English Translation
Where can I speak with you?
Would “reden” also be approproate?
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Yes.
It’s like “speak” and “talk” in English.
If you want to take some liberty, you could also say: “Wo kann ich mich mit dir unterhalten?”, meaning “Where can I converse with you?” (the verb form of “Where can I have a conversation with you?” which itself would be “Wo kann ich eine Unterhaltung mit dir führen?”). Although the English “converse” sounds a bit stilted and formal in my opinion, the German “sich unterhalten” is very common.
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English Translation
Where can I speak with you?
I’m not 100% certain about this, but for me “sprechen” feels most natural in this specific structure, if the context is that the speaker has something they want to tell the other person but cannot do it here in public, while with “sich unterhalten” feels more appropriate if we just schedule a place to talk in general.
As in “sprechen” being more one-sided and “sich unterhalten” from both sides. Although I don’t want to say that if we use “sprechen” it’s only one side all the time, but it has somewhat of the nuance subconciously in some cases.
With “reden” I would probably rather use the structure “Wo können wir reden?”, though it feels again like the first scenario of something I cannot discuss in public.
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This would also work:
“Wo können wir uns (in Ruhe) unterhalten? Ich möchte dir gerne etwas sagen, aber nicht hier.”
Translation: “Where can we talk? I want to tell you something but not here.”
This would have the same meaning as these:
- Wo kann ich mit dir sprechen?
- Wo können wir reden?
But “unterhalten” also fits in other contexts. Imagine Mommy and Daddy are having a conversation, and the young child suddenly interrupts because it wants something. The parents would say, “Mommy and Daddy are having a conversation, please don’t interrupt.” Translated:
“Wir unterhalten uns gerade. Stör uns bitte nicht.”
You wouldn’t say “Wir sprechen/reden gerade.”
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True. Maybe it was more about the “mit dir unterhalten” rather than “wir uns unterhalten” which tripped me up.
Thank you very much for the addition!
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