korosul said:
Diese Strategie reicht Tausende von Jahren zurück, bis in die Zeit, da einige Stämme ihren Hirtennomadismus um der höheren Erträge willen aufgaben, die ein sesshaftes Leben als Ackerbauern bot.
Why is this temporal clause introduced with da? What would be the difference if als stays insted of da?
Danke
I think it is only a question of stylistic preferences. There is actually no difference. "Da" is a
cunjuntion that acts in reference to (a point of) time in the same way as "als" and in many cases (not all, though) both can be used interchangeably. Furthermore, we have "da" as a causal conjunction in the sense of "weil" (= because, as) and "als" as a comperative modal conjuntion in the way of "wie/als ob" (= like, than).
Examples:
Jetzt, da wir das Problem kennen, werden wir auch eine Lösung finden. (please note, here you can't replace "da" with "als") = Now that we know the problem, we will find a solution.
Wir werden eine Lösung finden, da wir (jetzt) das Problem kennen. = We will find a solution because we are aware of the problem now. (Interestingly, the English translation would also work with "since", which can act as a temporal conjunction as well.)
Another problem is to understand that "da" is also an
adverb referring to locations. (da drüben, da und dort, da hinauf, ...)
Ralf
