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My step-father and I have a long-standing joke in which I will tell him "don't drop the soap" (because he's in prison). I'm writing him a letter and I want to say this in German. I have two German textbooks, but they aren't very helpful in this case. I looked up what "to drop" is in German and I found that fallen lassen means what I want, but I don't know if I'm using it right. I wrote "Fall (du) nicht die Seife gelassen." Google translate and other websites keep giving me different results, so I have no idea which is correct.

Emily Hoselton
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I'm assuming, you're having for example a phone call with your step-father at the end of which you might say: "Bye! And, oh, don't drop the soap!" In this case in my opinion the correct version would be:

Lass nicht die Seife fallen!

As you can see in the comments, there are a lot of ways to add or remove shades of meaning by changing the word order (emphasis) or adding flavouring particles. If you substantiate the particular context, you might get an answer even more precise. Otherwise this should do!

zwiebel
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  • OK, thank you so much. I'm glad to see that I wasn't too far off. – Emily Hoselton Jul 10 '14 at 22:19
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    Personally I'd prefer "Lass die Seife nicht fallen". Either way I'm not sure it works quite the same way in German. – Ingmar Jul 11 '14 at 00:19
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    You can add a "bloß", it is stylistically appropriate here and makes the expression more lively: "Lass bloß nicht die Seife fallen!" – Raphael Jul 11 '14 at 01:59
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    All proposed solutions could benefit from an omission apostrophe: Lass -> Lass' – guidot Jul 11 '14 at 06:47
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    @guidot That would be wrong, because there's no omission. It's the imperative form of lassen, which is just lass! – Em1 Jul 11 '14 at 07:24
  • @Em1: I disagree, see http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/lassen, which at least shows lasse (which I would consider as less informal) as alternative to lass. – guidot Jul 11 '14 at 08:20
  • @guidot Fair enough, still no omission. – Em1 Jul 11 '14 at 09:02
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    @Ingmar I edited my post slightly to make clear, what exact situation I was thinking of. Your version puts the emphasis on the soap, rather than on the act of dropping. – zwiebel Jul 11 '14 at 10:44
  • I'm afraid I still disagree, meaning that nicht will have to come after the accusative object. – Ingmar Jul 11 '14 at 11:37
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    @Ingmar I disagree with you disagreeing :-) I bet the sentence Lass unter keinen Umständen die Seife fallen! would be OK for you? Then why would Lass bloß nicht die Seife fallen! or Lass nicht die Seite fallen! not be? Lass nicht die Seife fallen would emphasize that he shouldn't drop the soap, while Lass die Seife nicht fallen would tell him he can do about anything with the soap, but he must not drop it. – Thorsten Dittmar Jul 11 '14 at 12:09
  • You can use "unter keinen Umständen" that way, but even there "Lass die Seife unter keinen Umständen fallen!" would be the better choice. Only when you propose a second, better alternative can you use "nicht" in that place: "Lass nicht die Seife fallen, sondern das Handtuch." Another test would be to substitute "die Seife" with "sie": Surely you wouldn't say "Lass nicht sie fallen"? – Ingmar Jul 11 '14 at 13:29
  • Where's the emphasis in the English sentence? –  Jul 12 '14 at 09:30