German questions

[Jon]

I'm sorry about opening a whole new topic just for another german related question (maybe this could become a major topic where to ask about german grammar ).

I'm using Memrise and I came into these sentences :

WE REALLY HATED HIKING ----> wir haben ES sehr gehasst zu wandern

my question is why ES is needed? Instinctively I would have translated it wir haben sehr gehasst zu wander

MY MUM ENJOYS SINGING BUT SHE LIKES GARDENING MORE ----> meine Mutter geniesst ES zu singen aber sie mag Gartenarbeit lieber

again...why ES? If I want to say " I like to eat" that would be Ich mag es zu essen instead of Ich mag zu essen, then?

Thank you

[reineke]

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[tarvos]

I'm sorry about opening a whole new topic just for another german related question (maybe this could become a major topic where to ask about german grammar ).

I'm using Memrise and I came into these sentences :

WE REALLY HATED HIKING ----> wir haben ES sehr gehasst zu wandern

my question is why ES is needed? Instinctively I would have translated it wir haben sehr gehasst zu wander

MY MUM ENJOYS SINGING BUT SHE LIKES GARDENING MORE ----> meine Mutter geniesst ES zu singen aber sie mag Gartenarbeit lieber

again...why ES? If I want to say " I like to eat" that would be Ich mag es zu essen instead of Ich mag zu essen, then?

Thank you

You need the "es" as a dummy pronoun in German, the same way you need it in French (where you use y and en in the same type of situations; you have to say j'en ai trois in French, even when you know what you have three things of) and Dutch. In those languages, you cannot just drop parts of speech like you would in Italian. When you use "hassen" you need to hate something, and you can't substitute it with a verbal construction without also putting in the dummy.

[Jon]

I've never asked "why" when studying foreign languages and I still did OK.

I ask "why" all the time and that is one of the reasons why I can do more than OK most of the time.

Thank you for the link, very interesting!

[reineke]

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[eginhard]

It gets even more tricky:
Ich hasse es, zu wandern. but
Ich versuche, zu wandern.

[tarvos]

Why? Versuchen is not a transitive verb. You can't use a noun after that verb. You need another verb. Whereas "hassen" can take a noun.

[Josquin]

Sorry, but "versuchen" definitely is a transitive verb, e.g. when used as a synonyme for "probieren":

"Versuch doch mal den Kuchen!" ("Why don't you try the cake?")

[reineke]

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