The German language

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.

So my aunt and uncle are coming over for Christmas apparently and this probably sounds dumb but I want to brush up and impress them. Is that actually a good series to use? Are there better free ones? I have pretty excellent comprehension skills but my speaking isn't nearly as good mostly because I get nervous and clam up. I'll sit and listen to a whole conversation and understand it all but then resort to English when it's my turn because I don't want to sound dumb. :/ So I mostly need something where it gets me to repeat back. Or conversational partners. Hmmmm.

In all seriousness, it seems to me to also be a good series -- the language is pretty elementary, but the speed, pronunciation, and speech melodies are close to reality.

I warn English speakers who want to converse with me in English that I have a comedy Lower Austrian accent.

like ahnie?

No, he's got that that Styrian thing going on, but yes in that, like Arnie, I have a mostly-Austrian-slightly-American accent that Germans find hysterical.

Thanks btw, I'll check it out. It's not like I can't converse with them but I'd like to do so and not feel awkward or resort to English as often as I do. My uncle's English is pretty great so it's easy to do. My aunt doesn't speak any English though so I have to speak German to her.

Ooh, just noticed big mistake above -- I have a comedy Austrian accent in German and a comedy Maryland accent in English. I am a native speaker of English.

Ah!! I was confused for a second. That makes more sense. Wait so how did you wind up with the comedy Austrian accent then?

Been living in comedy Austria with a comedy Austrian wife for a bunch of years.

Ah, makes sense. I have been there! We went skiing in St. Anton and then went to Innsbruck. So so beautiful. I'd like to go back someday.

my recommendation is pretty much always the pimsleur course, although it depends on what level you're brushing up from

it's not free but it can be found for kostenlos on certain websites

so apparently i've completed B1, which means i've reached the standard required for german citizenship. tbh it's not a very high level, but that intensive course this summer, and i'm so much better than i was before the summer.

i have two "tandem partners" now, they are germans i will meet for an hour who want to learn my muttersprache. i think the idea is like 30m in english, 30m auf deutsch.

Does Pimsleur have Our Hero rescuing his cute Turkish girlfriend from evil Neo-Nazis with hilarious results, though?

crucial quesion!

Thanks Caek! I mostly just need practice.

langsam gesprochene nachrichten is good for a daily dase of spoken german if your level is up there, but it's always, always about the crisis in the eurozone for obv reasons, so it can get a bit samey.

slowly spoken news

See, I get it! I mean not that that was difficult but I think my comprehension is good. I guess I could watch some news online. That's a good tip though. Maybe tv shows too! Any good German TV shows I could find online?

bauer sucht frau

The summer I lived in Germany, I bought a bunch of Asterix comics and read those to help improve my reading comprehension, which was good because of the various pun names; I also read a book by the dude who wrote The Neverending Story that I can't remember the name of (maybe Momo?)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_sucht_Frau

Doku-Soaps!

link to langsam gesprochene nachrichten upthread iirc

DW has lots of lessons. i found them a bit slow for learning, but i think they're useful once you've reached say B1 to kick on with just listening to lots and lots of german at an appropriate level.

http://www.dw.de/learn-german/german-courses/s-2547

Who knew that "Farmer Wants A Wife" was a successful export of British TV?

Huh so the neverending story is german, that kind of explains why some germans love to say say 'neverending story', in english, when something goes on and on.

The movie was also directed by the same guy who did Das Boot.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/mitt.png

okay lol

learnt some weird german watching the master in OmU

"das Versuchskaninchen"

ha

Did anyone else learn German using suspense thriller audio/books "Gefahrliche Wege" and "Geheime Mission?" I can still remember parts many years later.

fremdschämen

Wait, is Versuchskaninchen rabbit hunt?