THE GERMAN WORDS MAL AND ZEIT
Germans have two words for the English concept
"time." When expressing "time" as a quantity,
i.e., how much time, use Zeit.
| Wie viel Zeit haben Sie? |
| How much time do you have? |
When expressing "time" as an occurrence, i.e., how many
times, use Mal.
| Wie viele Male waren Sie schon in Frankfurt? |
| How many times have you been to Frankfurt already? |
With numerals, Mal is usually written as one word.
| einmal, zweimal, dreimal, ... |
| once, twice, three times, etc. |