Opinions: Agreeing & Disagreeing
Opinions: Agreeing & Disagreeing
Giving and reacting to opinions is core B1 exam material — this lesson collects the standard phrases for stating a view, agreeing, and disagreeing politely.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
meiner Meinung nach: a dative expression placed for effect
Meiner Meinung nach ist das falsch.
In my opinion, that's wrong.
nach here is a dative preposition that unusually follows its noun rather than preceding it (meiner Meinung nach, not nach meiner Meinung, though that order is also possible and less common). When this phrase opens the sentence, it counts as the first element, so the verb comes immediately after it in second position (...nach ist das falsch) — a good check for whether you've correctly kept verb-second order.
sondern after a negated opinion
Ich denke nicht, dass das stimmt, sondern dass...
I don't think that's right, but rather that...
As with double conjunctions, sondern (not aber) is required when correcting a negated statement rather than simply adding a contrasting one — a distinction English collapses into a single word, 'but'.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| German | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| meiner Meinung nach | MY-ner MY-noong nahkh | in my opinion |
| ich denke, dass | ikh DENK-eh, dahs | I think that |
| ich finde, dass | ikh FIN-deh, dahs | I find/think that |
| ich stimme zu | ikh SHTIM-eh tsoo | I agree |
| ich stimme nicht zu | ikh SHTIM-eh nikht tsoo | I don't agree |
| ich bin anderer Meinung | ikh bin AHN-deh-rer MY-noong | I am of a different opinion / I disagree |
| das sehe ich genauso | dahs ZAY-eh ikh geh-NOW-zoh | I see it exactly the same way |
| das stimmt nicht ganz | dahs shtimt nikht gahnts | that's not quite right |
| einerseits...andererseits | EYE-ner-zyts ... AHN-deh-rer-zyts | on the one hand...on the other hand |
| im Gegensatz dazu | im GAY-gen-zahts dah-TSOO | in contrast to that |
| ich bin überzeugt, dass | ikh bin UE-ber-tsoykt, dahs | I am convinced that |