German language q.: "Heute nacht" means "last night", or "tonight"?

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

The German language, which I studied for eight years and thought I knew, continues to befuddle me. I thought heute Nacht was equivalent to tonight, or this evening, but in a particular text I see it used when last night was clearly meant. When does heute Nacht mean last night, and when does it mean tonight?

Is it a mistranslation?

Or is it an obsolete usage? FTR the book I’m reading is the German translation of Lord Of The Rings, and the language is deliberately slightly archaic, just as in the English original.

[Maus_Magill]

Just a WAG, as my German is getting rusty from neglect:

Perhaps it means “last night” in the sense that the day begins at sundown. Like Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve are the evenings of Christmas and New Years, but occur the night before.

[ouryL]

@Spectre of Pithecanthropus

The German language, which I studied for eight years and thought I knew, continues to befuddle me. I thought heute Nacht was equivalent to tonight, or this evening, but in a particular text I see it used when last night was clearly meant. When does heute Nacht mean last night, and when does it mean tonight?

Is it a mistranslation?

Or is it an obsolete usage? FTR the book I’m reading is the German translation of Lord Of The Rings, and the language is deliberately slightly archaic, just as in the English original.

Don’t know. I thought gestern Abend or gestern Nacht was for last night. Perhaps heute Nacht can refer to early morning, thus last night, too?

[Tikster]

heute= today, so I’d go out on a limb and say it means tonight.

-Tikster

[akennett]

LEO translates “heute Nacht” as tonight.

For “last night,” they give “gestern Abend.”

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

I should clarify; I do know what the expression is supposed to mean. For it to mean “last night” in standard everyday German is hard to imagine without its having been explicitly drilled into me by those who taught me the language–and that, of course, didn’t happen.

The scene in question is where Frodo, Sam, and Pippin are still travelling through the Shire on their way to Crickhollow. It’s the day after they met the Elves in the forest, they’re having breakfast, and Pippin is saying that the bread left behind by the Elves tastes almost as good as it did “last night”.

[eagle]

@Spectre of Pithecanthropus

The German language, which I studied for eight years and thought I knew, continues to befuddle me. I thought heute Nacht was equivalent to tonight, or this evening, but in a particular text I see it used when last night was clearly meant. When does heute Nacht mean last night, and when does it mean tonight?

Well I’m German, so I think I’m qualified to answer this one:

“Heute” means “today”, “Nacht” means “night”, but “Heute Nacht” means either “last night” (the night from yesterday to today) or “tonight” (the night from today to tomorrow) depending on context.

Examples:

“Heute Nacht habe ich nicht gut geschlafen.” means “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Heute Nacht möchte ich mit dir tanzen gehen.” means “Tonight I’d like to go dancing with you.”

And to make things even more complicated:

“Gestern Nacht habe ich nicht gut geschlafen.” also means “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
I never thought about this before you asked, I just use the correct words, but to make some rules, I would say:

1. “Heute Nacht” with past tenses means “last night”.
2. “Heute Nacht” with future tenses means “tonight”.
3. If you want to say something about last night, that happened before midnight you will more likely use “Gestern Nacht” and if it happened after midnight “Heute Nacht”, but in either case both are correct.
4. If you want to say something about tonight, you will usually use “Heute Abend” (this evening). Using “Heute Nacht” expresses that it happens either close to midnight (after 10 pm), after midnight or lasts a long period of time in the night, usually including midnight.

If you have more questions unresolved, just ask.

BTW, I speak German my whole life (33 yrs) and it still befuddles me.

cu

[Wallenstein]

It’s literary German and does indeed mean “last night”, although I believe it’s a fairly old fashioned usage (as you suspected).

For example…

“Ich habe heute nacht von Ihnen geträumt. Sie waren sehr vernünftig.” - Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner von Bertolt Brecht.

and…

“Was doch heut Nacht ein Sturm gewesen,
bis erst der Morgen sich geregt!
Wie hat der ungebetne Besen
Kamin und Gassen ausgefegt!”

• Begegnung von Eduard Mörike (1804-1875)

Hope that helps!

[eagle]

@e-logic

It’s literary German and does indeed mean “last night”, although I believe it’s a fairly old fashioned usage (as you suspected).

No, it is not old-fashioned. But there may be differences between Norddeutsch (Northern German) and Süddeutsch (Southern German). I’m from Süddeutschland (as have been Brecht and Mörike) and here the usage is as described in my other post.

cu

[Acsenray]

@eagle

No, it is not old-fashioned. But there may be differences between Norddeutsch (Northern German) and Süddeutsch (Southern German). I’m from Süddeutschland (as have been Brecht and Mörike) and here the usage is as described in my other post.

cu

I thought the terms for the two main branches of dialects of German were Hochdeutsch (“High German” in English) for the southern dialects and Plattdeutsch (“Low German”) for the northern dialects. Are those terms now obsolete?

[eagle]

@acsenray

I thought the terms for the two main branches of dialects of German were Hochdeutsch (“High German” in English) for the southern dialects and Plattdeutsch (“Low German”) for the northern dialects. Are those terms now obsolete?

Well, this is just wrong and it is actually much more complicated:

“Hochdeutsch” is the formally educated version of German, that is used in Newspapers, TV, Books, and so on. But nobody actually speaks “hochdeutsch”, almost everybody speaks in a mix up between their dialect and “hochdeutsch”, though depending level of education it’s closer to dialect or closer to “hochdeutsch”.

“Norddeutsch” is a collective word for many northern dialects, examples: “Schlesisch”, “Platt” (plattdeutsch), “Berlinerisch” (so called “Berliner Schnauze”), and many more.

“Süddeutsch” is also a collective word for many southern dialects, examples: “Schwäbisch”, “Badisch”, “Bayrisch”, “Hessisch”, “Fränkisch”, and again many more. Sometimes also Austrian and Swiss German are counted as southern dialects.

Dialects in Germany can be a very local matter. I grew up at the border between Baden-Württemberg and Bayern and everybody here talks “Schwäbisch” (Swabian), but the dialect in the village where I grew up is different from the dialect used where I went to Gymnasium (sort of high school) and it is different from the dialect at the place where I live now. But these three places build a triangle with sides of about 30 km, so they are very close to each other. There even is a place no more than 20 km from here, where people talk a version of Swabian that is hard to understand for me, if not sometimes impossible.

However, there are lots of things common between the different southern dialects and also there are things common between the different northern dialects. But there are less things common between northern and southern dialects, therefore this high level distinction into two major versions of dialects makes actually sense.

cu

[eagle]

I forgot to include: Actually Northern German is often closer to “Hochdeutsch” than Southern German. The People of Hamburg (far north in Germany) think of themselves to talk the best German, meaning closest to “hochdeutsch”. And I have to admit, there is a grain of truth behind this statement.

cu

[ShibbOleth]

@eagle

I forgot to include: Actually Northern German is often closer to “Hochdeutsch” than Southern German. The People of Hamburg (far north in Germany) think of themselves to talk the best German, meaning closest to “hochdeutsch”. And I have to admit, there is a grain of truth behind this statement.

cu

I always thought it was the people from Hannover.

Welcome to the boards, Eagle! I have a sort of question floating over in Cafe Society that you might be able to help with, if you care to take a look.

[mkl12]

The word “Hochdeutsch” has more than one meaning. It’s explained pretty well in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German

[eagle]

@mkl12

The word “Hochdeutsch” has more than one meaning. It’s explained pretty well in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German

Well, it’s different if you look into the German Wikipedia Hochdeutsch and what is stated there is much more accurate than the information in the English Wikipedia.

Let’s just review a few sentences:

High German (in German, Hochdeutsch) is any of several German dialects spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Luxembourg (as well as in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace), Italy, Poland, and Romania (Transylvania) and in some areas of former colonial settlement, e.g. in Namibia).

Well, actually “hochdeutsch” is not spoken in these areas, but dialects are. “Hochdeutsch” is an artificially constructed version of standard German in writing and speech. It is recommended to be used in all these areas to prevent babylonic diversion of dialects. “Hochdeutsch” relates to German as a “presciptive English grammar” relates to “English Grammar”.

“High” refers to the mountainous areas of southern Germany and the Alps, as opposed to “Low German” spoken along the flat sea coasts of the north.

Well yes, this is correct in some sense, but it is very rarely used in this meaning. However “Niederdeutsch” und “Mitteldeutsch” are often used in this sense to refer to German geography.

The German term Hochdeutsch is also used loosely, but not by linguists, to mean standard written German as opposed to dialect, because the standard language developed out of High rather than Low German.

Well, this is wrong for most parts. “Hochdeutsch” is not used loosely to refer to standard written German, but instead, this will be the only meaning of the word for many Germans. The German word for “standard written language” is “Hochsprache”, hence “Hochdeutsch”.

However, it is correct that “Hochdeutsch” was developed from southern German, but if you ever heard an southern dialect and compare it to “Hochdeutsch”, you would not believe it. Mainly “Hochdeutsch” developed in official writing and art, not in spoken language. It is only now in modern times with radio and TV, that “Hochdeutsch” becomes to a widely used spoken language.

This were only my comments to the first three sentences of the Wikipedia article, I did not read any further.

cu

[mkl12]

@eagle

Well, it’s different if you look into the German Wikipedia Hochdeutsch and what is stated there is much more accurate than the information in the English Wikipedia.

The German wikipedia article also says that one of the meanings of the word “hochdeutsch” is the southern dialects, as opposed to “niederdeutsch”.

@wikipedia

In der zweiten und ursprünglichen Bedeutung stehen sich “Hochdeutsch” und “Niederdeutsch” als landschaftlich-räumliche Begriffe gegenüber.

Note that this is the original meaning. So acsenray wasn’t wrong (well he confused plattdeutsch and niederdeutsch, but you also corrected his usage of hochdeutsch).

@eagle

The German word for “standard written language” is “Hochsprache”, hence “Hochdeutsch”.

No, it’s the other way round. “Hochdeutsch” has become a synonym for “standard German” because standard German dveloped out of "Hochdeutsch. Hence “Hochsprache”. (I’m not sure about this last “hence”. The “Hochsprache” may have developed independently of the word “Hochdeutsch”. But "Hochdeutsch certainly did not develop from “Hochsprache”)

@eagle

“Hochdeutsch” is not used loosely to refer to standard written German, but instead, this will be the only meaning of the word for many Germans.

I know that it is the most common meaning, but that does not mean that the other meaning is wrong. In fact, it is the more technical meaning. In linguistics, “Standarddeutsch” is preferred for the fearst meaning.
Cite:

@www.schriftdeutsch.de

Hochdeutsch
1. Gegenteil von Niederdeutsch; 2. Standarddeutsch, Schriftdeutsch, dt. Gemeinsprache. In seiner geographischen Bedeutung (1) meint das Hochdeutsche die dt. Dialekte südlich der sog. Benrather Linie, während das Niederdeutsche bzw. Plattdeutsche die Dialekte nördlich dieser Sprachgrenze umfaßt, die die Zweite dt. Lautverschiebung nicht mitgemacht haben und daher dem Niederländischen und Englischen näher stehen als das Hochdeutsche. In seiner soziolektalen Bedeutung (2) wird Hochdeutsch von Laien oft wertend als das ‘bessere Deutsch’ verwendet. Um sowohl diese wertende wie auch die geographische Bedeutung zu vermeiden, wird hier die Bezeichnung Standarddeutsch bevorzugt.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@eagle

No, it is not old-fashioned. But there may be differences between Norddeutsch (Northern German) and Süddeutsch (Southern German). I’m from Süddeutschland (as have been Brecht and Mörike) and here the usage is as described in my other post.

cu

I’ve heard that Standard German learned by foreigners is pretty much the prevailing dialect around Hannover, and that’s Northern, so maybe that explains why I never heard it. I lived around there for a year, too, and still didn’t hear it.

[mkl12]

@mkl12

fearst

:smack:

first!

There are probably tons of other mistakes in my post, but I just couldn’t leave this one.

[eagle]

@ShibbOleth

I always thought it was the people from Hannover.

Truth is: It is an anecdote, that is true for Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, and a few other cities. However, except perhaps for Berlin, Cologne and Munich, almost every large city in Germany has during the last fifty years developed away from dialect towards “Hochdeutsch”, so it is true for many cities today. But the people of Hamburg are especially proud of their traditional connectedness to the whole world, they are assumed to be stiff and overly correct, so there is an additional funny sidenote if you tell this anecdote using Hamburg.

cu

[eagle]

Well I am not a linguist, and it is quite common, that science uses words differently from normal people. I think less than 1% of Germans are linguists, and what I said is true for the other 99%, and your nitpicking is actually of no interest to me, so I will quit it here, and only comment one of your objections:

@mkl12

No, it’s the other way round. “Hochdeutsch” has become a synonym for “standard German” because standard German dveloped out of "Hochdeutsch. Hence “Hochsprache”. (I’m not sure about this last “hence”. The “Hochsprache” may have developed independently of the word “Hochdeutsch”. But "Hochdeutsch certainly did not develop from “Hochsprache”)

Yes, there is the older meaning of “hochdeutsch” refering to geography. From that a standard language developed, and from there (and the different meanings of “hoch”) the word “Hochsprache” got its meaning as “Standardsprache”.

Then another (newer) meaning for “hochdeutsch” developed, meaning adhering to “deutsche Hochsprache”. This is the meaning of this words, as it is commonly used today by almost everyone (except linguists). The older meaning of “hochdeutsch” has been replaced by the word “süddeutsch” regarding Germany.

If you look into the history of the English Wikipedia Article about High German, you will see it was more accurate before Doric Loon made major changes.

cu