The German language

True story: When we were stationed in Germany, my grandmother came over to visit for a few weeks. She had been there a few days, and we were driving down the Autobahn, when she remarked, "That 'Ausfahrt' place must be huge, you can get there from anywhere.'"

She also somehow managed to plug a US hair dryer into a socket in Paris with no converter/transformer, nearly burning down the room.

Ha at the first story.

One thing that always makes me do a double take is when German and Italian words (and grammar) collide:

Dogenpalast
Gitarrensoli

to noodle, widdle, or shred on electric guitar = gniedeln (gneedeln)
slight pejorative bias.
Spießer (noun, M) - up-tight, stuffy, old fashioned, priggish, jobsworth, whitebread, bug-up-yr-arse, bourgeois, fuddy-duddy (adj= spießig)
still making no sense of die Fälle after two years.
tongue taking forever to get out of glottal stops & lazy english "r", german "r" being like that björkish clicking helicopter impersonation.
also "school german" explanations of pronunciation are largely false.
äu = "oy", eu = "oy", st.. / sp.. etc = "sht.." / "shp..." etc.
germans don't use the past perfect if they can help it.
it's a dang inefficient language for a people lazily stereotyped as dang efficient, & thus this febrile withering brain i have puts up considerable subconscious resistance to learning, despite the fact i know what it's up to. in one ear, out the other. kein Fortschritt ohne Übung, aber es scheint kein Fortschritt mit Übung, auch! so langsam, peinlich.

germans don't use the past perfect if they can help it.

rhinelanders love their plusquamperfekt, but they tend to use it inaccurately.

one thing i am struggling with: should i basically never use simple past in normal conversation (except for to be, to have, etc.)?

one thing i am struggling with: should i basically never use simple past in normal conversation (except for to be, to have, etc.)?

I take it that this list is meant to include the modal verbs? If so, then that seems pretty much right to me. I'm not a native German speaker, but I've been living in Germany since July.

But, another set of verbs that *seem* to me to also be used standardly in simple past in normal conversation are ones that are immediately followed by a Nebensatz, z.B.

Ich wusste, dass ...
Ich glaubte, dass ...

That's only how it has *seemed* to me.

One thing I'm unclear about with using simple past or present perfect, though, is what applies when it comes to what might be called 'formal speech'. I had learned and always heard that, outside of the few verbs that are exceptions, simple past is for writing and past perfect is for speech. But at some point, I was writing an e-mail to a friend, and I was unsure which to use. This was because it occurred to me that the distinction might really be between formal and informal contexts. I asked my German teacher here, and she said that this suspicion was right. That is, one should use present perfect in writing to a friend, just as one would use it in talking to a friend.

But what's confusing is that this doesn't seem to track formal/informal address with 'Sie'/'du'. I've definitely heard speakers siezen an audience while using present perfect. And I *think* I have heard some speakers siezen an audience and use simple past. My guess is that the former use Sie because they are talking to strangers and use the present perfect because they want to be relatively informal (I'm thinking here of speakers who have introduced classical music concerts or something like that). And I'm guessing that the latter just want to be super formal (I'm thinking here of academic lectures). I've been to a number of academic lectures, but I can't really recall for sure which the various speakers used. So, maybe that is all wrong.

I've been meaning to post more entertaining or interesting words here, but I forget. Here's one I came across a few days ago:

Geheimratsecken
- translation: receding hairline
- literally, something like: private council corners

This created some bewilderment when I was sightreading, as I knew what the component parts meant but not the word as a whole.

i guess i'm including the modals, ja. thanks. you're right about the nebensatz thing. i do hear ich dachte, dass... too.

i've been here on and off for two years now, but was deep in thesis writing in an english-speaking environment for most of that, so i'm only now getting around to making any formal effort to learn.

I should really really make a formal effort because while I can understand quite a bit my speaking ability isn't great. I can get by and make myself understood but I'm fairly certain it must sound really broken.

i've been here on and off for two years now, but was deep in thesis writing in an english-speaking environment for most of that, so i'm only now getting around to making any formal effort to learn.

I've guess I've done that in reverse: I started with German classes, but now am mostly thesis-writing in English. My speaking ability has definitely worsened since I stopped doing the classes.

i actually just quit the classes at my work. they were 90 mins twice a week, the teacher wasn't great (very limited english), and they were timetabled to cause maximum disruption to the working day on the days they happened. i'm thinking of doing 3h/day for the month of august to make a big effort to get from A2/B1 to B2.

ich finde dass schadenfreude ein sehr schones wort ist.

also, fuck capital letters. eat that. lol

i absolutely love the german language. but then i am fascinated by most languages. i love pronouncing german words like schadenfreude. it just sounds so lovely

ha i am going to starkbierfest for 14 ppl from 2pm-10pm. gonna die iirc.

with 14 ppl

i am not drinking for 14 ppl

y'r still gonna die

How stark is Starkbier?

jealous

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/6/68694/1592764-1084633_05_super_super.jpg

this year's brew:

Stammwürze: 18,3 %
Alkohol: 7,5 %
Kalorien: 68,0 kcal/100 ml

new favourite German word: Der Voelkerschlacht. A three syllable word rendered in English as "The Battle of the Nations", another name for the memorable Battle of Leipzig in 1813.

But I don't like the way they put special endings on words for professions etc. if a woman is doing that job.

Like "comedienne" or "actress?"

yes, like teacheress and scientess and lady doctor and admin assistantrix

people don't really say comedienne irl and actress is on the way out

die Merkelerin.

OK, simple past is the single-word past tense (aka preterite?) and perfect is the one with haben/sein, right? I get confused abt the German past tenses because every grammar book I read calls them something different and we haven't done the former in class yet so the latter is just "the past tense" to us.

Which is why I am posting, because it's frustrating that at the end of my 3rd year of German evening classes we still haven't done the former except for haben, sein and "es gab", and we did the perfect in the first year.

So I'm surprised people use the simple past less in speech, because I feel so longwinded forming sentence after sentence with the other one, plus it means I can't read any books! I mean I can read books if I want to guess every time I see a verb, which mostly works, but it's just an extra layer of irritation.

It's kind of frustrating having done something for three years (ok, two hours a week for 3x6 months) and still feel so bad at it, but that is my fault for not putting the effort in, or having any motivation to, since I won't be going anywhere German-speaking in the foreseeable future.

PS I can't really read books anyway as my vocab and my patience for winding through Germanic grammatical constructions are not up to most written German, but I have a v slim "young adult" novel which looks vaguely approachable, except every time I open it I end up getting annoyed, partly at all the verbs

These days I can basically intuit how to say what I want to, but the time when I could reel off grammatical rules or explain my intuitions is long past :(

Austrians use the simple past in conversation more than Germans.

There is no present perfect tense in German -- you have to through in other little nearly meaningless words ("schon" "mal") to hint at it -- and German writings on English grammar are absolutely HOPELESS at explaining what "I've been to Spain" actually means.

I believe the official name in English for those lovely little words is "flavoring particles."

http://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/gr/mis_04.html

A lot of people learning German seem to get v excited by the exclamation "Doch!" ime.

That page looks useful, thanks!

otm

Yeah, that page has the best discussion of those that I've seen. Very helpful!

That page is awesome!!!

My cousin uses "Doch!" all the time.

doch!

I often feel this strange temptation to start all my sentences "naja", regardless of meaning

Entirely too many actual German people do the same thing. A cheesy tic. Worst German verbal tic I ever heard was a dude who began EVERY sentence with "im Grunde genommen" (which is basically "basically".)

Haha, I also had that same temptation. And the one to start any sentence I felt like with "aber."

"doch" is an awesome word.

"naja" lol yeah my family uses that one A LOT.

"also" = another "falscher Freund" for english speakers.

or, my German teacher's favorite corny joke: beware Germans bearing Gift.

In Norwegian, "gift" means both "poison" and "married," since both of these have to do with something being given.

ha I read james redd's post and was about to say "Doesn't "Gift" mean poison in German too? but then finally got Eisbaer's teacher's joke which went over my head yesterday.

The German for dowry is "Mitgift". The words for poison and for giving have a common root in Germanic languages. Dunno exactly how that is.

"lake" is der See(m), and "sea" is die See(f).
why??

http://ia600807.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/32/items/olcovers662/olcovers662-L.zip&file=6623696-L.jpg