Sei

Freiheit

seien Sie froh!

Diese Energie, sei Liebe, seor gelebte Toleranz.

I'm having trouble understanding sei, I never encountered it much before I started reading Autobiographies a a few weeks ago. Seems sometimes to refer to the present and sometimes the past. Don't really get it.

Incidentally with the automatic translation earpieces apparently in the pipeline over the next few years, what is the future for human translators?. (By that I mean computer programmes implanted in the ear that will translate what a person is saying automaticaly). Will it make human translators redundant?. Will there be any point in learning a new language?.

Alles gutes
F

Lawrence1895

Do you know who wrote this quote? Maybe I can say more when I know who the author was/is and the name of the book

peasant

"Sei" is as easy and as difficult as its direct translation "be" ...:D

Be happy (consider yourself happy) ..seien Sie froh

This energy ...be love ...be (seor??) tolerance

"Sei" is a bit old fashioned, a bit poetic even, except perhaps in the command "sei still!"

Freiheit

seor is a misprint, should read 'sehr!', maybe the books I'm reading then are old fashioned!:) ....although written within the last 5-10 years.

The book is 'hat das Geschlecht eine Seele?' a book on a Swiss male to female Transsexual.

peasant

Well ...you could also substitute "poetic" with "pretentious"

Lawrence1895

That one comma is a bit confusing there, it's easier to understand, if it's just 'diese Liebe sei Energie'....may this love be the energy

Carry

Freiheit wrote: »

Incidentally with the automatic translation earpieces apparently in the pipeline over the next few years, what is the future for human translators?. (By that I mean computer programmes implanted in the ear that will translate what a person is saying automaticaly). Will it make human translators redundant?. Will there be any point in learning a new language?.

Alles gutes
F

No, human translators will hardly ever be redundant, unless they invent a programme which really can translate the fineries of a living language.
Language is forever changing and words have never the same meaning in different contexts.
You can translate technical stuff with language programmes (but we know how that might turn out...) but literature or vernicular language still needs humans capable not only of the source language but especially the target language. That is, understanding the meaning of the source and tranform it with appropriate wording into the target. No word-for-word-translation can do it.
Unless you give up on language as "the soul of a people" as the German philosopher Fichte said.

And yes, there is a point in learning languages, apart from being a translator and making a living with it. When you try to communicate with real people you hardly do it by computer programmes or "earpieces". That's basically alienating and won't succeed where language really matters (just imagine having a dispute with your foreign sweetheart with the help of a language programme...).
Language is more than just words. And if you try to translate texts and whatever writings with some programme you're going to lose out a lot of the subtle meanings.

Don't worry. Humans can't be replaced in this regard.
So go on and improve your German, if that's you chosen language

Alles Gute (correct spelling;))

Sonnenblumen

I would have thought "Sei ..." to be a popular form of command (eg "Be ....") used by various people in Authority eg Teacher, Military Officer etc?

Perhaps more informally it has in certain situations been replaced by "Bleib..."?

Lawrence1895

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

I would have thought "Sei ..." to be a popular form of command (eg "Be ....") used by various people in Authority eg Teacher, Military Officer etc?

Perhaps more informally it has in certain situations been replaced by "Bleib..."?

But doesn't 'Bleib...' implicate, that you already show some kind of (positive) behavior, whereas 'Sei...' means, you have to turn things around into something positive?

Freiheit

"Der Arzt fragt ob es besser zu ertragen sei" (an extract from Telefonate mit Denise) , what would the difference have been if sei had been replaced with 'war'?.

F.A.

Oh, but that's a case of Konjunktiv I, indirect speech.

In a nutshell, no, you cannot replace sei with war as the direct speech would be "Der Arzt fragte: 'Ist es besser zu ertragen?'", not "'War es besser zu ertragen?'" of which the indirect speech would read "Der Arzt fragte, ob es besser zu ertragen gewesen sei."

So, while subjunctive mood is often neglected in colloquial speech, people would use ist instead of sei, not war.

murphaph

Yeah, when we learned Konjunktiv I ("er sei" instead of "er ist", "er habe" instead of "er hat" etc.) we were basically told that unless we intend to write as journalists, we would NEVER need to reproduce KI in our daily lives. We were just taught it so that we would understand it in newspapers because you see it there all the time and if you don't know what it is, it's really confusing! (I remember reading stuff like "er habe" and thinking, wtf? Is that a typo?)

The only place you'll hear KI really regularly spoken, is in news reports. They always use KI. The purpose of it is to put some distance between the reporter and the original speaker. If a "normal joe" uses it, it means they highly doubt or simply don't believe what they are repeating, but this is more often conveyed either by simple intonation or by using a particle or something like "angeblich".

You do hear parents telling their kids to be careful "sei vorsichtig" or be quiet "sei ruhig" etc. all the time. It is simple imperative in this case. (also seen all over Berlin with the Be Berlin campaign

schubi

I wouldn't consider wiktionary the ultimate authority on grammar, but considering that duden.de is trying to make a living off their website, it will have to do:

sei (Deutsch)

Konjugierte Form
Silbentrennung:
sei
Aussprache:
IPA: [zaɪ]

Grammatische Merkmale:
Imperativ Singular Präsens des Verbs sein
1. Person Singular Konjunktiv I Präsens des Verbs sein
3. Person Singular Konjunktiv I Präsens des Verbs sein

Bei sei handelt es sich um eine flektierte Form von sein.
Alle weiteren Informationen zu diesem Wort findest du im Eintrag „sein“.

---

And there we have it: Imperative of the singular present tense of the VERB "sein".

==> Sei still! Sei brav! Sei ordentlich! Sei ein gutes Kind! etc pp.

1st person singular K1 present tense of the verb "sein":

Sie sagte, ich sei ein Schwein. <== first part past tense, second part present tense
Mein Chef behauptet, ich sei eine Inspiration fuer die gesamte Abteilung. <== present/present

I'm a native speaker, I couldn't point my finger at when to mix past and present like that exactly, I do have a faint memory of reading about it when I was 8 or 9 ;-) but that's about it.

Same for 3rd person singular K1 present tense of "sein":

Sie sagte, er sei ein Schwein.
Sein Chef behauptet, er sei eine Inspiration fuer die gesamte Abteilung.

Cloncluding and returning to your initial post and example text, your book uses "sei" as imperative of "sein" - rather than making a simple statement, using the imperative expresses a stronger desire that something becomes true or underlining what was said and already is true.