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The Awful German Language

I like the sound of German. I did learn some in high school, but I don't remember enough to write or speak.
 
I've heard that grammar in German is like living in the boonies, but I wouldn't know myself. I'm learning Spanish (which is a shame, because it was my first language) but have dreams of having command in English, and being fluent in Spanish, Euskara, Danish, Gaelic, and Hebrew. I have a lot of respect for people who know more than two languages fluently.
-Chase
 
i know I've post this joke before but I heard it from german teacher in HS.

A german politician is speaking to a crowd in America with a translator. He is going on and on in German but the translator is saying nothing. The crowd is getting confused and then agitated when the translator turns to the politician and says "The verb man? Where's the verb?"
 
Swedish!!

I moved to Sweden to study abroad for a year, my regular school is in English, but I am also taking a Swedish course on the side. It's amazing how all of the students here are fluent in English, and at least proficient in another languange as well. Makes me feel very ignorant.
 
Latin and English! I think Latin is an amazingly powerful language that can help you learn so much more about English. I actually want to get a minor in it in college now. And don't believe the BS about 'you don't speak Latin' - that's simply not true. But French does sound so romantic...
 
Whyren said:
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. ;)
Click to expand...


Danish rocks! ;)
 
As a native German speaker (though I speak English just as well, as well as a bit of Dutch), I want to say this:

Yes, German is a relatively complex (though logical) language to learn.
It would probably take about 8-10 years of serious study to learn even basic German to the point that you could make yourself understood in a variety of situations. It takes about 20 years until you can really speak it at a quasi-native level.

The "German" some Americans have told me they can speak is for the most part impossible to understand to a German speaker, and German is not a language that lends itself to be learned in phrases.

So unless you are ready to invest a decade of serious study, you're probably better off using your time for something else, since most Germans you'll ever encounter will speak English much better than you would speak German. Every German who graduated from high school has had 12 years of English.
 
I'm fluent in both spoken English and the American Sign Language (well, I tend to sign more exact English, but sometimes I can do full ASL). I'm currently learning German (Ich kann nicht Deutsch sprechen... ist eine schwere Sprache! Und morgen mittags habe ich eine Abschlussprüfung von Deutsch II), Japanese (AW man, I was typing in hiragana + kanji and the forums didn't like it. Oh well, I said: tsukue no ue ni watashi no neko ga imasu). I learned Spanish and French in high school and still can speak them fairly well. I went to Spain in February/March of this year and was well understood. (Thank God for my cochlear implant, I don't think I could have done it without my cochlear implant!) I need to keep practicing my Spanish and French or sooner or later I'll forget everything. I don't want that.

Yes, I'm deaf. :p Which is funny because I was the only person in my high school's history to ever move up from Spanish I to Spanish II in the same semester because I was bored and knew the material well and passed a test in Spanish II to see if I could perform well in the class--hell I did better than most people in Spanish II.

And I'm a Computer Science major. :) So do I speak Java, C++, etc? ;)
 
How do I make all of the German symbols?

I know the "ß" but what about the umlauts?

Is there like a Gigantic book of Different key codes, that would tell me everything from this, to what button I hold down to boot from a Disk? (I know it is "C").
 
Go to System Preferences. Go to the International pane, and click on Input Menu. At the bottom of the pane, look for "Show input menu in menu bar" and make sure it's checked. There should be a flag in your menubar on the right hand side. Click on it, and choose "Show Keyboard Viewer" to have a visual representation of the keys on your keyboard. You can hold down shift, option, and command to see even more characters you can use.
-Chase
 
katie ta achoo said:
I can make up nonsense insults in spanish REALLY WELL.


/¡su ombligo esta verde!
//tus sobacos... muy mal haliento!
///:mad:
Click to expand...
LOL :D I don't think you could actually insult people with those, but they ARE pretty nonsensical ;)
 
rendezvouscp said:
Go to System Preferences. Go to the International pane, and click on Input Menu. At the bottom of the pane, look for "Show input menu in menu bar" and make sure it's checked. There should be a flag in your menubar on the right hand side. Click on it, and choose "Show Keyboard Viewer" to have a visual representation of the keys on your keyboard. You can hold down shift, option, and command to see even more characters you can use.
-Chase
Click to expand...

When I click the flag in my menu bar, I don't see "Show input from menu bar". All I have is U.S. (checked), "Show input source name," and "Open International..."
When I select "Show input source name" all it does is show "U.S" by the flag. :confused:

BTW: any way to make the degrees symbol, I need it for a Bio paper.
Thanks
 
Whyren said:
Ironically enough, I transferred from a Norwegian-founded college to a Danish-founded college. Guess I can't help but love the Scandinavians. :D
Click to expand...

Don't we all? They're all tall and blond. :D
 
mj_1903 said:
In my opinion German is an ugly language.
Click to expand...

uh, some of the best operas were written in German, The Magic Flute, Elektra, Salome, and who can forget Wagner's great works?

What an UGLY comment to make. Maybe people find Australian English rude sounding or loathsome, but why write such a comment?
 
German - fluently without accent (Going to a german school)
English - fluently without accent (My parents were speaking english all the time)
Russian - fluently without accent (Thats my mother's language)
French - school level
Latin - school level

:cool:
 
true777 said:
As a native German speaker (though I speak English just as well, as well as a bit of Dutch), I want to say this:

Yes, German is a relatively complex (though logical) language to learn.
It would probably take about 8-10 years of serious study to learn even basic German to the point that you could make yourself understood in a variety of situations. It takes about 20 years until you can really speak it at a quasi-native level.

The "German" some Americans have told me they can speak is for the most part impossible to understand to a German speaker, and German is not a language that lends itself to be learned in phrases.

So unless you are ready to invest a decade of serious study, you're probably better off using your time for something else, since most Germans you'll ever encounter will speak English much better than you would speak German. Every German who graduated from high school has had 12 years of English.
Click to expand...

I would disagree with you on most of what you say. My German is by no means fluent but I'm able to carry on fairly varied conversations and I've been in more than a few situations where my German is better than some Germans' English.

Anyway, discouraging people from learning a foreign language seems rather strange.
 
EricNau said:
When I click the flag in my menu bar, I don't see "Show input from menu bar". All I have is U.S. (checked), "Show input source name," and "Open International..."
When I select "Show input source name" all it does is show "U.S" by the flag. :confused:

BTW: any way to make the degrees symbol, I need it for a Bio paper.
Thanks
Click to expand...

6 day's later... when you click on the flag, look for the "Show Keyboard Viewer" menu item; that'll get you what you're looking for.
-Chase
 
heaven said:
German - fluently without accent (Going to a german school)
English - fluently without accent (My parents were speaking english all the time)
Russian - fluently without accent (Thats my mother's language)
French - school level
Latin - school level

:cool:
Click to expand...

I also want to learn many languages, but my list goes like this.

English
Spanish
japanese
French
latin

maybe somethign like italian, german, or maybe even chinese.


I'm currently at the japanese level.
 
i took spanish, french, and german in junior high and continued with german in high school...not too hard and at least all the languages i studied loosely followed some set of rules

not the same with english and i am glad i am not from another country trying to learn english for the first time
 
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