The German language

du bist ein affe

i think mostly get what those words mean. the one-word definitions there are my own, for this thread. but yeah i should probably graduate to a D-D dictionary.

http://megacycles.tumblr.com/post/13800349009/schones-foto

what is the plural of Glas, Glassen oder Glaese?

Ich habe zwei Glassen Wein getrunken, wer werden mit mir Deutsch sprechen?

bitte, ich möchte gern ein Glas Bier.

und auch Wurst für meine Schlange.

:D

you want a wurst for your schlong?

ilx history:

I got an A in German GCSE but can now remember nothing at all of the language except for one poem I wrote when we had to write a poem. It went like this:

Ich habe eine Schlange
Meine Schlange hast viel Durst
Er geht in zum Kafe
Er hat Getranke und eine Wurst

I may not have remembered the proper grammar.

― Tom, Monday, August 20, 2001 8:00 PM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

schlong = schlange....... i never made that connection.

what is the plural of Glas, Glassen oder Glaese?

neither. when ordering drinks, it's glas ("zwei glas bier"), for all other purposes it's gläser.

haha, E you will like this: Ted has been dubbed in bayerisch dialect rather than german for release here.

lol, nice. Boston accents = Barvarian. I like it.

in the spot where they usually warn you it has subtitles (which people don't like here), they warn you that ted is in bayerisch

http://www.munig.com/kino/kinoprogramm.html?suche_tag=2012-09-07&suche_zeit=&suche_genre=&suche_art=kino&x=8&y=1&options=ov

Bayerischer Dialekt

How funny! It's been a long time since I was there so I don't really remember much about the dialect. How is it viewed over there?

I took a German class when I lived in London and I remember the teacher there telling me that the accent in the area my dad comes from and where my fam still lives (Rheinland Pfalz) is the worst in Germany and considered to be a farmers accent and is looked down upon. He likened it to a really thick US Southern accent.

i get the impression it's not really looked down on because bavaria is historically so rich, but i'm not sure tbh. as an accent, it sounds pretty idiotic to me. when people are speaking full on bayerisch i can't understand any of it.

you should check out small town murder songs by the way. it's not a great film, but it's only 75min. lots of canadian plattdeutsch. i didn't know about that going in, so all the way through i was like, 'what is this crazy language and why do i feel like i understand it?'

"canadian plattdeutsch"

The language (or groups of dialects of Low German) is spoken by over 300,000 Mennonites (Russian Mennonites), most notably in the Latin American countries of Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay,[2] Honduras, Belize, and Argentina, as well as in the United States and Canada (particularly Manitoba and Saskatchewan).

I had no idea about any of this! So weird. Will check out.

"For example, Homer Groening, the father of Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons), spoke Plautdietsch as a child in Saskatchewan in the 1920s, but his son Matt never learned the language."

reygadas' last film silent light is set among the mennonites in mexico & mostly in low german dialect

Yes, just saw that too. That is so weird. I'm into this though. Going to see if I can find these online.

I remember the teacher there telling me that the accent in the area my dad comes from and where my fam still lives (Rheinland Pfalz) is the worst in Germany and considered to be a farmers accent and is looked down upon.

Huh, Interesting! It is sort of funny accent. My cousin's is so so thick. I actually love listening to him and his friends talk but it can be tough for me to understand sometimes if they're speaking really fast and using slang on top of the dialect.

on the last day of my course we did a "spot the accent" exercise. the only ones anyone could get was schwäbisch

lol i was under the impression that the Saxon dialect is the one German accent that people in Germany make fun of.

avoid:
01 fränkisch
02 sächsisch
03 pfälzisch

instead learn to speak in these cool dialects:
01 plattdeutsch
02 kölsch
03 münchnerisch

03 pfälzisch

>:O

03 münchnerisch

ugh no

Zugzwang

Sächsisch drives Austrian women wild, apparently.

Also, "Zugzwang" is a terrific word which is used very often in colloquial speech, to refer to real life situations where, oh shit, I have to DO something. It should be borrowed into English immediately.

as that wiki article says, it's used in English to refer to a chess situation

I read that as well. I them described a non-chess usage in German, and suggested that that usage should be borrowed into English. Now that I have repeated this, would you like me to comprehend it for you as well?

when you put "it should be borrowed into English immediately", I read that as meaning the word itself, not that particular usage

Fair enough.

Today I have learnt that ein Otter (masculine) is an otter, and eine Otter (feminine) is an adder. As in the poisonous snake.

(just crossing out any plans to work in a zoo in Germany, in case confusion of the two could lead to my demise or that of several cute, if also slightly vicious, aquatic mammals)

even worse than otter: umfahren.

I'm trying to learn German and decided to get a subscription to a magazine so I can practice. So far I've narrowed my choices to de:bug and texte zur kunst, but since this is all internet research maybe I'm doing it all wrong and was wondering if you guys could recommend something?

Der Spiegel is always an interesting read.

But it can be a tough one. A very specific style of writing, but would fit with the other stuff.

empfohlen: http://www.dw.de/dw/0,,8030,00.html

vielen Dank

Möchte jemand meine Hausaufgaben machen?

I know collective nouns always take a singular verb in German, unlike English (especially UK English?). So, if I say "das junge Paar" in one clause, and then want to use a pronoun, do I use "es", because "Paar" is neuter?

Feels wrong going "the young couple goes to dinner, because it is celebrating its anniversary" but I can't think of any other way to do it!

that is probably correct though? tbh I don't remember that grammar detail but exceptions to rules don't usually follow the same pattern as English IIRC

well, it's the logical thing to do, it's just I'll feel extra silly if it isn't right, since it sounds so horrible in English! I'm sure there are about 50 worse mistakes I haven't even noticed on my homework sheet however

(thank you)

No, that's right. After speaking German long enough that you get out of the translation phase, it becomes more natural -- er, sie, and es aren't he, she, they, and it. English pronouns base themselves on actual or perceived gender and number of the object or concept described by the antecendent, while German pronouns are based on the grammatical gender and number of the antecedent. In English, Larry and Horst are always "they" because they they are two people; in German, they are "they" if you use a plural noun and "es" if you use a singular neuter noun.

the young couple thing has another pitfall: "das junge paar geht fein essen, denn es feiert seinen jahrestag" - this could refer to some obscure anniversary of the male half of the couple, because "seinen" is the accusative case of "its" as well as "his".

saying "denn sie feiern ihren jahrestag" is actually common in colloquial use, because if you stick with the singular neuter, later on people will have a hard time associating the freshly formed idea of your couple with this "it" you keep referring to. nb "ihren" is the accusative of "their" and "her", so this might refer to the female half's obscure anniversary ;)

yeah I remember this discussion around "das Mädchen" as well, it seems to be correct to follow that up with "es" rather than "sie" although it feels intuitively wrong

The real solution to the fake problem: "es [das Paar] geht fein essen, weil er [the dude] feiert seinen Jahrestag". She isn't feiering, he is; she's just feiering mit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koZFca8AkT0

Learn the German in a breeze with these Berlin hipcats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4v4bCFGL28

HAHAHA that was awesome. Macro is super cool!

That complete Deutsch Aktuell series is on youtube and is absolutely drop dead hysterically funny to native and fluent speakers, and accessible to and probably also funny as hell to people who remember at least a year's worth of school German. Maybe particularly funny to me 'cause I work with German theater directors and dramaturgs, so watching these young actors attempting to wring multiple layers of emotional subtext out of sentences like "Ja, das ist meine Cousine Claudia. Sie kommt aus Frankfurt am Main." just destroys me.