Spanish Translation
La forma del edificio se asemeja a una flor.
I don’t understand the usage of nach here. Could someone explain it?
The subject of the sentence is “das Gebäude”, not “Form”, so “The building resembles a flower”. “der Form nach” is just a supplement, meaning something like “via its shape” or “by its shape”. Note that “der Form” is in dative case because of this.
There’s an alternative construction: “Von seiner Form her”, which basically means the same.
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One meaning of “nach” can be “according to”.
If you want to build a sentence using “according to”, you would more commonly use “zufolge” or “laut” (or another of their many, many synonyms) rather than “nach”. For example:
- Laut meinem Vater … (“According to my father …”)
- Du hast im Test nur 20 von 100 Punkten. Demzufolge hast du nicht bestanden. (“You scored only 20 out of 100 points in the test. Accordingly (According to that), you didn’t pass.”)
But you can also use “nach” to express “according to”.
- "Meiner Meinung nach … " (“According to my opinion …” or, more commonly, “In my opinion …”)
- “Ich bin nicht zu spät.” - “Doch, nach meiner Uhr ist es bereits 5 Minuten nach 12 Uhr.”
- “I’m not late.” - “Yes, you are. According to my watch, it’s already 5 minutes past 12 o’clock.”
- Nach heutigen Maßstäben … (“By today’s standards …”)
The given German sentence uses the same concept. “Der Form nach …”. “According to the form …”
All of that aside, I think the given German sentence sounds very stilted and is phrased very awkwardly. I would’ve definitely translated that differently if I were the translator. But to answer your question, “nach” in this sentence/context simply means “according to”.
The English equivalent to this stilted phrasing would be something like “According to its form, the building is reminiscent of a flower.”
A perfectly valid sentence would be:
- “Der Form nach zu urteilen muss das Gebäude vor mehr als 500 Jahren gebaut worden sein.”
- “Judging by its form, the building must have been built more than 500 years ago.”