Breakdown of Ich like nur noch Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind, und ignoriere den Rest.
Questions & Answers about Ich like nur noch Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind, und ignoriere den Rest.
In everyday German, especially online, people often borrow the English verb to like for the specific social‑media action of clicking “Like”.
So:
- Ich like nur noch Beiträge …
= I only “like” posts … (click the Like button)
More neutral / standard German would be:
- Ich like nur noch Beiträge … – very informal, internet slang / “Denglisch”
- Ich mag nur noch Beiträge … – “I only like posts …” (general liking)
- Mir gefallen nur noch Beiträge … – literally “Only posts … please me”
If you’re taking an exam or writing formally, avoid like and use mag or gefallen. But you will often see and hear liken / like on social media in real life.
Informally, yes. Speakers treat like as if it were a regular weak German verb, usually with the stem lik-:
- ich like (or ich lik(e))
- du likest
- er/sie/es liket (or often just er liked in practice)
- wir liken
- ihr likt
- sie liken
- Participle: gelikt
Usage is inconsistent, because it’s borrowed; in writing you’ll see various spellings. The key idea: Germans are using like/liken as a transitive verb that takes a direct object, just like mögen:
- Ich like den Beitrag.
- Ich mag den Beitrag.
For your own German, it’s safer and clearer to use mögen / gefallen, but it’s useful to recognize like/liken when you see it.
- nur = only
- noch = still
- nicht mehr = no longer / not anymore
- nur noch combines the ideas of only + anymore / from now on.
In Ich like nur noch Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind …:
- nur says the liking is limited: only those posts
- noch suggests a change: not like before; now it’s restricted
So the nuance is:
I now only like posts that are really helpful (and nothing else anymore).
Compare:
- Ich like nur Beiträge, die …
Just “I only like posts that …” (no clear “anymore” feeling) - Ich like Beiträge, die …, und den Rest nicht mehr.
“I like posts that … and no longer like the rest.”
nur noch nicely compresses both “only” and “anymore” into one expression.
In Ich like nur noch Beiträge …, the normal and most natural placement is:
nur noch + the element being restricted → nur noch Beiträge
This means:
- It’s the posts that are limited: only posts (of a certain kind) anymore.
You could say:
- Ich like Beiträge nur noch, wenn sie wirklich hilfreich sind.
Here the focus shifts slightly to the condition (“only anymore when they are helpful”) rather than to Beiträge itself. Both are grammatically correct; the difference is subtle and about emphasis.
As a rule of thumb: put nur (noch) directly before the word or phrase you want to limit.
Beiträge is a plural noun used in a general sense:
- Ich like nur noch Beiträge …
= I only like posts … (posts in general, not specific ones)
In German, indefinite plurals in a general statement often have no article, just like English sometimes does:
- Ich esse gern Äpfel. – I like eating apples.
- Ich sammle Bücher. – I collect books.
- Ich like Beiträge, die … – I like posts that …
If you wanted to refer to specific posts, you’d usually add a determiner:
- Ich like nur noch die Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind.
“I only like the posts that are really helpful.” (a known set)
Beiträge here is accusative plural, the direct object of like:
- Wer? – Ich (nominative subject)
- Was like ich? – Beiträge (accusative object)
For Beiträge (plural of Beitrag, masculine), nominative and accusative forms are the same:
- Nom. Pl.: die Beiträge
- Acc. Pl.: die Beiträge
Because there is no article in the sentence, you see only Beiträge, but its role in the sentence (what is being liked) tells you it is accusative.
die is used because:
Beiträge is plural. The plural nominative relative pronoun is die, regardless of gender:
- die Leute, die …
- die Bücher, die …
- die Beiträge, die …
In the relative clause die wirklich hilfreich sind, the posts are the subject of sind (“are helpful”), so the relative pronoun is nominative.
So the pattern is:
- Antecedent: Beiträge (plural)
- Relative pronoun (nom. plural): die
- Verb at the end: sind → Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind
Because die wirklich hilfreich sind is a subordinate clause (a relative clause). In German, subordinate clauses have the main verb in final position:
- Main clause: Die Beiträge sind wirklich hilfreich.
- Relative clause: Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind
Structure:
- die – relative pronoun
- wirklich hilfreich – predicate
- sind – verb at the end of the clause
This is a core word-order rule:
- Main clause: verb in second position
- Subordinate clause: verb in final position
The sentence contains two main clauses joined by und:
- Ich like nur noch Beiträge, die wirklich hilfreich sind,
- (ich) ignoriere den Rest.
German punctuation rules require a comma between two independent main clauses when they are quite long or have their own structures. Here, the first main clause even contains a relative clause, so the comma is clearly needed.
The subject ich is not repeated in the second clause, but it is understood:
- Ich like … und (ich) ignoriere den Rest.
Because both verbs share the same subject, it doesn’t have to be written twice, but grammatically, it is still a second main clause.
In coordinated main clauses, if the subject is the same, German often leaves it out in the second clause:
- Ich like nur noch Beiträge … und ignoriere den Rest.
= Ich like … und ich ignoriere den Rest.
Both are correct. The shorter version sounds more natural and less repetitive.
You cannot drop the subject in the first clause, but after a conjunction like und, aber, oder etc., omitting the repeated subject is normal when it’s clear from context.
Rest is a masculine noun: der Rest (the rest).
In Ich … ignoriere den Rest, den Rest is the direct object of ignoriere, so it must be accusative singular:
- Nominative: der Rest – Der Rest ist langweilig.
- Accusative: den Rest – Ich ignoriere den Rest.
- Dative: dem Rest – Ich schenke dem Rest keine Beachtung.
So den Rest is correct because it answers Wen oder was ignoriere ich? – den Rest (accusative).
In German, all nouns are capitalized, regardless of their position in the sentence:
- der Rest – the rest
- die Beiträge – the posts
- die Hilfe – the help
So Rest is capitalized simply because it is a noun. This is a general spelling rule, not something special about this word.