# Du bist ja richtig zu beneiden.



## tienv

_Du bist ja richtig zu beneiden._

Is my below translation correct?
_You're right to envy._

Is the following better?
_It must make you envy._

What should the "ja" in the German sentence be translated actually?

Thank you always!


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## dec-sev

I understood it as "you are relly to be envied".
Imagine that you've won 100000... Euro in a lottery. 
A freind of you says: "Du bist ja richtig zu benieden". 
I guess that "ja" works as an intensifier here. 
I hope natives will prove me wrong or right.


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## Hutschi

Yes, it is an intensifier. It is similar to add "indeed" or "really" in English. 
I do not know "relly". Is this a typo?

Implicit it includes: Du hast ja wirklich Glück gehabt. Du bist ja wirklich zu beneiden - You are really lucky. You are really to be envied (not: to envy - see next answer), indeed.

Implicite it also means that the "envy" is *not* real. (Es ist nicht wirklich Neid, eher eine Gratulation.) "Ich freue mich für Dich. Du hast ja wirklich Glück. Man könnte dich beneiden."

Is "You are really to envy" the same idiom?


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## dec-sev

Ich verstehe nicht, warum "You are to envy":
You are to translate this text - You have to translate this text - Du musst diesen Text übersetzen. 
You are to envy - Du musst (jemanden) beneiden. ???


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## berndf

dec-sev said:


> Ich verstehe nicht, warum "You are to envy":
> You are to translate this text - You have to translate this text - Du musst diesen Text übersetzen.
> You are to envy - Du musst (jemanden) beneiden. ???


Sehe ich ähnlich. Da anders als im Deutschen "you are to envy" aktiv verstanden werden kann, ist hier der Passivinfinitiv vorzuziehen:
_You are to be envied._


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## Hutschi

Ich habe es korrigiert.


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## tienv

It was because of the part "bist ja richtig" that I came up with "you are really right to envy" just by translating it word by word, which produced a grammatically correct sentence. If the sentence were "Sie ist nicht zu beneiden" (She is not to be envied / I don't envy with her.) then I must have pulled my hair out.

So thank you all. It's now clear. I have no more wonder about "You bist ja richtig zu beneiden" at all. That means "you are really to be envied.".

But I still have some feeling of difficulty. It goes with an infinitive "zu beneiden" but ends up with passive meaning "to be envied", isn't it strange? and "du" is the subject of the sentence, instead of being the object of the verb "beneiden" as I think it should.

What if I want to say "you are right to do"? Is "du bist ja richtig zu machen" correct?


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## Geolexis

Although we use a passive expression (to be envied) in English to translate it, it's not really a passive construction in German. Literally - as you've worked out - "Du bist zu beneiden" means "You are to envy" (which of course doesn't work in English). Perhaps one could see it as "You are [someone] to envy". A similar usage is "Das ist kaum zu glauben" - literally "that is scarcely to believe", but in English we would say "that is almost unbelievable" or "that is hard to believe".


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## Dan2

dec-sev said:


> You are to translate this text - You have to translate this text - Du musst diesen Text übersetzen.
> You are to envy - Du musst (jemanden) beneiden. ???


Right, _You are to envy_ is strange.  The reason is that _envy_ is a transitive verb.
But film director to actor: _You are to envy Smith._
Or: _You are to sneeze. _(because _sneeze_ is an intransitive verb).


berndf said:


> Da anders als im Deutschen "you are to envy" aktiv verstanden werden kann muss, ist hier der Passivinfinitiv vorzuziehen erforderlich:
> _You are to be envied._


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## berndf

Geolexis said:


> it's not really a passive construction in German.


Well, I think it is. Contrary to the English infinitive, the German infinitive with "zu" can have a passive meaning. The active and passive infinitives are not formally distinguished. Whether an infinitive is active or passive is entirely determined by context and not by form, not dissimilar to the Latin gerundium and gerundivum which are also identical in form but not in meaning. Therefore "You are to envy" maybe a literal translation of the German sentence but not a grammatically equivalent one.


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## Dan2

Geolexis said:


> Although we use a passive expression (to be envied) in English to translate it, it's not really a passive construction in German.





berndf said:


> Well, I think it is.


Can we agree that as in so many other cases (perhaps including whether the German Konjunktiv I is a subjunctive), it's a matter of definition.  If your defiinition of "passive" is a grammatical structure in which the logical object takes the role of grammatical subject, then _Du bist zu beneiden_ is a passive. If you require in addition that verb _werden_ be used to achieve that effect, then it's not.


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## Sowka

Hello everybody 



berndf said:


> Therefore "You are to envy" maybe a literal translation of the German sentence but not a grammatically equivalent one.


 
I've been pondering and pondering... But I can't quite understand this sentence, for two reasons:

1) "You are to envy" is not a complete sentence in English, as explained by Dan. So it can't be equivalent to the German complete sentence "Du bist zu beneiden".

2) I can't imagine any German sentence using the "du bist..." structure that could be equivalent to the English "you are to...". In my opinion (so far), the German equivalent would always be "du *hast* zu....": _You are to write the letter. Du hast den Brief zu schreiben / Sie haben den Brief zu schreiben_. (That's certainly not the best wording in German, but I just want to point out that "du bist zu..." would simply not be possible here).


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## Dan2

_


Sowka said:





berndf said:



			Therefore "You are to envy" maybe a literal translation of the German sentence but not a grammatically equivalent one.
		
Click to expand...

...I can't quite understand this sentence, for two reasons:
		
Click to expand...

_


Sowka said:


> 1) "You are to envy" is not a complete sentence in English, as explained by Dan. So it can't be equivalent to the German complete sentence "Du bist zu beneiden".


Doubly correct:
1. It's not a complete sentence.
2. However it's close to complete sentences like _You are to leave _(approx = _Du musst gehen_), but (and we can assume this is berndf's point) in these sentences _You _is both the grammatical and the logical subject, unlike in the German sentence.



Sowka said:


> 2) I can't imagine any German sentence using the "du bist..." structure that could be equivalent to the English "you are to...".


I think that's correct. In English, "You are to <verb>" means "You must <verb>", or "One expects you to <verb>". As far as I know, "Du bist zu" can't have that meaning.

---
In English, when we move away from "You" as the subject, I find a "passive" reading of _<noun> is to <verb>_ possible to some extent in colloquial speech, especially when the meaning is _the purpose of <noun> is..._:
(To children) _That food is to eat, not play with.
The money is to spend on clothing.
_


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## Hutschi

Can we say that "Du bist zu + infinitive" describes a kind of status?

Du hast den Zustand/Status, dass man dich ... (beneiden muss)

There are not many verbs working with "du bist", and additionally "Du bist zu beneiden" is an idiom, it has more content than just the sum of the words.

But I can compare:

_ Du bist zu operieren. Man muss dich operieren.
Er ist zu entlassen. Here it means: er muss entlassen werden. _(I do not think this works well with "du bist" - but "Sie sind" by semantic reasons._

Du bist zu benachrichtigen. Man muss dich benachrichtigen._ 


But:

_ Du bist zu beneiden. = Man kann/könnte/muss dich beneiden._


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## Sowka

Good morning 

I think I know my error: I somehow read a "valid" into Bernd's words "may be a literal translation". But he did not say that.

As I understand it now, he merely said that the words of this sequence _Du bist zu beneiden,_ translated word by word (_you are to envy_), appear to be the same on the surface. But in fact, the function of _zu beneiden_ differs from that of the literal translation _to envy_: In German, it's passive, in English, it's active.

The fact that this translation doesn't work at all, for other reasons, was not considered at all in his statement. But I considered it -- and this caused my confusion.


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## berndf

Sorry for not having come back earlier. The different meanings of the infinitive + _zu_ have been bugging me for years and I wanted to do a bit of thinking before continuing the discussion.




Geolexis said:


> "that is hard to believe".


This form actually exists identically in German as well: _das ist schwer zu glauben_. For difficult you say _heavy (schwer)_ in German and not _hard; _otherwise the German expression is identical. Prima facie this appears to be a passive but Onions (Modern English syntax, revised  edition 1971, p116) prefers to regard this as on instrumental case use of the dative infinitive (_this is hard in the believing_). So it might be a different thing altogether.

Some of my ponderings I posted in EHL:


berndf said:


> German has a functional equivalent of the Latin gerundive which can be used adverbially (_ich gebe dir das Buch zu lesen_, corresponds to_ do tibi librum legendum_), predicatively (_das Buch ist zu lesen_, corresponds to_ liber legendum est_) and attributively (_das zu lesened Buch_, corresponds to_ liber legendum_).  You certainly noted that the adverbial and predicative uses are  formally infinitives while the attributive use shows the typical _-end-_  present participle suffix. What I actually don’t know is whether the  these forms are original in German or whether they are artificial  constructs of the standard language introduced to represent the Latin  gerundive and whether the forms are etymologically related (infinitive  and present participle) or incidental. My suspicion is that these forms  are indeed artificial and that the _–d-_ has been added in the  attributive used merely to render the form declinable like the present  participle which can be declined like an attributive adjective. But I  have no way to prove it.
> 
> Do you have any idea?


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## ravensden43

Du wirst beneidet.....  would this mean "you are envied"?  or is this question just putting another wrench in the mix?


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## Hutschi

I think "Du wirst beneidet" usually needs additional information, for example: "Du wirst von allen beneidet."

I am not sure whether it is the same with "you are envied".


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## tienv

So I just accept "du bist zu beneiden" as an idiom and use it properly in the future. I am not a native English speaker but I used to say "it's hard to believe" without a second thought and never asked why not "it's hard to be believed". And now this English example just completely eases my acceptance of "du bist zu beneiden".


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## berndf

tienv said:


> So I just accept "du bist zu beneiden" as an idiom and use it properly in the future. I am not a native English speaker but I used to say "it's hard to believe" without a second thought and never asked why not "it's hard to be believed". And now this English example just completely eases my acceptance of "du bist zu beneiden".


"Es ist schwer zu glauben"="it's hard to believe" is ok, just "es ist zu glauben"="it is to believe" is wrong and must rather be translated as "it is to be believed". the use of the adjective "hard" makes all the difference. See my explanation in #16.


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## tienv

berndf,

Thank you for your correction.

Ok, so I must distinguish "Es ist schwer zu glauben" and "es ist zu glauben". The first has English direct equivalent "it's hard to believe", the second doesn't.  But the first still helps me to accept the second somehow, in the sense that a verb has passive meaning in the context but is used as infinitive.


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## thedov

Can't we simply leave intricacies of the infinitive and translate more loosely as something like: "Gosh! Lucky you" etc


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## exgerman

thedov said:


> Can't we simply leave intricacies of the infinitive and translate more loosely as something like: "Gosh! Lucky you" etc



I think that the discussion is about clarifying the grammatical structure---the meaning is clear.

German infinitives correspond both to English infinitives and to English gerunds. In modern English, infinitives need to be specifically active (to envy) or passive (to be envied)---German infinitives and English gerunds don't normally bother to distinguish. They leave it to the reader/hearer to figure it out.

You can get a sense of the German grammar by translating _Du bist zu beneiden_ as _You are for envying_. The latter is not a possible English sentence, but it gives the flavor of the German grammatical form.


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## Gernot Back

exgerman said:


> In modern English, infinitives need to be specifically active (to envy) or passive (to be envied)---German infinitives and English gerunds don't normally bother to distinguish. They leave it to the reader/hearer to figure it out.


< ... > _Zu beneiden (sein)_ is an alternative way to express a modal auxiliary in combination with the infinitive passive, while _ zu beneiden (haben)_ is an alternative for a modal auxiliary in combination with the infinitive active. 
http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Verb/Genera/Konkurrenz.html#Anchor-sein-35882
http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Verb/VollHilfModal/haben-sein.html
The distinction between active and passive voice is as clear as it can be in German!

By the way "ein zu Beneidender" is called Gerundivum, not _gerund _and I think grammarians of  English are much sloppier with their terminology in that respect.



			
				en.wikipedia.org said:
			
		

> The term _gerundive_ is occasionally used in descriptions of English grammar, to denote the present participle used adjectivally or adverbially.


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerundive#Gerundives_in_other_languages


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## exgerman

Gernot Back said:


> < ... > _Zu beneiden (sein)_ is an alternative way to express a modal auxiliary in combination with the infinitive passive, while _ zu beneiden (haben)_ is an alternative for a modal auxiliary in combination with the infinitive active.
> http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Verb/Genera/Konkurrenz.html#Anchor-sein-35882
> http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Verb/VollHilfModal/haben-sein.html
> The distinction between active and passive voice is as clear as it can be in German!



Yes but the form of the infinitive is the same in German. In English it isn't.  Of course in some constructions the German infinitive is interpreted as active and in some as passive. That's what I said in plain English.



Gernot Back said:


> By the way "ein zu Beneidender" is called Gerundivum, not _gerund _and I think grammarians of  English are much sloppier with their terminology in that respect.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerundive#Gerundives_in_other_languages



A gerund and a gerundive are very different things. I am perfectly aware of the difference.  English has a verbal noun that is normally called gerund---it has nothing to do with gerundives. There was no gerundive in this thread until you created one as a straw man just now.


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## berndf

exgerman said:


> There was no gerundive in this thread until you created one as a straw man just now.


Well, it has been mentioned before. Both forms, _zu_+infinitive and _zu_+declined present participle, jointly form the functional equivalent of the gerundive. The former in adverbial and predicative uses and the latter attributive uses. It makes sense to analyse the two forms together. See also this thread I linked to already earlier (# 16 above).


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## das brennende Gespenst

exgerman said:


> German infinitives correspond both to English infinitives and to English gerunds. In modern English, infinitives need to be specifically active (to envy) or passive (to be envied)---German infinitives and English gerunds don't normally bother to distinguish. They leave it to the reader/hearer to figure it out.




I don't think it's fair to say that English infinitives are specified as active or passive whereas German infinitives don't distinguish this. In both English and German, the hearer/listener generally figures it out from what precedes the infinitive. I'll give examples, where X represents the subject and Y represents a verbal infinitive.

English:
(1) *X is to Y *[ACTIVE] = "X must/should/ought to Y"
(2) *X is hard/easy/good to Y* [PASSIVE] = "X is (not) easily Y-ed", "It's hard to Y X"
(3) *X is ready to Y* [ACTIVE/PASSIVE] "I'm ready to eat" [Active] = "It's ready to eat" [Passive]
(4) *X can Y *[ACTIVE]

German:
(1) *X ist zu Y* [PASSIVE] = "X is to be Y-ed", "X muss/sollte ge-Y-t werden"
(2) *X ist schwer/leicht/gut zu Y* [PASSIVE] = "Es ist schwer/leicht/gut, X zu Y"
(3) *X ist bereit zu Y* [ACTIVE]
(3) *X kann Y* [ACTIVE]


As far as I'm aware, these four patterns (which I have chosen as examples only) hold true virtually all the time. It doesn't matter what verb you put in place of the Y. There are, of course, variations in use, but it seems to be more down to the meaning of the adjective or surrounding phrase than the meaning of the infinitive itself. "Ready" (3) seems to be a funny one. I'm not sure if it's so flexible in German. I feel like it's always active in German but I'm probably wrong. And there's the informal English phrase "X is good to Y" (fairly restricted, as in "I'm good to go").

In any case, adjectives complicate it a bit, but this thread is really about pattern (1). In German, as far as I can tell *X ist zu Y* always means _X should be Y-ed_ and in English, _*X is to Y*_ always means _X should Y_.


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