German Questions

[sjintje]

"in excess of" the normal treatment costs

acccording to leo

http://dict.leo.org/ende/index_en.html# ... wSingle=on

[eginhard]

Wir kommen deshalb mit unseren Angeboten kaum noch hinterher.

Would I be right to think of this as "not able to meet the demand/need to do something"?

It's rather being "barely able to do it", otherwise it would be "wir kommen nicht (mehr) hinterher mit..."

Does this sentence work:

Wegen seiner Arbeitslosigkeit kann er mit den Rechnungen kaum noch hinterher kommen.
(Because of his joblessness, he can hardly pay the bills)

The modal is tautological here, you should just say "Er kommt mit den Rechnungen kaum noch hinterher". You could leave it in if you use a normal verb: "Er kann die Rechnungen kaum noch bezahlen."

[Soclydeza]

Hey guys, ich habe noch eine Frage für euch:

Die Mitarbeiter des Gemeinsamen Terrorismusabwehrzentrums gingen hochprofessionell und erfahren an die Sache heran.

I understand this to mean that they were professional and experienced in the matter. First of all, is that correct?

Second, is there a fixed expression involved in this, z.B.: gehen an die Sache heran?

[Hundetier]

First: yes, but I would rather say "they worked highly professional and experienced on this case", not only "they were ..."

Second: an etwas herangehen - to approach sth.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Hey guys, ich habe noch eine Frage für euch:

Die Mitarbeiter des Gemeinsamen Terrorismusabwehrzentrums gingen hochprofessionell und erfahren an die Sache heran.

I understand this to mean that they were professional and experienced in the matter. First of all, is that correct?

Second, is there a fixed expression involved in this, z.B.: gehen an die Sache heran?

first, no, not correct: it's not that they were professional and experienced, but that they have approached the matter professionally and (you can't say experiencedly haha, so I suppose with experience). It's the approach, not the adjective describing the workers.

second, not exaclty: an die Sache herangehen. You use the infinitive so the separable verb is together again.

[tarvos]

Vogeltje is correct. In German it's important to realise that separable verbs are commonplace, but they will always be in the compound form in the infinitive, and this is also the form you'll see in the dictionary.

Also keep in mind that the basic forms of adjectives and adverbs are the same in German. Adjectives are only undeclined in copula sentences, which is impossible with the verb gehen (so here they are adverbs and must describe the verb they come with - they can never describe the noun).

[Soclydeza]

Thanks guys! I understand the dynamics of separable verbs, that's some pretty elementary stuff, but nothing was coming up on my dictionary when I entered herangehen (now it does as approach; I must've typed something wrong the first time or maybe used a dictionary that didn't have that as an entry or something) so I thought it was just some odd usage with an die Sache heran as a fixed expression or something. The sentence makes perfect sense looking at it now, thank you!