One of the sentences in German 3 says: “wollen die Anderen heute Nachmittag mit zum Strand kommen”. However, everything that i’ve been taught in german says that this is incorrect. I would normally type this sentence as: “wollen die Anderen heute Nachmittag zum Strand mitkommen”. Could someone tell me if I’m wrong and why?
Great question!
I am a non-native, but have lived in Germany for over 30 years and have a university degree in the language, as well as a translator’s diploma, so I will throw in my two cents anyway.
Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn:
it’s perfectly OK to say it that way in spoken German, is what my ear is telling me.
Whether it is OK to write it that way is another matter, so I will tag a few native speakers of German whose names come to mind right now and we will see what they have to say!
@redux2, @GabrieleCramer-Knebe, @Olaf.Rabbachin:
What do you think of the question quoted?
I can think of other questions like this, so I think it is a natural construction, such as, “kommt er morgen mit aufs Fest?”, is a type of question I am prety sure I have heard several times before.
Both ways are perfectly valid (written and spoken)! The first is probably more common (“mit zum Strand kommen”), but that’s - once more - my personal perception and there are so many regional differences with respect to how something is being said, so I’m a bit wary.
That probably is as close as you can get to passing as a native!
That’s actually a good one! Your expression is definitely much more common than the more elaborate “wird er morgen zum/aufs Fest mitkommen”. But again, both would be perfectly fine.
As a rule of thumb I’d add that ze Germans (me included) generally tend to separate separable words over keeping them together when both usages would be possible.
Thank you very much Olaf! I have a long way until I learn colloquial speech, so I’ll sound a bit formal for the time being