0

How do you say:

Fear makes my heart beat faster, my hands cold and head ache a little.

Here are my attempts:

Angst verursacht, dass das Herz mir schneller klopft, meine Hände kälter werden und Kopf ein wenig schmerzen.
Angst macht mich das Herzklopfen, kalte Hände und ein wenig Kopfschmerzen.

Improve this question
1
  • You should indicate in what context you want to use this. Is it in written language, e.g. in an essay? Or is it in informal oral communication with your friends. That makes an enormous difference. A typical oral expression would be "Von Angst krieg ich Herzrasen". Everything using "versursachen" would be met only in written communication.
    – Christian Geiselmann
    Commented Mar 18, 2017 at 17:14

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

The sentence

Angst verursacht, dass das Herz mir schneller klopft, meine Hände kälter werden und Kopf ein wenig schmerzt.

is grammatically correct, but the second attempt isn't really fine.
I say grammatically because these sound very odd.

Terms actually used could be:

Angst lässt mein Herz rasen(/schneller schlagen), meine Hände frieren(/kalt werden) und meinen Kopf schmerzen.

OR

Angst verursacht bei mir Herzrasen, kalte Hände und Kopfschmerzen.

Improve this answer
4
  • 1
    Shouldn'T it be "mein Kopf" to be totally correct? Good suggestions though
    – Emanuel
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 11:08
  • 2
    Maybe you could add the more basic "Wenn ich Angst habe, schlägt mein Herz schneller..." I think this is what people would most likely say in spoken German.
    – Emanuel
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 11:09
  • @Emanuel you could put "mein Kopf", however the pronoun of Hände (meine) applies to Kopf aswell. Pronouns extend to everything state behind them, even in a list, UNLESS otherwise stated. As said you could as well say "mein Kopf" but the unneccessary redundancy would sound strange. As for "Wenn ich Angst habe": Its a stylistic choice I guess. I say it the way I put it, but there's of course many more ways.
    – Mark
    Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 6:13
  • 2
    I have to disagree. The pronoun only extends if the gender matches or at least if the pronoun matches... "Meine Hände/mein Kopf". If you were to extend the "meine" you'd be implying "meine Kopf" which is wrong. Since it is not the same gender and one is singular while the other is plural, there is no redundancy there, anyway.
    – Emanuel
    Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 16:49

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.