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  5. "She sees her boss as a fathe…

"She sees her boss as a father."

Translation:Sie sieht ihren Chef als Vater.

January 29, 2018



How come no indefinite article? Also if it were there would it be accusative einen? As it is like saying her boss.. As she sees her father.. Could be wrong thinking that


There is no need for the indefinite article in this sentence in German. The sentence sounds perfect without, whereas, if you omit it in English, the sentence sounds odd. So there is a good reason to replace the literal translation ("....als einen Vater") with a more common variant.


Als einen Vater ist doch auch ok.


I wrote: "Sie sieht ihren Chef wie einen Vater", and it was marked wrong. Is it because I used "wie" instead of "als", or because I shouldn't have used the article for "Vater" (but if it is ok to use "wie", then omitting the article seems strange), or is it because the declension of "ein" (einen Vater) is not right? I saw someone commented that "wie einen Vater" should be correct, is it true? Thanks!


Why ihren chef and not ihr chef?


der Chef is singular masculine, and the ending possessive pronoun is matched to the word it refers to, in gender, number and also in the case, which is accusative here (like most direct objects), while "ihr" would be nominative case, singular masculine. A correct sentence (not a direct translation, though), would be "Ihr Chef ist wie ein Vater für sie" (nominative case here, as the boss is the subject).


why cant we say 'ihren chef wie ein vater'


It's a question of the case. "Wie ein Vater" would be attributed to the subject, as it's nominative case, like in "She plays the piano like a god", but here it's unlikely that "she" is like a father, but her boss is to her, so it's accusative case: "wie einen Vater".


then why was my answer marked wrong, "Sie sieht ihren Chef wie einen Vater"?

another question: Duolingo marks me wrong often when i omit an indefinite article in the German translation, even though there is no indefinite article in the English version. Does the German language insert & omit articles at random? i've been unable to find any rules or patterns to help me navigate this problem.


In English you could say "as father" and we would accept that knowing "as a father" was meant. Duo needs to think about the English speaker here, too.

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