# He would be bringing me food



## lemmingonfire

Hallo!

Ich muss den Satz: "He would be bringing me food" uebersetzen (Imperfekt von "He will be bringing me food"). 

Wuerde man einfach sagen: "Er wurde mir Essen bringen"?

Danke!


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## trance0

You probably meant: "Er hätte mir das Essen gebracht". And the English original should then be something like: "He would have brought me food". This is how I understand "past conditional", I don`t think the correct term for this construction is "Imperfekt". Unless you had something else in mind?


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## Frank78

"He *will* be bringing me food" - "Er *wird* mir Essen bringen"

will + be + verb-ing = something scheduled will happen, right?!
As in "The plane will be landing at 11.30"

davon die Präteritumsform ist im Englischen doch "He brought me food" - "Er brachte mir Essen"

"Er wurde mir Essen bringen" - Das geht auf jeden Fall nicht.


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## berndf

lemmingonfire said:


> Ich muss den Satz: "He would be bringing me food" uebersetzen (Imperfekt von "He will be bringing me food").
> 
> Wuerde man einfach sagen: "Er w*ü*rde mir Essen bringen"?


In the English sentence "would" is not past tense but past subjunctive. In English the two forms are indistinguishable but in German they are. Hence it has to be "w*ü*rde", not "w*u*rde".


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## brian

Past subjunctive? I thought it was a sort of conditional, but I'm terrible with English grammar terminology.

The only way that this sentence makes sense to me (as "imperfect" of a future, as she said) is in a _future-in-the-past_ construction, i.e. in indirect speech:

Future: _He *will be bringing* me food (in about 5 minutes)._
Future-in-past: _He said that he *would be bringing* me food (in about 5 minutes)._

Similar would be _I thought he would be bringing me food_, etc.

_Er sagte/Ich dachte, er würde mir das Essen bringen / er bringt mir das Essen._ ?

Of course, with other verbs/sentences you could certainly have this construction without having to run to the future-in-the-past construction:

_He would be arriving right now, but he got caught in traffic._

In that sentence, it's the only thing verb construction you can use, because _He would arrive right now_ is wrong.


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## berndf

brian8733 said:


> Past subjunctive? I thought it was a sort of conditional, but I'm terrible with English grammar terminology.


No contradiction. The English conditional is constructed using the past subjunctive of "will", i.e. "would".
E.g.:
He goes (present indicative)
He go (present subjunctive)
He went (past indicative or past subjunctive)
He would go (conditional)

Lemingonfire wanted to translate "would" directly which incidentally works. But when doing so you have to bear in mind that the auxilliary verb "would" in itself is subjunctive.


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## lemmingonfire

berndf said:


> In the English sentence "would" is not past tense but past subjunctive. In English the two forms are indistinguishable but in German they are. Hence it has to be "w*ü*rde", not "w*u*rde".


 
Why are we using the past subjunctive? Is it some form of indirect reported speech?


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## brian

It is in the example of your sentence that I gave. Honestly I cannot think of any other way I would say your sentence. Perhaps you should give some more context.


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## lemmingonfire

brian8733 said:


> It is in the example of your sentence that I gave. Honestly I cannot think of any other way I would say your sentence. Perhaps you should give some more context.


 
i wrote my question before your reply popped up- that makes perfect sense now: i hadn't recognised it as indirect speech as it didn't have the little he said, she said... build up! thanks everyone!


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## berndf

lemmingonfire said:


> Why are we using the past subjunctive? Is it some form of indirect reported speech?


The subjunctive in general expresses a wish, desire, demand or mere possibility:
"So be it", "If it were so".
 
In English there is little left of this. But in German, where the forms did not merge, the original meaning of the subjunctive is much more alive and common confusions of subjunctive and indicative as in "if he was" instead of "if he were" are much more noticed than in English.


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## berndf

brian8733 said:


> The only way that this sentence makes sense to me (as "imperfect" of a future, as she said) is in a _future-in-the-past_ construction, i.e. in indirect speech...


What about: "If I had told him to do so, he would be bringing me food."

Here it is a classic conditional.


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## brian

I guess it's difficult to see in English because our subjunctive constructions are different. Example:

_I request that the patient under*go* surgery.
I requested that the patient under*go* surgery._
(Or maybe for some people: _I requested that the patient under*went* surgery._)

But definitely not: _I requested that the patient *would* undergo surgery. _

So it's hard to tell the function of _would_ since we don't use it subjunctively like in, say, the Romance languages, where _under*went* _above would be imperfect subjunctive.



			
				berndf said:
			
		

> What about: "If I had told him to do so, he would be bringing me food."
> 
> Here it is a classic conditional.



Yes, this works.  (though we usually add something like _right now / at this very moment_ or even _today_. Basically it is equivalent to saying _He *is* bringing me food_, which sort of begs the question "When?")


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## lemmingonfire

brian8733 said:


> But definitely not: _I requested that the patient *would* undergo surgery. _


 
I agree this is wrong, although I'm sure I've heard in informal American and Irish English, and even creeping into British English.


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## Derselbe

What about this explaination, which sounds most likely to me:

_He *used to* be bringing me food = He *would be* bringing me food_

_When I was young I *used to play* with my dolls. = When I was young I *would play* with my dolls._

As explained at: learnenglish.de/grammar/usedtotext.htm . Other sources can be found easily be searching for "used to would" at google.

In that case the correct translation would be:

Er brachte mir *regelmäßig/normalerweise/ständig* Essen.

I don't know if this works with continuous form, though



> "He *will* be bringing me food" - "Er *wird* mir Essen bringen"
> 
> will + be + verb-ing = something scheduled will happen, right?!
> As in "The plane will be landing at 11.30"
> 
> davon die Präteritumsform ist im Englischen doch "He brought me food" - "Er brachte mir Essen"


Unlike German there is a regular past tense of the future indicating verb "will". In German language this construction can sometimes be imitated. Think about the following report:

"Zu dieser Zeit dachte Thomas noch, seine Erfolge hielten für immer. - Er *würde* sich noch wundern."
Which is kind of an outlook to a situation that already passed by. So it's future from a past point of view, but past from today's perspective. In German language this is only possible in some expressions. In english this is used much more frequently. For example:

"When Maria and Peter lived in Hawaii, they would (used to) go to the beach every day."
Als Maria und Peter in Hawaii lebten, gingen sie jeden Tag an der Strand.


However, I can't tell whether this interpretation is possible here, but I'd say it's worth thinking about it.
I could think of a context like this:

In 1973 I met Peter by coincidence. The following year he would be the one bringing me food at the nursing home.
1973 traf ich zufällig Peter. Im darauffolgenden Jahr war er derjenige, der mit das Essen im Altersheim brachte.


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## brian

No, the progressive in the imperfect does not sound good in those contexts. It's better simply to say: _He would bring = He used to bring._

You'd have to say something like: _He would be bringing when something happened!_. For example:

_John used to deliver lunches to the elderly, but he could never go more than 30 minutes without smoking a cigarette. He *would be bringing* a lunch to someone when all of a sudden he would stop the truck, get out, and light up a cigarette._

Bad example, but hopefully you get the idea.


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## Derselbe

brian8733 said:


> Past subjunctive? I thought it was a sort of conditional, [...]
> 
> Future: _He *will be bringing* me food (in about 5 minutes)._
> Future-in-past: _He said that he *would be bringing* me food (in about 5 minutes)._



My understanding of English grammar is that this is not a conditional. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.


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## brian

I meant that the _verb form_ is conditional (though I'm not even sure about that), not the construction.

I can't say whether you're right or wrong; I was never well instructed in formal English grammar.


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## Derselbe

brian8733 said:


> _John used to deliver lunches to the elderly, but he could never go more than 30 minutes without smoking a cigarette. He *would be bringing* a lunch to someone when all of a sudden he would stop the truck, get out, and light up a cigarette._
> 
> Bad example, but hopefully you get the idea.



Great example. Absolutely makes sense to me. Somehow I thought that the continuous form sounds somewhat strange. Thanks to your example I now understand why.


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## berndf

brian8733 said:


> I guess it's difficult to see in English because our subjunctive constructions are different. Example:
> 
> _I request that the patient under*go* surgery._
> _I requested that the patient under*go* surgery._
> (Or maybe for some people: _I requested that the patient under*went* surgery._)
> 
> But definitely not: _I requested that the patient *would* undergo surgery. _
> 
> So it's hard to tell the function of _would_ since we don't use it subjunctively like in, say, the Romance languages, where _under*went* _above would be imperfect subjunctive.


That is true. The Germanic subjunctive is used differently. The tenses of the subjunctive have mutated into sub-modes. The present expresses whishes, desires, demands and realistic possibilities while the past expresses an hypothetical assumption. Hence the _request_ above is formulated in the present subjunctive irrespective of time. The Romance subjunctive behaves differently.


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## Derselbe

berndf said:


> The Germanic subjunctive is used differently. The present expresses whishes, desires, demands and realistic possibilities while the past expresses an hypothetical assumption.



Hmmm. This explaination of the German Konjunktiv might be a little bit too simple, I guess. Both Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II (it's preferable not to call them "present Konjunktiv" and "past Konjunktiv" since they're no tenses, even though they are built from tenses) do have a lot of functions and vary significantly depending on the context, sentence structure or even verb.
Besides, the reason why the German Konjunktiv and the English subjunctive are used differently might be, that one is called Konjunktiv and one subjunctive. It might be a good idea to stick with the native terms, since you just found out yourself that they are not the same thing.


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## berndf

Derselbe said:


> Besides, the reason why the German Konjunktiv and the English subjunctive are used differently might be...


I was not speaking about the differences between the English and German subjunctives but about their similarity compared to the Romance subjunctive which is very different.


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## berndf

One more thing we forgot to mention: If your context is indeed reported speech then there are to possible translations of
_He said he would be bringing me food_
namely:
_Er sagte er w*e*rde mir Essen bringen_
_Er sagte er w*ü*rde mir Essen bringen_

The former employing the Konjunktiv I (present subjunctive) is used, if you consider it likely that he will bring the food as promised, of if you do not want to voice an opinion. The second using Konjunktiv II (past subjunctive) implies that he didn't bring the food and you don't think he will.


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## Derselbe

berndf said:


> One more thing we forgot to mention: If your context is indeed reported speech then there are to possible translations of
> _He said he would be bringing me food_
> namely:
> _Er sagte er w*e*rde mir Essen bringen_
> _Er sagte er w*ü*rde mir Essen bringen_
> 
> The former employing the Konjunktiv I (present subjunctive) is used, if you consider it likely that he will bring the food as promised, of if you do not want to voice an opinion. The second using Konjunktiv II (past subjunctive) implies that he didn't bring the food and you don't think he will.



I'm sorry, but I have some objections again. 
This might be true in this particular case and only among very attentive native speakers, but, if you ask me, does not reflect the way most of Germans use those forms in reality. And that's what I tried to say in my last post. Especially in indirect speech a real difference between Konj I and II is not noticeable anymore. In contemporary German those two are used interchangeably in indirekt speech. Very often the Konj I is identical with the Präsens Indikativ. In this case the Konj I is usually replaced by Konj II because you can't tell a difference between Konj I and Indikativ. But there is no change as to the meaning at all. Compare these sentences:

I)
Peter sagt, er habe eine Uhr.
Peter sagt, er hätte eine Uhr.
Peter sagt, er würde eine Uhr haben.

II)
Peter glaubt, ich gehe heute zur Schule.
Peter glaubt, ich ginge heute zur Schule.

If you ask me, I can't tell a difference in meaning between all the three sentences mentioned under I). At II) we have the problem that the Konj I is identical with Indikativ. Therefore it is appropriate to use Konj II instead to clarify what is meant. But it doesn't change the meaning.

However, most of the German people use Konditional anyway. 

Besides, the usage of our Konj. does also vary depending on the question whether you use a Vollverb or Modalverb. I'd say that Konj II most of the time (not always) expresses "Irrealis" if used with Vollverben. Regarding Modalverben the interpretation as "Irrealis" is rather the exeption than the rule.


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## berndf

What I wrote is the "official" version (see here). Colloquial speech is not always following these rules - I agree.


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## Derselbe

berndf said:


> What I wrote is the "official" version (see here). Colloquial speech is not always following these rules - I agree.



Sure. What you wrote was not inaccurate. But you didn't mention "[Die indirekte Rede] sollte im Konjunktiv II stehen, wenn durch eine nicht eindeutige Konjunktiv-I-Form unklar bleibt, dass indirekte Rede vorliegt." So regard my comment as an addition to yours.

However, Konjunktiv is maybe the mose difficult thing to understand in German grammar. Besides Abtönungspartikeln of course


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## Derselbe

berndf said:


> What I wrote is the "official" version (see here). Colloquial speech is not always following these rules - I agree.



I found an example where it is definitely not interchangeable:

* Ich fühle mich, als sei ich betrunken.
Ich fühle mich, als wär ich betrunken.


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