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by mappu
1747 days ago
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Many many years ago, trying to learn German as an english speaker, i was taught Maybe (EN) -> Wehrscheinlich (DE) - Is that correct? If it's even remotely close to being correct, it definitely makes sense pedagogically to avoid the ambiguity. |
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- maybe = vielleicht
- probably = wahrscheinlich
- definitely = bestimmt
But a big part of the gap between being able to speak in a language and being able to comprehend a language is that there are often plenty of ways to communicate/translate the same concept. It's much easier for a learner to say "vielleicht" every time they mean to indicate "maybe" than it is for a learner to learn that "vielleicht", "eventuell", "möglicherweise", etc. all basically map to the concept of "maybe" (which of course conceptually maps to its own set of English words - "maybe", but also "perhaps", "possibly", etc.).
It gets even hairier because word choice is highly culture-bound and the semantics are not guaranteed to be the same as the top dictionary definition. "Could you maybe take a look at this?" is not really asking someone to "maybe" take a look, the asker definitely wants them to take a look, it's just a construction that carries a deferential tone.