Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 May 19

= May 19 =

Translation from German
Hello, how would you say "Wir sind eine Haltestelle zu früh ausgestiegen"? — I tried to find an appropriate translation in probably every German-English dictionary I could find, but it was useless. However, this is probably not exactly an "exotic" example, is it? I hope you can help me along a bit here. Best--Erdic (talk) 23:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * "We're one stop too early to get off." (I assume you want the English, and that the last verb was meant to be auszusteigen.)
 * Assume nothing. "We got off one stop too early" is the literal translation. Verbs of motion use sein to form the perfect. The literal translation is perfectly correct English, but it may be more idiomatic to say something like "We got off one stop before we should have" or "We got off one stop earlier than we meant to" or "We got off one stop earlier than we were supposed to" or indeed "We got off at the stop before the stop we should have got off at." Valiantis (talk) 00:42, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Just noticed the question mark! If it's intended to be a question the above suggestions would all need to begin "Did we get off..." Valiantis (talk) 00:48, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * (after EC) Thank you both. First of all, the question mark was supposed to refer to my question itself – my mistake, sorry! I've already suspected that the literal and – as you state – grammatically correct translation is however not very idiomatic. Though I do wonder about the exact reason for that... Follow-up question: What if we left out the "stop" and simply wrote "We got off too early" instead – would that be unidiomatic, too?--Erdic (talk) 00:59, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The "one stop too early" construction is fine in British English, see "Investors Getting Off the Bus One Stop Too Early", "The Girl on the Train: got off one stop too early" and "It almost ended an hour later when I got off one stop too early in Exeter and missed my connection to the midlands!". Alansplodge (talk) 01:16, 20 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I missed the ? too. But what is "stiegen"?  And while I accept (and should have thought of) the perfect in sein, How would one then say, "We are one stop too early to get off?" With a different verb?  A different construction? μηδείς (talk) 01:41, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * (aus)steigen - stieg (aus) - (aus)gestiegen is, afaik, a so called "Germanic strong verb". "stiegen" is one of the inflected forms (stieg, stiegst, stiegen, stiegt) in the past tense. A specifically German difficulty is the changing position of the "aus" in various forms. Your sentence might be translated to "Wir sind (noch) eine Haltestelle zu früh um auszusteigen." or "... zum Aussteigen." The first variant employs the infinitive and the second a nominalisation of the verb. OK? Purgy (talk) 07:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Literally, it would actually be "Wir sind [noch] eine Haltestelle zu früh zum Aussteigen / um auszusteigen". But I guess it would be more natural to simply leave out the part after "früh" → "Wir sind [noch] eine Haltestelle zu früh" = "We're [still] one stop too early"? Would you say that – also with the "still"? And what about American English?--Erdic (talk) 14:59, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Purgy, I am still confusing myself by thinking this is an infinitive, rather than a past participle. Erdic, everything you have said in English is quite grammatical.  Which wording you might actually use would depend on the context, whether in writing or in real-life speech.  The use of still would imply that the person addressed had almost gotten off two stops too early, and is doing it again, one stop too early.  But that's not a hard and fast rule.  You might also say still just for emphasis, even if they hadn't already tried to get off. μηδείς (talk) 15:15, 20 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Is it possible that the phrase is used idiomatically to refer to coitus interruptus? I cite the similar English (originally Naval slang) expression used in the Portsmouth region, "to get out at Fratton" (which is the railway station immediately preceding Portsmouth & Southsea). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.60.183 (talk) 17:19, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Never heard of it and neither has Google as far as I can tell. Still, double-entendres have to start somewhere... Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 20 May 2017 (UTC)


 * "Wir sind eine Haltestelle zu früh ausgestiegen" = "We have exit one [stop/station] [before/too early]." Meaning is, using any public transport like bus, tram or train, we left the a stop too early. To arrive our destination we needed to stay in until next stop. Haltestelle is a bus stop or train stop which is no station, it can be seen as an unattended (railway) station. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 16:56, 25 May 2017 (UTC)