Isn’t this how German fairy tales begin? English translations seem to prefer “Once upon a time.”
I’ve more often seen “Es war einmal…” at the start of a story, but I could see this being used also.
1 Like
Out of memory, I cannot remember any fairy tale in German beginning like that, but I could just misremember or not have read/heard the ones who do.
The normal context I would imagine for this sentence is a parent/grandparent/teacher telling a child something very important for them to hear. I guess it would fit in the fairy tale context as in that they are also used as morale stories for children in many cases.
Though as Lernen_und_Fahren said, the classic stereotypical fairy tale beginning would be something like “Es war einmal vor langer, langer Zeit”.
1 Like