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The Awful German Language

silverback66 said:
jeder tag ist ein guten tag fur apfel und eier aber nicht mit pferde! Nie mit pferde!
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You lost your apple? :(

My deepest condolences.

*prays he translated it correctly*
 
I had to learn German spelling and pronunciation when I took voice lessons in college (mostly for German art songs and Mozart opera arias) but I don't know what any of the words mean.
I speak French fluently and I am learning Italian and Russian. When I was younger I decided I wanted to learn at least 5 languages before I die. I am falling rather short of my goal...
 
Stampyhead said:
I had to learn German spelling and pronunciation when I took voice lessons in college (mostly for German art songs and Mozart opera arias) but I don't know what any of the words mean.
I speak French fluently and I am learning Italian and Russian. When I was younger I decided I wanted to learn at least 5 languages before I die. I am falling rather short of my goal...
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Setzen Sie Spanischen auf Ihre Liste, und sterben Sie nicht für andere 50 Jahre.
Ponga el Castellano en su lista de idiomas, y no se muera por cincuenta años.
Add Spanish to your list, and don't die for another 50 years! Good luck.:)
 
Onizuka said:
I'm picking up Japanese. I'm going to my first class on Saturday (I know a tiny bit by myself.) So, I'll know English, American English, Improper English, Ebonics (yay for living in a ghetto with people who can't talk right! woot!), Pig Latin, and Japanese.
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lol, i hope you weren't serious about ebonics...

people conflate street talk, which is mostly vocabulary differences (slurs, slang) with AAE (african american english) which is a real language, with a very different grammar structure than standard english.

AAE is actually spoken more in the south than in the city.

languages are identified mainly along significant differences in grammar structure.

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/linguistics

in relation to the original post, i tried to teach myself german in high school. failed. i do speak a good smattering of French though. English is my second language, Telugu, my first
 
Onizuka said:
I'm picking up Japanese. I'm going to my first class on Saturday (I know a tiny bit by myself.) So, I'll know English, American English, Improper English, Ebonics (yay for living in a ghetto with people who can't talk right! woot!), Pig Latin, and Japanese.
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You must have the most detailed CV ever. You basically know English and a bit of Japanese :p
 
Ich spreche eine kliene bisschen Deustche. I hatte drei jarhe , Deustche Eins!.

At one point I was beginning to learn Afrikaans.

I can pick up the occasional word from Spanish and French.

I want to learn Latin, just because and Russian so I can read the flipping spam they keep sending me.
 
Well...

someone said, that German is an ugly language...especially if whispered?
That's rubbish! Your German's just too bad if you're unable to whisper "sexy"... :D . Really!
I used to teach German to Japanese people, luckily they LOVE grammar, but don't ask them "Was hat dich im letzen Monat glücklich gemacht?"...A: ":confused: " ...ok...depends on the student

I hope that ß-discussion got cleared up. Of course we (yes, I am German) still have the ß...short vowel=ss long vowel=? Fluss - Fuß (river - foot). It became more logical for me since the reform...But I have to be frank: I HATE those people thinking "aw, I don't like ß, can't type it...I'll take "sz"....BRRRR (the name of "ß" is "sz"="esszett")

blahblah...:)
 
Ryvita said:
I hope that ß-discussion got cleared up. Of course we (yes, I am German) still have the ß...short vowel=ss long vowel=? Fluss - Fuß (river - foot). It became more logical for me since the reform...But I have to be frank: I HATE those people thinking "aw, I don't like ß, can't type it...I'll take "sz"....BRRRR (the name of "ß" is "sz"="esszett")

blahblah...:)
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So I'm taking German right now in High School. My teacher said we didn't need to bother with the "ß" anymore, she says just use "ss." Is that wrong, will it change the meaning of the word?
 
EricNau said:
So I'm taking German right now in High School. My teacher said we didn't need to bother with the "ß" anymore, she says just use "ss." Is that wrong, will it change the meaning of the word?
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ßlasphemy!
 
Well, I speak English. AmerEnglish mixed with International type sometimes. I've had a couple of years of Spanish and am taking my second year of French for my music major (they don't offer Latin here!...though they do offer Danish). I'd really like to learn Japanese, Latin, and Russian, though. I could probably take a fair stab at reading Latin as being a biology and music major, I'm exposed to a lot of Latin.

I also tried vainly to speak a little German while over there...mainly just numbers, good morning, etc., and I'll probably do that with Italian when I'm over there this coming spring.

I could get nerdy and say HTML, C++, Java, and limited Perl and CSS.

Or even technical and say Music (it's a symbolic language!).

I found German somewhat hard to understand, but Danish surprised me. I swear I thought they were speaking in French the first time I heard it. Reading/writing in German I think is harder than speaking...how many letters can you get in a word?! I suppose I could just learn Milwaukee German. ;)
 
EricNau said:
So I'm taking German right now in High School. My teacher said we didn't need to bother with the "ß" anymore, she says just use "ss." Is that wrong, will it change the meaning of the word?
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Maybe with the word Masse/Maße you would have a problem. Masse=mass,... Maße=measure. And after all, even after the reform it is actually wrong if you write Fuss and not Fuß...

Talking about long words: I think (I'm not sure about it) now you're allowed to use "-" inbetween. The longest I've ever heard is Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänswitwenrentenfond or something like that. Not an every-day-word though...:D

My little language knowledge tells me, there's one language with worse grammar than German: Russian ;)
 
Ryvita said:
Maybe with the word Masse/Maße you would have a problem. Masse=mass,... Maße=measure. And after all, even after the reform it is actually wrong if you write Fuss and not Fuß...

Talking about long words: I think (I'm not sure about it) now you're allowed to use "-" inbetween. The longest I've ever heard is Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänswitwenrentenfond or something like that. Not an every-day-word though...:D

My little language knowledge tells me, there's one language with worse grammar than German: Russian ;)
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Thanks
 
I can speak (and read) English and French well. I learned a little bit of Russian recently, but only enough to ask a few basic questions, etc.
 
mj_1903 said:
In my opinion German is an ugly language. For example it is quite hard to whisper it... But I still know enough to get around.

I would love to learn a few languages but I just don't have the time. I know bits of 3 or so... German, Japanese and American.
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German is no uglier than English and it is quite easy to whisper.

I think people get that impression from hearing Hitler (who was Austrian and had a horrible accent), trying to pronounce German without a firm understanding of how to do so, or just hearing English speakers pronounce it incorrectly.

I'm a German major, so I hear it a lot.
 
Ich finde, dass Deutsch eine schreckliche Sprache ist.
Selbst wir Deutschen haben große Schwierigkeiten mit der Sprache.

I think German is a terrible language.
Even the Germans have big trouble with their language.

Aber es ist im Deutschen viel einfacher lange Sätze zu formen. Großartig!

But it is easier to create long sentences in German. Great!

Mein kleiner Beitrag.

My 2 cents.
 
I took four years of German in college...I think living in the country in question for a semester should be requisite for those minoring or majoring in a foreign language.
 
Je suis Suisse, mais je ne comprends aucun des mots en Deutsch. Idéalement j’aurais dû suivait un cours, mais c’est la vie…et je ne peux pas le comprends. :(
 
Macaddicttt said:
I'm currently taking Italian at my university, and have less than one and a half semesters left of the grammar part. Then next spring, that is, in 2007, I'll be studying abroad in Florence, taking classes completely in Italian, so that should prove interesting.

My girlfriend is also teaching me Norwegian, and I'm alright at that. I can say a few things and understand most of the grammar, but my vocabulary is very limited and I have a hard time understanding spoken Norwegian since the sounds are very different from English.

I took three years of Spanish in high school, but that has pretty much all left my mind now. I remember some of it, but if I start speaking Spanish, it will turn into Italian after about two words.
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I studied in Florence for a month. Totaly immersion. Conjugating Italian verbs kicked my ass. They're all freakin' irregular!
 
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