For the german work (der) Regen, I came across this example sentence: Am Wochenende erwartet uns ein Mix aus Regen und Sonnenschein. I interpret this sentence as “On the weekend we are expecting a mix of rain and sunshein.”
I would expect the sentence to read “Am Wochenende erwarten wir uns ein Mix aus Regen und Sonnenschein.” But is erwarten here reflexive? A dictionary lookup does not show it as being reflexive.
The use of ‘erwartet’ as second person plural or third person singular is throwing me off with the reflexive pronoun ‘uns.’
Can someone help me understand the grammar of the sentence please? Is there a subject that is not shown but implied?
Thank you Ress. So, der Mix is the subject? Is “der Mix” expecting … ?
If the meaning of the sentence is “We are expecting …” I’m not sure what is happening here. I would think ‘wir’ is needed somewhere. Is this an idiomatic expression?
Yes, “der Mix” is the subject. I would say, “ein Mix aus Regen und Sonnenschein” is the subject. As we know, the subject must be on the 1st place in a sentence. The 2nd place is for the verb (erwartet).
Let me try to translate “On the weekend we are expecting a mix of rain and sunshein”.
Am Wochenende warten wir auf einen Mix aus Regen und Sonnenschein.
But then you are making my point: Wir warten auf … implies Wir is the subject and the verb is warten (erwarten) – the infinitive form. In the original sentence, the verb is erwartet, third person singular (er, es, sie) or second person plural (ihr). So, with erwartet it seems the mix of rain and sun is expecting on/this weekend. That just does not make sense to me.
Something most be idiomatic that is stretching grammar here or German is a different way of implying expecting. I just don’t know what it is.
It may be something like “I like it” = “Es gefällt mir,” here the subject is Es but is translated to “I like it,” where “I” am the subject.
It seems you do not understand the cases.
In English there is only 1 possible way to say “I love him”. I will use “he” because it is more evident, not because I love any man
In German there are 2 possible ways to say the same:
Ich liebe ihn.
Ihn liebe ich.
That’s an example of cases in English, which still has “cases” just for pronouns.
There are also 2 ways to say the same:
Es gefällt mir
Mir gefällt es.
“Am Wochenende erwartet uns ein Mix aus Regen und Sonnenschein”.
I would say the closer meaning would be like:
On the weekend a mix of rain and sunshine is expected in a place where we are (or where we will be).
DJD_9, yes, indeed, you hit the nail right on the head. Thank you.
Two days ago I came to the same conclusion that ‘Ein Mix’ is the subject. In the process (reviewing German grammar) I realized my error.
Because the subject is not in ‘position 1’ we have inverted word order (something + verb + subject + …). I thought the subject should follow the verb. In this case it is ‘uns,’ and I thought it was the reflexive pronoun of ‘wir’ and ‘wir’ is somehow implied. I figured the verb was wrong and should be ‘erwarten.’ But I was all confused, hence the post.
I found out a pronoun object can come between the verb and the subject – in inverted word order (something + verb + pronoun object + subject + … The pronun object in this case is ‘uns’ and thus can come before the subject ein Mix.
Germans, according to my grammar book prefer the pronoun object to be before the subject (inverted word order). It sounds better! I lack the German ear and thus look at it grammatically! The german ear would hear ‘erwartet’ and expect a third person singular noun but hearing ‘uns’ knows ‘us’ and then hears the subject ‘ein Mix’ to understand the sentence as ‘At the weekend, a mix of rain and sunshine awaits us.’ I also see ‘ein Mix’ is nominative, which is another indicator that it is the subject.
So, I learned a lot from a very simple sentence. Thank you again for your reply.
All this is discussed here:
Cochran’s German Review Grammar, page 152 - postion of unemphatic pronoun objects
German Grammar, 5th ed, page 249 - variations in the position of the noun object.
One more thing, it is possible to write the sentence as ‘Am Wochenende erwartet ein Mix aus Regen und Sonnenschein uns’ but, again, does not have the natural flow a German ear would expect.
