C1.2 · 31 of 34
Schreiben: Ein Forumsbeitrag
Lesson · 3 rules · about 5 min
Say what you think without claiming more than you know.
- 1Three strengths of guess
- 2sollen and wollen carry hearsay
- 3Disagree with the point, not the person
Why this matters
Hedging changes how a German reader takes you more than almost anything else. Say etwas ist so and you have claimed it; say etwas dürfte so sein and you have said the same thing while showing you know the difference between what you can prove and what you suspect. Write 900 to 1800 characters. The correction looks at whether each claim carries the right strength, whether what you heard somewhere is marked as such, and whether a disagreement stays a disagreement rather than becoming an attack.
Rule · 1 of 3
Three strengths of guess
dürfte is a confident estimate, könnte an open possibility, müsste a conclusion you are fairly sure of. They are the subjective modals, and they all point at your confidence rather than at an obligation or an ability.
- Der Effekt dürfte bei jüngeren Beschäftigten größer sein. The effect is probably greater among younger employees.
- Das könnte allerdings auch an der Branche liegen. That could, however, also be down to the sector.
Hedging everything is its own mistake: a text with no firm sentence in it reads as having nothing to say.
Quick check
Which is the most confident guess?
Rule · 2 of 3
sollen and wollen carry hearsay
sollen reports what others say about someone; wollen reports what someone claims about themselves. Both let you pass a claim on without adopting it, which is exactly what a forum post needs.
- Studien sollen gezeigt haben, dass die Produktivität steigt. Studies are said to have shown that productivity rises.
- Der Konzern will die Quote verdoppelt haben. The company claims to have doubled the rate.
Quick check
Er den Bericht nie gelesen haben.
Memory trick · 3 of 3
Disagree with the point, not the person
A softened opening lets you contradict hard. Da wäre ich vorsichtig, Ich würde eher sagen, Das sehe ich anders. The disagreement itself can then be direct, and nobody reads it as an attack.
- Da würde ich widersprechen: Die Zahlen zeigen eher das Gegenteil. I would disagree there: the figures show rather the opposite.
- Meiner Erfahrung nach ist das sehr unterschiedlich. In my experience that varies a great deal.
Quick check
Which disagrees without attacking?
Listen
Play it, then pick what you heard.
Spot the mistake
Which one is right?
Spot the mistake
Which one is right?
Spot the mistake
Which one is right?
Spot the mistake
Which one is right?
Cheat sheet
What to take with you
- Three strengths of guess
- sollen and wollen carry hearsay
- Disagree with the point, not the person
How to remember it
- dürfte confident, könnte open, müsste concluded.
- sollen for what others say, wollen for what someone claims of themselves.
- Mark your own experience as experience: meiner Erfahrung nach.
- Soften the frame, not the point.
Writing a reasoned post into an existing discussion is a C1 writing task, and the register most people actually write German in.
Write a post for an online discussion about whether working from home has been good for younger employees. Take a position, but hedge the claims you cannot prove, respond to something another poster might have said, and keep the tone of a forum rather than an essay.
- hedge an uncertain claim with dürfte, könnte or scheint zu, and mark certainty where you have it
- report what others say with sollen (or wollen for a self-claim) for hearsay
- disagree without attacking, using a softened Konjunktiv II
- keep it readable: a forum post, not a seminar paper
- mark your own experience as experience rather than as evidence
0 of 900 characters — keep going 0 words
2 Copy the correction request
This carries your own text. Paste it into your AI assistant and it will correct what you wrote, then give you a score and a short list of fixes.
3 Open your assistant
Copy the request first (one step back), then paste it into your assistant.
4 Bring the correction back
Paste the whole report. The SCORE= line is read
automatically, and the fixes are saved as your next things to work on.
Report a problem
Exercise
Schreiben: Ein Forumsbeitrag · C1.2
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