I think it's lovely that you ask such a question. The answer is yes.

That would be great...das wäre prima
That would be lovely....das wäre sehr schön

Hier hab ich gerade etwas Interessantes gefunden. Man kann einen Text (mindestens 300 Wörter) eingeben, und dann wird analysiert, ob der Text eher von einem Mann oder einer Frau stammt.

Probiert habe ich's noch nicht, aber deine Frage, Saba, finde ich sehr interessant und absolut nicht trivial.

Hier der Link:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.html

Luvverly jubberly!

@ Wupperwolf

thx, a lovely link!

sure, why not?

this is a lovely thread. :-)

Pal: Hey dude, beer tonight?
Me: Yeah, that would be lovely.
I find that rather unlikely.

Girl: Hey Asdf, fancy a drink tonight?
Me: Yeah, that would be lovely.
Can imagine it here.

IMHO it depends on who you are talking to and what age you are.

Vielen Dank für Eure interessante Beiträge!

Saba

Lovely to me sounds very much like a British colloquialism.

you'd be fooling yourself, maxxpf.

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a/...

To actually give an example: in the instances that Hugh Grant alias Will Freeman uses "lovely" in the British movie "About a Boy", I dare say an American script would have used other words.

#11 - I mean "lovely" not necessarily in the sense of beautiful or nice, but with the meaning of "fine with me, practical, useful" and not used by women!! :-)
Anyway I would argue that most American men do not frequently use "lovely" in general, as opposed to American women. :-)

could you qualify your statement just a bit more, maxxpf? How about "lovely" as used by American homosexuals who have an affinity for flowers but aren't gardners themselves and who eat vegetarian food at least twice a week unless they're invited to a free steak dinner on Saturdays and who are between 5-foot-4 and six feet tall with no to little facial hair?

"Would a man answer like this using the word 'lovely'? It sounds like an answer given by a woman or am I mistaken?"

I think you're right - it's very unlikely a man would answer that way. (At least in American English.)

Dearest Dude, you are in rare form tonight!

It is always lovely to read your witty side...:)

Another American here...

Not a trivial question! These fine details of word usage are important to us all on both sides of GermanEnglish.

American men don't often use the word "lovely" be it figuratively or actually.

An American man will typically use "nice, great, cool, fine," almost any word BUT lovely.

An exception might be a man paying his wife a sincere compliment, "You look lovely tonight, baby."

(Notice how he jokes it off by following it with "baby" instead of "darling" or "dear")

"Lovely" tends to sound either very British, effete or effeminate, which Americans tend to categorize pretty much as the same thing ... sadly.

But mikestorer, you've just used the word lovely four times yourself! Or perhaps you're a woman.

Of course men use this word.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/ce...

a man?

I would say that women use the word "lovely" more often in BE. There are some men who use it all the time, but some use it almost as a joke because it is a more typically feminine thing to say. Hugh Grant not setting the standard for hairy-chested masculinity.

#21 - I don't want to argue with that. Still, British men, we all agree I think, use "lovely" much more often on average than American men do.
The thing that I clearly remember that I really was a bit surprised when I was in England for the first time that "lovely" was much more abundantly used by either men or women than I had been used to and in situations when I "normally" would have rather expected something like fine, nice, great, cool, if at all, in situations like these:
"I'd like four tickets for the 8 o'clock show." - "Oh, lovely!"
...
That seemed very strange to me indeed.

#22 I can't say that the lack of the word "lovely" in American men's conversation has ever come to my attention :-) I suppose it's a difference that is only likely to be spotted by Americans.

Sure. That would be lovely is like saying that would be great. Men use it all the time, why not? Never gave it a thought.

Interesting how different the perception is: If you compare #17, for example. I can only say that I spent one year in the Middle West and really did find the frequent usage of "lovely" in Britain strange at first.

it has occurred to me on different occasions that you seem to find a lot of things strange, maxxpf.

Well, I guess I'm not the only one in this regard. :-)

re #17: I'm often a little suspicious of contributors who speak so authoritatively about other people if not entire peoples:

"American men don't often use", "An American man will typically use", "An exception might be a man paying his wife a", "Americans tend to"

Either mikestorer is jetting round the North American continent like crazy or he's a professional in the word business. I would never dare to say things like that except about standard vocabulary features ("boot" vs. "trunk", etc.).

I agree that it is used much more by British men than American men. For straight American men, it is pretty much limited to describing wives and daughters. American gay men use it somewhat more than straight me, at least here in NYC.

Fun thread. As an American, I absolutely agree with mikestorer. Unfortunately, American men rarely use the word, although it is indeed lovely. :-)

I lived in Washington State up till a few months ago, I'm not gay, and it's quite common there.

P.S.

I wouldn't say lovely when a guy asks to join him for a beer

But, like maybe after having a laugh about something, for instance