"The German that I write"

Question

Based on what I learned from the answers I got to my previous question, I wrote on a German site

Mein schreibendes Deutsch

to translate into English the sentence in the title:

The German that I write.

But a native speaker, not knowing what I am trying to find out, corrected my original sentence into

Mein schriftliches Deutsch.

But this actually means

My written [recorded] German.

So it's not the same as

The German that I write.

Having said all that, is my original sentence, Mein schreibendes Deutsch, correct, especially in light of the grammatical knowledge that I got from the answers to my previous question?

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 26 '17 at 12:18

5

"Mein schreibendes Deutsch" translates to "My German that writes". Not what you are looking for.

"Mein schriftliches Deutsch" actually can be translated with "The German that I write".. in the sense of "The German that I am able to write".

If you want to translate "The German that I write right now" instead, the closest possibility using an attribute is "Mein geschriebenes Deutsch". It both means the same as "Mein schriftliches Deutsch" (general capability) as well as "The German that I wrote a few moments ago".

However, to truly capture the present-ness of the English translation.. just translate literally: "Das Deutsch, das ich (gerade) schreibe".

answered Jul 26 '17 at 12:18

Annatar

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But Mein geschriebenes Deutsch actually means "My written German," right? – ΥΣΕΡ26328 Jul 26 '17 at 12:22
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Yes. But from a philosophical point of view, the action of writing a word is already in the past as soon as you begin writing the next one, so you can use it in pretty much the same context as "the German that I write right now". If you want to focus a bit more on what you are about to write in the next moments, you can say "Mein zu schreibendes Deutsch" ("The German that I have to write now" ("have to" ~> "I tasked myself to")). – Annatar Jul 26 '17 at 12:56

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 26 '17 at 12:27

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Mein schriftliches Deutsch

is indeed the way to go, it refers to the current quality of your German if you write it.

If you want to address your recorded German you could say

Mein [bisher] geschriebenes Deutsch

»Mein schreibendes Deutsch« is wrong since a language does not write itself.

edited Jul 26 '17 at 12:27

ΥΣΕΡ26328

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answered Jul 26 '17 at 12:15

Pollitzer

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"The German that I write"

2 Answers2