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     Table of Contents Chapter 12 12.10.3 Every, every single one and anyone
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Chapter 12: Negation in German

  12.10.3 Every, every single one and anyone


The difficult thing about every, every single and anyone is that the Germans with all the extra rules about most of the grammatical stuff do not really distinguish between the three. Of course it is theoretically possible but usually in spoken language the word used is
jeder.

The German way to point out the differences is to add something:

every
every single
any
jeder
jeder einzelne
jeder beliebige

But as said before, usually Germans just use jeder and that can mean two different things:

Er kann jeden Tag kommen. = He can come every day.
Er kann jeden Tag kommen. = He can come any day.

To emphasise the any in the phrase you can also translate with jeder beliebige.

Er kann jeden beliebigen Tag kommen. = He can come any day.

And then there is another construction to express the same - hardly ever used by Germans but sometimes it is necessary to be more precise to clear up misunderstandings etc. Then you could also say:

Er kann an irgendeinem Tag kommen. = He can come any day.

Main point here - ever, every single and any is translated usually with jeder. And it's important to keep in mind that jeder is the only of the pronouns that can be used as an adjective. If you want to say

every man
= jeder Mann,
any man = jeder (beliebige) Mann
every woman = jede Frau
any woman = jede (beliebige) Frau

it can never be irgendjemand

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