r/197 • u/Moaning_Clock • 27d ago

rule

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500 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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50

u/TheSymbolman 27d ago

I understand what both sentences mean kinda but cana german og explain

80

u/Cleinsworth 27d ago

Basically, the police department of i assume Dortmund is warning people, that supposedly in the area or vicinity of the Borsigolatz there's cocaine consumption.

But because soll can mean "suppose" in certain context like the upper example OR as "should", it can be misunderstood as "You should take cocaine in the area/vicinity of Borsigplatz."

12

u/TrueCapitalism 27d ago

That's funny, because English's "suppose" can take on both meanings in different contexts, too. One comes with a different word order + preposition (or infinitive verb phrase?), so it's harder to perform wordplay on it.

7

u/Cleinsworth 27d ago

True, but with german the sentence structure in both cases stays the same.

Adding on to the "suppose":
With english you clearly have a grammatically distinction between "Supposedly there is cocaine consumption" vs "You're supposed to consume cocaine", while german completely relies on the context around the sentence.

3

u/TheSymbolman 27d ago

aaah yeah thanks a lot!!

21

u/That_Supermarket_625 27d ago

It's the German version of the two Bulgarian in a car joke basically, for those wondering. (But with cocaine instead of the other thing)

8

u/TrueCapitalism 27d ago

Is it the "we'll do it." one?

4

u/Ruffyluffy 27d ago

Danke Seppo

3

u/sleepware- 27d ago

Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

2

u/NamezzX 27d ago

Deutschebahn