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Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Cifi

Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by Cifi »

In my native language, German, it's almost exclusively this word order, "Tag und Nacht". "Nacht und Tag" sounds weird to me.

It may mean what it literally says, both during the day and at night, or can be used in a more figurative way, conveying to something like "all the time" or "non-stop", often indicating that you'd want it to happen less frequently or that it normally would be less.

On Reverso context, I found several different translations to English: https://context.reverso.net/traduccion/ ... und nacht, with "day and night" having most results, followed by "night and day".

Looking at the examples, it seemed to me that "night and day" might be more common in that latter, figurative sense, but possibly this impression is wrong.

Thus, my question is: do you use "night and day" and "day and night" interchangeably, or is there a difference in meaning?

(I'm kind of undecided in which subforum this should go. The moderators might want to move it in case my choice was wrong.)

Last edited by Cifi on Tue May 24, 2022 1:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

mathemajician
United States of America

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by mathemajician »

That is a really interesting question.

Thinking about it, in the figurative sense I would always say "night and day"; e.g. "working night and day to get this done". But it doesn't sound jarringly wrong if someone says "day and night" but rather just not how I would say it.

I just asked a friend who is from another part of the US and they would have said "day and night", and again, to them, the reverse ordering doesn't sound jarringly wrong but rather just mildly different.

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IceVajal
Germany

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by IceVajal »

I'm not a native English speaker, but I agree with mathemajician. That's what I experienced. But in this case it's not as easy to track down the origin of the way it's expressed. Unlike soda vs pop vs coke.

In German I only know 'Tag und Nacht', never heard / read it differently.

N :de: - B2 :us: - Beginner :ru: (Busuu: B1) - :netherlands:

eI000yo

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by eI000yo »

Cifi wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 9:36 am

(I'm kind of undecided in which subforum this should go. The moderators might want to move it in case my choice was wrong.)

I moved your topic to
Forums > Languages > Ich spreche Deutsch > Ich lerne ... > Englisch

But a link to here is in the old place.
Your question is about learning English. Of course is also useful if you are learning German.
As always, you can use English, your target language, or German, the language of these subforums, it's up to you.

And welcome to our forums [mention]mathemajician[/mention], btw.

Best regards!

Cifi

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by Cifi »

eI000yo wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 3:50 pm

I moved your topic to
Forums > Languages > Ich spreche Deutsch > Ich lerne ... > Englisch

Thanks, Emilio. I thought that "Ich spreche Deutsch > Ich lerne ... > Englisch" would be preferably for topics written in German. If it is ok to ask in English there (which I mainly did because this way hopefully more people can understand and answer my question), I'll put it there next time.

We don't seem to have a perfect place for asking questions about a language in that language, do we?

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

DeGitt
United States of America

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by DeGitt »

Great question. As an American born speaker (east coast) these two expressions are not interchangeable. “Day and Night” would be use to express a long time, I.e. “I have been working day and night.” But if I want to express extreme difference I would say “The difference between this and that is night and day”. I only use “night and day” in that kind of context. May be different in other regions.

homeskillet359
United States of America

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by homeskillet359 »

DeGitt wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 2:38 pm

Great question. As an American born speaker (east coast) these two expressions are not interchangeable. “Day and Night” would be use to express a long time, I.e. “I have been working day and night.” But if I want to express extreme difference I would say “The difference between this and that is night and day”. I only use “night and day” in that kind of context. May be different in other regions.

Exactly this.

calzaedo
Australia

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by calzaedo »

I'm a native English speaker from Australia, and I use them both interchangeably. But I think that usually when I'm trying to be more specific I might say night and day, or if I want to exaggerate or be general, I would use day and night. But it doesn't really matter

Australian, Native English speaker, learning a bunch of random languages, including German, Greek, Norwegian, and Russian

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Corinnebelle

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by Corinnebelle »

It depends on the author, what sounds better or more creative in a sentence.

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wiederbelebt
United States of America

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by wiederbelebt »

You guys need to listen to the legendary Cole Porter's most famous song more closely:

Night and day, you are the one
only you beneath the moon and under the sun.
Whether near to me or far, it's no matter, darling,
where you are.
I think of you
night and day.
Day and night, why is it so that this longing for you
follows where ever I go?
In the roaring traffic's boom, in the silence of my lonely room,
I think of you
night and day.
Night and day,
under the hide of me , there's an oh-so-hungry yearning burning
inside of me.
and its torment won't be through
'til you let me spend my life making love to you,
day and night, night and day.

Native :us: / Proficient :de: / Meh :fr: / Gold Tree but Bad :it: / Worked Hard But Stuck :ru: / Dabbler :greece: :kr: / Bucket List :es: / Wish List :iceland:

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MoniqueMaRie
Germany

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by MoniqueMaRie »

wiederbelebt wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2024 5:57 am

You guys need to listen to the legendary Cole Porter's most famous song more closely:

When I hear this song I only have the ad for a well-known German coffee brand in my ears

Native :de: / using :uk: / learning :fr: :cn: :it: / once learnt Image / trying to understand at least a bit :poland:

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John Little
Brazil

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by John Little »

wiederbelebt wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2024 5:57 am

You guys need to listen to the legendary Cole Porter's most famous song more closely:

Night and day, you are the one
only you beneath the moon and under the sun.
.

I was about to mention the same song. :)

And I think people are unconsciously influenced by bits of culture around them. So if you were a Cole Porter fan, you'd be inclined to say night and day.

John661162

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IceVajal
Germany

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by IceVajal »

In my case it was Joe Jackson's album Night And Day....
But I also remember a song from the Turkish band Pentagram / Mezarkabul which is called Gündüc Gece - which I was told is Day And Night...

N :de: - B2 :us: - Beginner :ru: (Busuu: B1) - :netherlands:

wiederbelebt
United States of America

Re: Tag und Nacht - Night and day? Day and night?

Post by wiederbelebt »

This post might be of interest: viewtopic.php?t=26231-apposite-opposites

Native :us: / Proficient :de: / Meh :fr: / Gold Tree but Bad :it: / Worked Hard But Stuck :ru: / Dabbler :greece: :kr: / Bucket List :es: / Wish List :iceland:

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