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I understand bald's gloss is "soon" and fast's is "almost." These are pretty similar but still different. But another bald gloss is "almost."

Die Sonne wird bald aufgehen.

I recognize that fast would not make sense here.

Beide Modelle haben fast die gleiche Leistung, die Unterschiede sind geringfügig.

I recognize that bald would not make sense here.

But what about these sentences. From Linguee's sample sentences:

Er arbeitet bald 20 Jahren in dieser Firma.

Mein Sohn ist fast sechs Jahre alt.

Can you swap out those for the other and have the sentences mean the same things?

If so, I guess that means bald and fast can overlap when you're talking about time in particular. Right?

Thanks.

Can you swap out those for the other and have the sentences mean the same things?

Yes, you can swap them, but the difference in meaning (almost vs. soon) is still there. So, by swapping you keep the overall gist of the meaning but slightly change the focus from the time aspect to the completeness aspect – or vice versa. However, for these sentences the distinction doesn’t matter in practice.

Btw, small correction. It can be either:

Er arbeitet seit bald 20 Jahren in dieser Firma.

or

Er arbeitet bald 20 Jahre [no n] in dieser Firma.

Yes, you can interchange "bald" and "fast" in your two last sentences (but you can't in the other sentences).

Er arbeitet bald 20 Jahre in dieser Firma.

and

Er arbeitet fast 20 Jahre in dieser Firma.

essentially mean the same, just as

Mein Sohn ist bald sechs Jahre alt.

and

Mein Sohn ist fast sechs Jahre alt.

"bald" is always related to time (frames), "fast" is more general.

• Wir sind bald / fast da. (We'll be there soon.)




• Er ist bald / fast x Jahre in der Firma. (He's with the company for almost x years.)

Whereas these only work with "fast", not with "bald":

• Fast getroffen! ("Almost a hit!")




• Fast 10% der Kunden sind in Deutschland. ("Almost 10% of the customers are in Germany.")

Here meaning changes slightly:

• Das Glas ist fast / bald voll: With "fast" it's about the fill level, with "bald" it's about the time it will take to fill it up.