{"id":111337,"date":"2025-07-03T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/?p=111337"},"modified":"2025-07-03T09:24:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:24:30","slug":"20250703-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20250703-01\/?p=111337","title":{"rendered":"German language cheat sheet: On changing quantities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somehow, I must have missed out on learning phrases of changes in quantity in German, so I need a cheat sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Trend<\/th>\nQuantity<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Low<\/th>\nHigh<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Decreasing<\/th>\nnur noch<\/span>
\n“only…left”<\/td>\n		immer noch<\/span>
\n“still”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Increasing<\/th>\nerst<\/span>
\n“so far”<\/td>\n		schon<\/span>
\n“already”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Stable\/Unknown<\/th>\nnur<\/span>
\n“only”<\/td>\n		\u00a0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

(Native German speakers: Please feel free to offer corrections.)<\/p>\n

Here’s a sentence pattern for demonstration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I<\/td>\n <\/td>\nhave<\/td>\nonly<\/td>\n100<\/td>\nleft<\/td>\n=<\/td>\nIch habe<\/td>\nnur noch<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n: \u02e6\u02e8<\/td>\nI used to have more, but I’m running low.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I<\/td>\nstill<\/td>\nhave<\/td>\n <\/td>\n100<\/td>\n <\/td>\n=<\/td>\nIch habe<\/td>\nimmer noch<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n: \u02e6\u02e7<\/td>\nI used to have more, but I’m not running low yet.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I<\/td>\n <\/td>\nhave<\/td>\n <\/td>\n100<\/td>\nso far<\/td>\n=<\/td>\nIch habe<\/td>\nerst<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n: \u02e9\u02e8<\/td>\nIt’s not much, but it’s more than I had before.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I<\/td>\n <\/td>\nhave<\/td>\n <\/td>\n100<\/td>\nalready<\/td>\n=<\/td>\nIch habe<\/td>\nschon<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n: \u02e9\u02e7<\/td>\nIt’s quite a bit, and it’s more than I had before.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I<\/td>\n <\/td>\nhave<\/td>\nonly<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n <\/td>\n=<\/td>\nIch habe<\/td>\nnur<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n: \u02e9<\/td>\nIt’s not much, but that’s typical.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I<\/td>\n <\/td>\nhave<\/td>\n <\/td>\n100<\/td>\n <\/td>\n=<\/td>\nIch habe<\/td>\n <\/td>\n100<\/td>\n:<\/td>\nIt is what it is.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It’s interesting to me that the last box is empty. Neither English nor German seems to have a clear phrase pattern to indicate “I have a lot, and that’s typical.”<\/p>\n

Learning another language gives you a chance to reflect upon your own. When laid out this way, it does seem weird that the English patterns scatter the modifier words into three different positions in the sentence.<\/p>\n

Note<\/b>: These adverbs also have meanings unrelated to quantity. I’m focusing on the quantity-related meanings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How much there is, and how is it changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-111337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

How much there is, and how is it changing.<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}