Mastodawn

scy May 26

@ravi Native speaker here. Your first sentence is lacking the "dass", it should be

> Ich bin der Meinung, dass man keine Photos von Kindern posten soll.

(btw, most German speakers will spell it "Fotos" these days.)

"sollte" instead of "soll" works too and is probably more formally correct, but in everyday speech people will use either and not think about the difference.

Buridan's procrastinator ⁂May 26

@scy @ravi

I'd say that "soll" is correct as well, though the meaning would be more categorical than "sollte". It's perfectly grammatical to use an indicative form there, IMO.

(remark: *"sollten" doesn't really exist as an infinitive.)

@quincy @scy @ravi shall vs should

@jens Which one is more appropriate in the sentence? Do both work here but mean different things?

> Ich bin der Meinung, dass man keine Fotos von Kindern posten soll/sollte.

@quincy @scy

@ravi @quincy @scy Depends on how strongly you want to state your opinion, no?

@jens I am trying to learn the difference between the two forms, which means I cannot answer your question. @quincy @scy

@ravi @quincy @scy well, "soll" means "shall", "sollte" means "should".

One shall not take pictures of kids is definitely more strongly worded than when one should not.

Buridan's procrastinator ⁂May 26

@jens @ravi @scy

Also, the original sentence would work equally well with "sollte" instead of "soll" (with the same difference in meaning).

The "dass" doesn't really make a difference, it doesn't change the form or demand a conjunctive.

@jens @ravi @quincy @scy "Shall" and "will" are for most if not all purposes the same now. "Shall" sounds a bit archaic/formal to most people, though there are some dialects where "I/we shall" but "you will".

I was absolutely not aware that there was a semantic distinction between "soll" and "sollte". As far as I knew, they are just different forms of the same verb. Interesting to learn.

@kauer @jens @quincy @scy "sollten" is konjunktiv II of "sollen".

@ravi @jens @quincy @scy Yes - different forms of the same verb, no?

Buridan's procrastinator ⁂May 26

@kauer @ravi @jens @scy yes

@kauer What do you mean by "semantic distinction"? @jens @quincy @scy

@ravi @kauer @quincy @scy Konjunktiv II is less "concrete" than Konjunktiv I. See also "irrealis", e.g. "if I had"

In this case, "should" is more speculative than "shall"; "it'd be good if" rather than "it's expected that".

@jens @ravi @quincy @scy Oh, OK, I see what you mean now. Yes. I thought you were ascribing literally different meanings.

@ravi @jens @quincy @scy A difference in meaning (beyond mere tense).

So "gehen" and "stehen" have a semantic difference, but "gehen" and "geht" (or "stehen" and "steht") do not, given the same context of course.

@kauer @jens @quincy @scy sollte- is konjunktiv II of sollen and not a different verb.

@quincy @scy

Danke sehr für deine Antwort.

Can you let me know the difference in the meaning of "soll" vs "sollte"?

And yeah, I know "sollten" is not an infinitive form of any verb, but I wrote that to avoid writing "konjunktiv II" of "sollen" everytime 😅

@scy Thanks for pointing out the mistakes. I have corrected them now :)

> "sollte" instead of "soll" works too and is probably more formally correct, but in everyday speech people will use either and not think about the difference.

Ohh, is that so? I am always confused between the two ("sollen" vs "sollten"). I think "sollten" is used when we want to say something ought to be a certain way, but it is not in our hands, right?

scy May 26

@ravi Yeah, I was about to say that, there is a slight difference in meaning.

Going with my gut, without looking up exact grammatical rules, I'd interpret "dass man keine Fotos posten soll" as "people should not do that", but with "sollte" as "people should not do that, but they do".

Like, for me, "sollte" implies that the desired state isn't the case at the moment. Whether that's because it's not in our hands, as you say, or because people simply don't comply or care, is not implied I think.

@scy Vielen Dank!

@ravi Word order changes too.

"Ich bin der Meinung, dass man keine Fotos von Kindern posten soll."

"Ich bin der Meinung, man sollte keine Fotos von Kindern posten."

Honestly not sure why "sollte" in the second sentence there feels right and "soll" doesn't.