English Translation
Without knowing the truth, I couldn’t make a decision.
When does one use “kennen” and “wissen”?
Would “ohne die Wahrheit zu wissen,…” also be correct?
I don’t think so. At least it sounds strange to me. In my opinion as a native speaker, that sentence requires “kennen”.
You could, however, say:
Ohne zu wissen, was die Wahrheit ist, konnte …
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Thank you for your reply. I found a nice article online that explains the different use cases.
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English Translation
Without knowing the truth, I couldn’t make a decision.
Good to know…(“kennen” sounds more natural). I find these comments indispensable for helping me further ‘figure out’ this beautiful German language.
What I was pondering was a different word used here. Treffen. I know it means “to meet” and has other meanings. I pasted the sentence in Google Translate (which now claims to be more precise after the latest Gemini upgrade to 3.0). It came in as in here. I replaced ‘treffen’ with ‘machen’ and the exact same translation. But when I switched it to English to German, G.T. used treffen.
Off note: A sentence I saw “Ich bitte dich” in Clozemaster was translated as “I beg you.” I’m assuming from a native German speaker. It confused ChatGPT. It gave other meanings but not with beg. When I inputed it into Google Translate, it gave me “I beg you.”
English Translation
Without knowing the truth, I couldn’t make a decision.
Looking at my German dictionary’s sample sentences I saw one with Entscheidung.
Ich habe die richtige Entscheidung getroffen. (I made the right decision). Google Translate said the same thing. So yes, I’m seeing some sample sentences with “made”. The majority are using sentences meaning “met or meet”.
“treffen” is a bit unexpected, coming from Engilsh. In English, we “make” decisions, but in German, literally, we “meet” decisions (wir “treffen” eine Entscheidung). Similarly, in English, you can “hit” a target that you’re aiming at, but in German you “meet” it. For example: “Ich habe ins Schwarze getroffen!” (I hit the bullseye!). In action movies in German, you’ll sometimes hear “Ich bin getroffen!” (I’m hit!), or we also have the verb “danebentreffen” (to miss, where “daneben” = “next to”). I did a whole episode on “treffen” a couple of years ago, as there’s quite a lot to talk about.
That being said, if you said “Ich mache hier die Entscheidungen” in an attempt to say “I make the decisions here”, that’s wrong, but it’s close enough that you will likely be understood. It should be “Ich treffe hier die Entscheidungen” (literally “I meet the decisions here”, but never mind the literal translation).
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I’ll check out your YouTube video!
Here’s a couple sample sentences from my dictionary:
Der Tod meiner Grosseltern hat mich schwer getroffen. (The death of my grandparents hit me hard.)
Ein verheerendes Erdbeben hat die Landeshauptstadt getroffen. (A devastating earthquake hit the state capital.)
Nice YouTube vid, Lernen_und_Fahren. (I subscribed)
Just now I saw a Clozemaster sentence… “Sie trafen das Ziel.” I knew immediately it translated to “They hit the target.”
Thanks for the lesson!