Ich werde Ihnen nichts in den Weg legen.

Sentence Discussions German
#1
English Translation

I won’t stop you.

Are both of the following valid, or would the second sound strange?

Ich werde Ihnen nichts in den Weg legen (literally “I will put nothing in your way”)

Ich werde Ihnen nicht in den Weg legen (literally “I won’t put myself in your way”)

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#2

Yes the second is missing something. “legen” needs a direct object, and now that “nichts” is no longer there, it needs something else. For “myself” one would need “mich”, so:

Ich werde mich Ihnen nicht in den Weg legen.

But even though the grammar is now correct, it would still sound weird, because putting things in other people’s way is one thing, but you wouldn’t “legen” yourself in their way, because “legen” would really mean “lie down in a horizontal position”. There is “nur über meine Leiche”, but that’s a different one :smiley:

I would suggest instead:
Ich werde Ihnen nicht im Weg stehen/sein.
or simply
Ich werde Sie nicht aufhalten.
Ich werde Sie nicht davon abhalten.

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