A slightly more elaborate way of saying this is:Worauf wollen Sie hinaus?
What is the point you are trying to make?These are rather more challenging than Wie meinen Sie das?(d) Where speaker A is implying something about speaker B which speaker B objects to
because it is unfair or incorrect, speaker B can object by using the following:jmdm. etw. (= acc.) unterstellen ‘to imply (wrongly) sth. about sb.’
-e Unterstellung ‘a false or unjustified implication’Was unterstellen Sie mir?
What are you implying (wrongly) about me?Was wollen Sie mir unterstellen?
What are you trying to imply about me?Nein, das ist eine Unterstellung.
No, that’s unjustified.(e) A very forthright way of challenging what someone has said is:Was soll denn das heißen? (with the stress on das)
What is that supposed to mean?118 Asking for spoken linguistic cues
Common expressions include:Wie heißt das auf Deutsch? ‘How do you say that in German?’
Wie sagt man auf Deutsch: hard disk? Wie sagt man ‘hard disk’/auf Deutsch?
‘How do you say “hard disk” in German?’
wiederholen ‘to repeat’
langsamer sprechen ‘to speak more slowly’
etw. anders sagen ‘to say sth. differently’
Wie schreibt man das? ‘How do you spell that?’
buchstabieren ‘to spell’
A wie Anton? ‘A for Anton?’118.1 When lost for a word, the help of a German speaker can be sought by asking:
Wie heißt das auf Deutsch?
What is it called in German?(Nun,) (Also,) wie sagt man (auf Deutsch) ‘hard disk?’
(Now then), how do you say ‘hard disk’ in German?118.2 Asking someone to reformulate what they have said to make it easier to understand
can be done using anders sagen or anders formulieren (often with an introductory
sentence like Das habe ich nicht verstanden):
118
Asking for linguistic cues