A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
hier– with “it,” “that,” or “those,” whichever fits the context, along with the
preposition as appropriate. For example:
Hiermit schließen wir diese Übung.
With this we end this exercise.
Hierzu brauchen wir viel Geld.
To do that we need a lot of money.
[or:] For this purpose we will need a lot of money.
[or:] To achieve that we need a lot of money.
Unit: 12: Da- compounds
5. Da– Clauses
Some da– compounds are used before a clause beginning with daß or a dependent
infinitive construction with zu. These are anticipatory da– words:
Mein Vater hat nichts dagegen, daß wir oft ins Kino gehen.
My father has nothing against the fact that we go to the movies often.
[or:] My father has nothing against our going to the movies often.
Wir denken oft daran, nach Deutschland zu reisen.
We often think of travelling to Germany.
In both of these sentences, the da– compound serves the grammatical function of
allowing the entire dependent clause to serve as the object of the preposition within
the da– compound. In other words, in the first sentence, you are learning to
recognize that the entire daß clause is the object of the preposition gegen. Likewise,
in the second sentence, the dar– prefix serves like a signpost so that you will see
the neighboring infinitive clause as the object of the preposition an. Observe how
this same relationship gets expressed quite literally in the English translations.
Be sure to remember that the preposition captured inside of a da– compound still
communicates its normal meaning within its local clause. In the first example
above, note how the meaning of gegen is still crucial to understanding the first
clause, as part of the idiomatic phrase nichts gegen etwas haben. In the second
example, note how an is still functioning in its capacity of determining which
meaning of denken is in use here (see dictionary for denken + an).