there is "ist" instead of "bin")
> In D, "das" has a confusing position, rather unsuitable (at least in a simple picture caption)
> Of course, the position of "Nicht mehr" is also strange. The emphasis on "Nicht mehr" needs an explanation.


That's just what I would have guessed. In English, I think these would be:

A. _No longer can this be me._ [OK, but different meaning because of "can"]
B. _No longer am this I._ [Grammatically impossible]
C. _No longer is this me._ [Closest in meaning to "This is no longer me."]
D. _No longer am I this._ [Like "I am no longer this." Doesn't fit.]

But putting "no longer" first is not terribly strange in English.

hmm


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## manfy

Forero said:


> But putting "no longer" first is not terribly strange in English.
> 
> hmm


It has to do with the semantics of the negation within the whole sentence. "Nicht mehr" is too much of a standard negation and it cannot (easily) be pulled into the first place in German. If you choose a strong, emphatic negation particle, it becomes idiomatic again:

*Nie und nimmer* bin das ich. 
*Nie und nimmer* bin ich das. 

A strongly stressed 'nie und nimmer' in the first place expresses strong denial with a touch of outrage and that seems to justify pulling the negation particles into this prominent position.


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## διαφορετικός

It seems that the order of the positions of "this" and "I/me" ("das" and "ich") is important in these sentences.

If "this" or "das" appears before "me" or "ich", then "this" or "das" seems to refer to the picture (if the sentence is a picture caption). If the order is reversed, we don't understand the sentence well.


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## bearded

Mit einer Person, die immer gern im Plural sprach, führte ich einst folgendes Gespräch:
-Wir gehen jeden Tag schwimmen. -Wer ist 'wir'? -Wir sind mein Vater und ich.
Ich bin seither sozusagen stecken geblieben. Ist die Frage falsch (hätte ich ''wer _sind_ wir?'' fragen sollen?) oder ist die Antwort falsch (hätte es ''wir'' _ist_ mein Vater und ich'' heißen sollen?)?  Auf jeden Fall stimmt etwas nicht.
Und bei den Fragen ''wer ist/sind wir'' was ist eigentlich Subjekt und was Prädikat?  Nach einem kurzen Urlaub in den Bergen ist jetzt mein Geist - vermutlich wegen der Hitze hier in der Po-Ebene - verwirrter denn je, bitte verzeiht mir.


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## manfy

bearded said:


> -Wir gehen jeden Tag schwimmen. -Wer ist 'wir'? -Wir sind mein Vater und ich.
> Ich bin seither sozusagen stecken geblieben. Ist die Frage falsch (hätte ich ''wer _sind_ wir?'' fragen sollen?) oder ist die Antwort falsch (hätte es ''wir'' _ist_ mein Vater und ich'' heißen sollen?)?  Auf jeden Fall stimmt etwas nicht.


 Welcome home, bearded!
Deine Frage ist auf alle Fälle richtig; das hätte ich genauso im Singular formuliert. Du fragst ja nach der Definition des Wortes 'wir' und nicht danach wer du und dein Freund eigentlich sind.
Die Antwort ist eigentlich auch richtig, da aus der Sicht des Antwortenden er sich und seinen Vater beschreibt.
Er hätte aber auch *"Wir" ist mein Vater und ich* (und in Schriftform würde man 'wir' hier in Anführungszeichen setzen) sagen können, wenn er von einer Wortdefinition von 'wir' ausgegangen wäre.


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## bearded

manfy said:


> Welcome home, bearded!


 Vielen Dank - auch für Deine ausführliche und überzeugende Antwort!


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## Schlabberlatz

Forero said:


> I tried to find the picture in question online, but all I see is a blurry portrait and I don't know how to access the article text.
> 
> Assuming the original idea is that the portrait shows an obviously healthy individual, "This is no longer me" is probably appropriate, meaning that the portrait no longer faithfully depicts the person.





Forero said:


> the demonstrative we use in a caption accompanying a picture to refer to the picture or to what it depicts is always "this", not "that".


Thanks, that is very interesting. It means that "Das bin nicht mehr ich" cannot (in this context) be translated as "This is no longer me". That’s because the picture does not show a healthy individual, but an individual that suffers from long covid. (That’s the reason the portrait has been blurred.)

Das bin nicht mehr ich = Das [,was aus mir geworden ist,] bin nicht mehr ich = Das [da, diese Person, die an Long Covid leidet,] bin nicht mehr ich.

Almost like "I cannot recognize myself any longer".

How would you say "Das [was aus mir geworden ist] bin nicht mehr ich" in English?


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## διαφορετικός

Schlabberlatz said:


> It means that "Das bin nicht mehr ich" cannot (in this context) be translated as "This is no longer me". That’s because the picture does not show a healthy individual, but an individual that suffers from long covid.


I think it can nevertheless be translated this way: "This [- the picture, which shows the transformed me -] is no longer [the real ideal] me." The transformation has simply happened on the other end (or noun) of the sentence than expected.


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