Hier fehlt ein Messer/eine Seite.
There is a knife/a page missing here.Wir vermissen unsren treuen Hund.
We miss our faithful dog.Fehlen with the dative of disadvantage (see 19.3; see also 19.7 for the use of impersonal
es). The person who is lacking/missing something is in the dative form, whereas the
person/item that is missing is in the nominative:Er fehlt ihr.
She misses him.Mir fehlen noch 50 Euro.
I am still 50 euros short.(b) Missing an event:fehlen ‘to be absent’
etw. verpassen/versäumen ‘to miss sth.’Wegen der Haushaltskürzungen fehlen uns für dieses Projekt
qualifizierte Mitarbeiter.
Due to the budget cuts we are short of qualified employees for this
project.Ich habe den Film/das Spiel verpasst.
I missed the film/the play.70.3 Lack and shortage
Lack and shortage can be rendered by mangeln an (+ dat.) and -r Mangel ‘lack/
dearth’. ‘Not/hardly enough’ is expressed by nicht/kaum genug.jmdm. (= dat.) mangelt es an (+ dat.) ‘to be lacking sth.’
knapp an etw. (= dat.) sein ‘to be short of sth.’Here again, the person in need is in the dative, but this time the item he or she is missing
is also in the dative following an.Es mangelte ihr an nichts; trotzdem war sie unzufrieden.
She wanted for nothing, but she was still dissatisfied.In diesem Betrieb mangelt es an ausgebildeten Arbeitskräften.
In this firm there is a lack of trained workers.See 42.3h (p. 115) for the use of impersonal verbs such as mangeln.
Es herrscht (ein) Mangel an Studenten in den Naturwissenschaften.
There is a shortage of students in the natural sciences.Er hatte kaum Geld.
He did not have much money.70
GIVING/SEEKING INFORMATION