Breakdown of Die mächtige Nation will den Krieg vermeiden.
wollen
to want
der Krieg
the war
vermeiden
to avoid
mächtig
powerful
die Nation
the nation
Questions & Answers about Die mächtige Nation will den Krieg vermeiden.
Why does the German sentence use "will" if it means "wants to"? Isn't "will" the future tense?
will is the conjugated form of the modal verb wollen (to want). It is a classic false friend for English speakers! To express the English future tense "will avoid", you would use a form of werden: Die Nation wird den Krieg vermeiden.
Could I use "verhindern" instead of "vermeiden" here?
You could, but it changes the nuance. Vermeiden means to "avoid" or "steer clear of" a situation, usually by changing your own actions so you don't encounter it. Verhindern means to actively "prevent" something from occurring.
Why is the adjective ending "-e" in "mächtige"?
Nation is a feminine noun (die Nation) and acts as the subject (nominative case) in this sentence. After the definite article die, the adjective takes the weak ending -e.
Since we are learning Prepositional Noun-Verb Constructions (Nomen-Verb-Verbindungen mit Präpositionen), how could we express a similar idea using one?
A great fit here would be Abstand von etwas nehmen (to distance oneself from / to refrain from something). Using this construction, you could say: Die mächtige Nation will vom Krieg Abstand nehmen.
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