grammar

[Andi Scharfstein]

Hi,

> If I can remember some tourist Deutsch from decades ago,
> we might have soemthing like this:

>  English               German

>  in the case of        im Falle

Yes.

>  in case foo happens   ???

"Wenn Foo passiert" / "Im Falle (von) Foo"

>  when foo happens      (wenn?)

Yes. "Wenn Foo passiert". Indeed, these two are used interchangeably.

>  if foo happens        wenn

No, that's "Falls Foo passiert". Like I wrote, "if" translates to
"falls", "when" to "wenn".

> I don't know if that's right, but if it is, perhaps to a German
> speaker "if" has too many connotations of "when", so they feel
> that using "in case" would make it clearer (but it confuses me).

I don't think so... I think it's more important to note the
correlation between "if" and "in case". You see, basically our "if" is
just a shorter form of our "in case", which I think should account for
this phenomenon.

> But I suspect that it is English speakers who get confused over
> wenn (myself particularly), not the reverse.

Nope, it's just a "when". No ambiguities.

> How would you handle, in German, "in case" as a precaution, e.g.

>  In case you break a fan belt, take a spare.

Hmm... somehow, that sentence does not evoke the same feeling as
yesterday's example. To be perfectly honest, I think I would
understand that one as a precautionary message.
So, I don't think we would say it like that, although that is merely
my opinion and other Germans might feel otherwise. I would use a
construct like "Take a spare fan belt so it won't matter if you break
one".

> Would that also use "im Falle"? If so, that might point to
> the overlapping concepts that cause some of the confusion
> in translation.

It might use "im Falle", if it wasn't a precaution.

> Let's take that a bit further.

>  In case you break a fan belt, take a spare.

Anyway, with the intended meaning: "Falls dein Gebläseriemen
kaputtgeht, nimm einen Ersatz(riemen)." 

>  If you break a fan belt, you will have a big problem.

"Falls dein Gebläseriemen kaputtgeht, wirst du ein großes Problem
haben." would be verbatim, but I would rather say "Wenn dein
Gebläseriemen kaputtgeht, hast du ein großes Problem."

>  When you break a fan belt, replace it with the spare.

"Wenn dein Gebläseriemen kaputtgeht, ersetze ihn mit einem
Ersatz(riemen)."

>  In the case of breaking a fan belt, you would be pleased have a spare.

"Im Falle eines Kaputtgehens eines Gebläseriemens wärst du erfreut,
einen Ersatz(riemen) zu haben."

> Does German differentiate between these sentences, using different words?

You decide... I also recommend, for reference, http://dict.leo.org
Very good online translator.

> When Grog wakes up he might have a strong opinion on this.

Grog?

-- 
Bye: Andi S.                          mailto:nullpointer at myrealbox.com