bayswater

On 1/22/2019 at 9:29 AM, linguaholic said:

Well. The more common form is "lass" instead of lasse. But you could use "lasse" as an imperative..but then again..I don't see a good way how you could make a nice little sentence with "Lasse" where it would get a double meaning across (both the name (Lasse) and lasse as a verb)

Maybe someone else would be more creative, though. 

Could you perhaps construct a sentence using "lasse"? Then I will try to find a way to make it a play-on-words later. Thanks for all your help!

On 1/15/2019 at 11:04 AM, linguaholic said:

hmm, I can't think of anything right now, unfortunately. In fact, you could maybe just say "Lasse es krachen" which means like "let it bang"..but strictly speaking it would need to be "Lass" instead of "Lasse". So it is grammatically not 100% perfect. But people would definitely get the joke. 

So, just to be clear - is there no way to construct a correct sentence in German using "lasse"?

Thanks again! Much appreciated! 

8 hours ago, linguaholic said:

oh I see.

Well, if you say "Lasse, die Kanone", then the only way this can be interpreted in German is that "Lasse" is the actual name of that person. It doesn't make sense to say "lasse die Kanone", as it does semantically not make any sense. 

The problem is that "lassen" is a "Modal Verb" in this case and therefore it demands a verb. It demands the use of a verb (n infinitive form at the end of the phrase. Like in english "to let, to allow". There would need to be a verb after Kanone to make it work (grammatically) AND as it is an imperative, the verb form would need to be "lass" instead of lasse.". Something like "Lass die Kanone fallen", "Lass die Kanone Schaden anrichten", "Lass die Kanone Unheil anrichten", "Lass die Kanone wieder Feuer spucken"....I hope you get the idea. 

Hope that helps.

Best,

Marcel

Hi Marcel, thank you very much! It makes sense to me, what you're writing. The thing is, that I need it to be "lasse" (it's a play on words in the story). Is there any way it could be "lasse" - for example if it doesn't have to be as an imperative? Is it possible to construct something similar - but then using "lasse"? I know it's tricky :-)

Thanks again!

Hi, thank you very much for your reply! It's a bit tricky to explain - but here goes :-)

It's for a children's story, and the commander of a wwii tank shouts to the loader in the tank, that he should load the cannon with ammo. The tricky bit is, that I need the word "Lasse" (name in Danish) to be part of the command given. That's why I had hopes for 'Lasse die kanone', because "lasse" could mean both "load" and also be his name. But I guess it doesn't work.

I don't know if it makes sense to you at all. But perhaps you can come up with a different example where "lasse" (as a german verb) is included in the command, load the cannon?

Hello,

I know that it is probably not the most correct grammar - but can you use the following translation: 'Lasse die kanone' to mean 'load the cannon'?