35

I put this into Google Translate, and it came up with,

Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch.

Is this correct? I doubt so. When I look up wenig I find that it's an adjective, not an adverb, and obviously the sentence requires an adverb.

What's the best way to say, "I speak a little German"?

äüö
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ktm5124
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    German adjectives can generally act as adverbs, but wenig is actually more often an adverb: http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/wenig_kaum_unbedeutend_selten – Carsten S Aug 29 '17 at 07:09
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    Related: https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/32832/why-is-it-gut-not-gutes-in-ich-spreche-sehr-gut-englisch – Carsten S Aug 29 '17 at 07:13
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    It won't get you voted into some poets or literature society but most people will understand what you mean if you say that. – mathreadler Aug 29 '17 at 21:24
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    How is it obvious that an adverb is required? If the word is modifying "Deutsch", then it's an adjective. And the great thing about trying to tell someone that you don't know much German is that if your statement isn't grammatically correct, that in itself is communicating the sentiment in question. – Acccumulation Aug 30 '17 at 18:08
  • @Acccumulation That assumption of mine was wrong. I learned recently that "ein wenig" is actually a determiner. – ktm5124 Aug 30 '17 at 19:09
  • How could nobody post https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P22gPwGuLa0 yet? – Agent_L Aug 31 '17 at 10:06
  • It may be right that wenig is best not considered an adverb here, but the thing is, the German language does not really care what your grammar calls the parts of the sentence, and adverbs work in that position. – Carsten S Aug 31 '17 at 15:46
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    To say 'My German is limited to "Bitte ein bier"'. My German friend corrected me, saying 'bite zwei bier' is better'. – TimSparrow Aug 31 '17 at 16:57
  • From the title "I speak a little bit German" is not even correct English. Either "I speak a little German" or "I speak a little bit of German" will work – PiedPiper Jun 06 '19 at 11:16
  • I think you meant "I speak a little bit of German" as this is correct English and gives the answer you quote in Google Translate. On the other hand when I type "I speak a little bit German" it gives "Ich spreche ein bisschen deutsch", which suggests that it has understood "a little bit German" as an adverbial phrase rather like saying someone sounds "a little bit German". So it makes a big difference exactly what you type. As in any language, leaving out one very small word can make a big difference. – David Robinson Jun 06 '19 at 15:04
  • Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch. – EsmaeelE Dec 26 '23 at 18:10

9 Answers9

42

There exist three ways of how to use the adjective wenig in German:

  1. As an attribute of a noun: A small amount of something

    In diesem Glas ist wenig Wasser.
    In this glass is little water.

    Ich sehe wenige Autos.
    I see few cars.

  2. As an adverbial (which is not an adverb!): To an insignificant extent

    Das kümmert mich wenig.
    I care little (about that).

    Deine Äußerung war wenig hilfreich.
    Your statement was not very helpful.

  3. In combination with »ein« (»ein wenig«): Synonym of »etwas«

    Ich habe noch ein wenig Milch. Möchtest du sie?
    Ich habe noch etwas Milch. Möchtest du sie?
    I still have some milk. Do you want it?

    Ich fühle mich ein wenig unwohl hier.
    Ich fühle mich etwas unwohl hier.
    I feel somewhat uncomfortable here.

But etwas is not an adjective, and it also isn't an adverb. It is a pronoun, to be more precise: It is an indefinite pronoun (»Indefinitpronomen« in German). But when used in the meaning where you can replace it with ein wenig, you also can say that it is a Gradpartikel or a Steigerungspartikel (which are synonyms). I don't know the official English terms, but i would translate this as grade particles or enhancing particles.

Examples of words, that belong to this part of speech are:

Ich habe etwas Geld. Dein neues Auto ist recht groß. Ich habe dich sehr gern. Du machst mich überaus glücklich. Dr. Steiner war ungemein freundlich. Das ist weitaus mehr als ich erwartet habe. Hast du dich schon einigermaßen erholt?

I have some money. Your new car is quite big. I like you very much. You make me very happy. Dr. Steiner was extremely friendly. That is far more than I expected. Have you already recovered to some degree?

Technically "ein wenig" does not belong to this group. Technically it consists of two words, the first is an indefinite article, and the second is an adjective, but together both words function like one grade particle, and therefore you can use them in this manner.

Also the word bisschen, when combined with ein behaves this way.

In the following sentences the bold marked parts of speech are synonyms:

Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch.
Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.
Ich spreche etwas Deutsch.

I speak a little bit of German.
I speak a little German.
I speak some German.

Hubert Schölnast
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    Shouldn't it rather be "Ich sehe wenige Autos", as Auto is a countable noun? – moooeeeep Aug 29 '17 at 11:57
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    @moooeeeep: Nach meinem Sprachgefühl sind beide Varianten möglich, aber es kann durchaus sein, dass nur regional begrenzt der Fall ist, daher habe ich das entsprechende Wort korrigiert. – Hubert Schölnast Aug 29 '17 at 12:28
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    Joined the community to upvote this answer – Vincent Aug 29 '17 at 14:58
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    Gradpartikel sounds like it ought to mean ‘particle of degree’; many parts of speech in different languages are traditionally called “X of degree” in English, though I don’t know if that’s also true of Gradpartikeln in German. Steigerungspartikel must surely be a ‘particle of comparison’ (with Steigerung having here its linguistic meaning related to forming comparatives and other comparisons). Also, I cannot see how wenig in 2 is different from an adverb. It is certainly an adverb in the English translation, as it modifies the verb, and I don’t see how it wouldn’t be in German, too. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 29 '17 at 16:38
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    @JanusBahsJacquet: Look here about the difference between adjective, adverb (both are word classes) and adverbial (a grammatical function) (in German): Sind adverbielle Adjektive Adjektive oder Adverbien? – Hubert Schölnast Aug 29 '17 at 17:18
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    Oh, I see what you mean now—you were talking about functionality, rather than word class. To make that clear, I suggest you modify “as adverbial” (which gets parsed as “as an adverbial” in English, being interpreted as a noun indicating a word class) to “adverbially”. You might even modify 1 to “attributively” as well to make a better parallel. You can always add that adverbial usage does not necessarily make the word an adverb. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 29 '17 at 17:29
  • You make an interesting point about ein wenig being an adverbial, not an adverb proper. I might post a follow-up question on Linguistics.SE asking about the grammatical difference between the English phrase "a little" and the German phrase "ein wenig". – ktm5124 Aug 29 '17 at 19:31
  • @JanusBahsJacquet: Names for grammatical functions are nouns, like all names. "Adverbial" is such a name and therefore a noun. But "adverbially" is an adverb, and as an adverb (i.e. as not being a noun) it can't be a name of anything. Saying "as an adverbially" would be grammatically wrong! Also "As an attributively" would be wrong! "Attribute" is a noun, and a name, and this is how used this words. – Hubert Schölnast Aug 29 '17 at 20:38
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    @HubertSchölnast Syntactic functionality is not usually expressed in nominal form in English, but descriptively, i.e., as adjectives or adverbs. Adverbial is not commonly used as a noun in English grammar (despite the Wikipedia article); rather we usually say that something functions adverbially or as an adverbial phrase, using an adverbial or adjectival descriptor instead. When I suggested changing “as adverbial” to “adverbially”, I meant precisely that—not that it should be changed to “as an adverbially”, which is indeed ungrammatical. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 29 '17 at 20:51
  • In other words, I meant that a more common and idiomatic-sounding way to write your first two points would be something along the lines of “1) Attributively, modifying a noun phrase” and “2) Adverbially (which does not necessarily make it an adverb itself)”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 29 '17 at 20:53
  • @JanusBahsJacquet: Do you really say "This pronoun is used subjectively" instead of "This pronoun is used as the subject"? Or "objectively" instead of "as an object"? Both, subject and object are nouns that are used as names of grammatical functions; predicate is another one. And attribute and adverbial are just two more names of grammatical functions. – Hubert Schölnast Sep 01 '17 at 17:52
  • No, subjectively and objectively are not that common, though they are sometimes used; “used as subject/object” or “used in subject/object position” are more common. That may be due to the much more common meanings of that particular pair of adjectives/adverbs, I’m not sure. But we definitely never say that an NP used attributively is used “as an adjectival” either, nor that one used verbally is used “as a verbal”. Certain functions go against the trend, but most tend to be expressed descriptively, not nominally (and not as a nominal either). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 01 '17 at 18:07
  • … And both adverb(ial(ly)) and attribut(e/ive(ly)) are instances of functions that do not go against the trend. The noun attribute itself is not uncommon as such, but it is more common to speak of an adjective functioning attributively than as an attribute. The noun adverbial is very uncommon. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 01 '17 at 18:12
  • @Hubert Schölnast: I don't agree with your definition of 'Gradpartikel'. When used before a noun, words and phrases that in other contexts can be 'Gradpartikeln' are 'determiners' or 'quantifiers', they take the place and the function of articles in these instances. Saying this I'm referring to 'etwas Milch', 'ein wenig Milch', 'etwas Deutsch', Duden grammar 2006 calls them 'Artikelwörter'. But there are more: 'jede Menge Geld', 'viel Zeit', 'genug Leute', 'mehrere Personen' and many others. (Duden. Die Grammatik 2006, pp. 316 - 337). (I hope I understood you correctly.) – Ralf Joerres May 14 '18 at 13:03
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Your proposal is absolutely correct and hard to improve.

Alternatives:

  • Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.
  • Ich spreche etwas Deutsch.

Or with self-criticism:

  • Mein Deutsch ist nicht besonders [gut].
  • Mein Deutsch lässt zu wünschen übrig.
  • Mein Deutsch ist eher schlecht.
Pollitzer
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14

Colloquially, it is also widespread to "can" a language:

"Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch" or "Ich kann ein wenig Deutsch". "I can a little German" (let the boy out of the Weck jar, now!).

This is not 100% grammatically correct, but sounds less weird than it would in English: We have "können" (to be able/allowed to, "to can") as a proper verb. It is used very similar to "know" in the english language to refer to a skill ("I know a little german", "I know karate", "I know fixing it").

rackandboneman
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5

As @Pollitzer already pointed out, the Google-translated version is (surprisingly) one of the most common ways to say "I speak a little german". And while there are many more valid alternatives pointed out in other answers, they all fail to mention the important part: The reason for this variant to be correct.

Even though "ein wenig" can indeed be used as an adverb, this would be used like "Ich gehe ein wenig spazieren"/"I'm taking a (little) walk". In your case though you do in fact not need an adverb, but a way to describe the amount of German you speak, i.e. an adjective determiner (as per ktm5124's comment). I might be overlooking something in English, but even there I'd wager the "little" relates to the language, not the speaking.

Lukas R
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  • I believe that "a little" is actually a determiner, per jlawler's comment to my Linguistics post: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/25815/does-a-little-en-correspond-to-the-same-grammatical-class-as-ein-wenig-de. – ktm5124 Aug 30 '17 at 18:15
  • If https://latin.stackexchange.com/a/4352/1593 is to be believed, then the Google-translated version being one of the most common ways to say something is hardly surprising. – user Aug 31 '17 at 11:48
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    @ktm5124 thanks for the correction, I edited the answer accordingly. This way it should be even clearer, how "wenig" relates to the language. – Lukas R Aug 31 '17 at 15:38
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    @MichaelKjörling yes indeed, I had already expected something like that to be the reason. Google has somewhat improved in the last years. – Lukas R Aug 31 '17 at 15:40
3

Two good answers already, but to add one detail ...

If you only know a little German, you'll only be able to express this using what you know! In particular, if you're not that fluent, you need to lower expectations, so the fewer and simpler words the better really.

So Ich kann or Ich spreche, maybe nur if you've learnt it (to stress that it's only a little), and ein bißchen Deutsch is probably the way to go (since bißchen is the first word I learned for "little").

Will Crawford
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0

Einfach gesagt:

Ich kann etwas Deutsch...

xxavier
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The best answer to convey what you are trying to say is: Ich spreche nur etwas Deutsch (I speak only a little German) or ich kann etwas Deutsch sprechen (I can speak a little German)

user38568
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There are already many good and some interesting suggestions and the especially the grammar part was already very well covered.

What I'm missing in all of the answers that you received so far are 2 aspects I find quite important regarding your final question:

What's the best way to say, "I speak a little German"?

These aspects are

  • The context
  • And (maybe even more important) what you want to emphasize

Some samples:

Let's think of a job interview. They require some German, but you just started learning and want to point out that you're willing to improve. In this case I'd suggest something like ...

Ich spreche noch nicht sehr gut Deutsch.

... or ...

Mein Deutsch ist noch nicht sehr gut.

Here the noch emphasizes that you are in the process of progressing, which may be important in some situations.

Let's look at quite the opposite: You want to avoid that someone continues talking advanced German to you. In this case I'd suggest something like...

Mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht

... or ...

Ich kann nur sehr wenig Deutsch

... or some other variants that were already suggested.

Of course there are many more contexts we can think of - probably so many that it won't make sense trying to cover all of them.

yaccob
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-1

Simple : "Ich spreche etwas Deutsch." which means i speak little bit of deutsch..

You can use this line as :

"Ich spreche hindi, english und etwas Deutsch.."

which means "i speak hindi, english and little bit of german.."

Eller
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ggsab
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