Warum haben Sie uns nicht früher davon erzählt? Wir wären in der Lage gewesen, etwas dagegen zu tun.

Sentence Discussions German
#1
English Translation

Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier? We’d have been able to do something about it.

The English translation is imprecise.

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#2

Is it? I don’t see where.

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#3

I also think the translation is good.

Maybe you were expecting “against” but “do something against it” is not good English, is it?
Furthermore “We’d have been in a position to do …” is more similar to the German constructon, but is it good English?
In both cases I would like to have native speakers comment on that.

#4

Also, without looking that sentence up on tatoeba, I bet the german sentence is a translation of the english one, as it usually is, not the other way around.
So “in der Lage sein” und “etwas dagegen zu tun” are what the german translator came up with for “be able to” and “do something about it”.
I wouldn’t translate it any differently. If you absolutely want something else, maybe you could say “etwas daran zu ändern”. But it is fine as it is.

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#5

Interesting point!
From English to German i would simply translate:
“Wir hätten etwas dagegen tun können.”

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#6

I agree that it’s probably English to German. So, as a native English speaker, I say the English is fine! The “in der Lage sein” part is interesting, and would be quite correct and normal in English, to say “in a position to” do something.

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