The two parts of the sentence did not correspond well with each other. Obviously, what I wrote sounded weird in German. I wish it was easier for them to explain the ground for their feeling! I could not imagine two simple sentences can confuse everyone. When I finally exclaimed ‘ Jetzt verstehe ich‘, Anna was laughing: ‘ Ich auch‘.

Everyone told me my answers were incorrect, but no one could tell me WHY. I talked to four people and only the last one (Thanks, Anna!) could explain to me what was the problem with the answers I wrote. I wanted to clear the things up by asking some native speakers about the rules. Dann bin ich frei.Īlso, damit has several meanings in my native language. For instance, Morgen lege ich die letzte Prüfung ab. The problem for me was the fact that sometimes Präsens in German can be used to talk about future events. Hilde besucht eine Abendschule, damit sie später mehr Geld verdienen kann Hilde besucht eine Abendschule, um später mehr Geld zu verdienen Hilde besucht eine Abendschule, damit sie nächstes Jahr das Abitur machen kann Hilde besucht eine Abendschule, um nächstes Jahr das Abitur zu machen Hilde besucht eine Abendschule, damit sie mehr Geld verdient Hilde besucht eine Abendschule, damit sie nächstes Jahr das Abitur macht I thought it would be completely fine to use damit in those two sentences, because the subject is the same (sie). Um… zu… oder damit? Schreiben Sie um…zu-Sätze, wenn möglich. I had troubles to do the following grammar exercises: Here is an interesting part: The book does not give enough information to see it clearly. However, you have to understand what are the cases where you can use um…zu… only. Therefore, damit and um… zu… can be interchangeable. Nonetheless, we can use damit in this statement. As we can see from the example: Ich schalte das Licht ein, damit ich etwas sehe. The subject is the same ( ich). Thanks to the book, I found out this is not the case. Ich schalte das Licht ein, um etwas zu sehen) you shall use um…zu… ONLY. When there is one subject in a sentence (e.g. Ich schalte das Licht aus, damit du schlafen kannst) you shall use damit. The book gives the following explanation:įirst of all, somehow, many other German grammar sources state that when you see two different subjects in a sentence (e.g. The other day I was working on exercises that help to understand the usage of damit and um… zu… as well as the difference between them. This book summarizes the grammar rules you encounter on a daily basis. Several teachers I met in Germany recommended me to buy a book in the picture above. Probably, I will write another post about that in the future, but today I want to talk about German language and the ‘fun’ you can have while studying it. It was quite a long day, that left me no inspiration for writing. Yesterday I had not only my very first working experience in Germany, but my very first time working at a cafe/bakery.

Damit german grammar