And now I'm obsessed. Even started a spreadsheet with modal particles and the various translations I find for them, OV sentences they show up and the various meanings the same or similar sentence can have.
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The thing is: It really interests nobody apart from those linguists who wrote PHDs or papers on the matter. German is not the only language to use modal particles, Dutch, Russian, Korean, Japanese and some others use them.
They are so difficult to translate because they are so context dependent and the understanding of the change in meaning due to the addition of a particle is almost instinctual.
When I say in German, "Das Auto ist rot." Then it translates easily into the "The car is red." But if I add the particle "ja" and say, "Das Auto ist ja rot." then what I might mean is that I'm surprised that the car is red or that it's definitely obvious that the car is red.
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