English to German!

[The Marquis de Leech]

One of my late English friends in Yorkshire said, "You know we English are just too lazy to speak a foreign language because we *know* that the others are learning our language."

 

I think the issue is indeed usage (or more accurately immersion): it's more difficult for English speakers to immerse themselves in foreign languages than vice versa - the sheer cultural, political, and economic weight of the United States sees to that.

 

Even those English-speaking countries that have varying shades of bilingualism (Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, Wales) seek to preserve their minority language for reasons of culture, not practicality.

[Eyelesbarrow]

The best thing to decide right off the bat is to figure out what level of fuck-up is acceptable to you and your goals. My command of German grammar is tenuous at best, but as long as people understand me when I'm chatting with them, then I DGAF about the mistakes.

This.  I kind of decided now not to be paralyzed by my articles and whether it has to be in the dative/nom/akk form. Somebody told me before that good grammar will come with practice. I tell myself to just get on with my sentence. (Just let it go Eyelesbarrow! Go with the flow!) In my experience Germans tend to be very helpful when it comes to understanding a non-German speaker mangle their language.

[King Tyrion I]

 

I think the issue is indeed usage (or more accurately immersion): it's more difficult for English speakers to immerse themselves in foreign languages than vice versa - the sheer cultural, political, and economic weight of the United States sees to that.

 

Even those English-speaking countries that have varying shades of bilingualism (Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, Wales) seek to preserve their minority language for reasons of culture, not practicality.

 

That was indeed her point.

 

I'm sorry if I gave the impression she was a nationalist or something worse.

 

This.  I kind of decided now not to be paralyzed by my articles and whether it has to be in the dative/nom/akk form. Somebody told me before that good grammar will come with practice. I tell myself to just get on with my sentence. (Just let it go Eyelesbarrow! Go with the flow!) In my experience Germans tend to be very helpful when it comes to understanding a non-German speaker mangle their language.

 

:agree: Yes, we do. ;o)

[Hereward]

Don't forget that until a few decades ago, Germany was a country with an anglophone occupation force. 

 

I know, I was part of it! I was born there while my father was in the RAF, and then I worked at the British Embassy overseeing, among other things, aviation permissions between West Germany and Berlin. 

[Prue]

Don't forget that until a few decades ago, Germany was a country with an anglophone occupation force. Otherwise, it seems many Germans (and this also holds for other countries, e.g. France), really like foreigners to make an effort, so they will not be that picky (although in general a somewhat perfectionist and nitpicking mindset used to be very common in Germany).

 

I remember my English penfriend was frustated that many people in Germany switched to English in order to practise their English, instead of letting her try out her German. On the other hand, she was somewhat shocked/offended when I followed her wish to correct her if she said something wrong in German, though... ;) If you *want* to be corrected, people will not hesitate to do so here. Which might be a culture shock for English/American persons who aren't used to that.

[Kelli Fury]

Find some vacationing Germans (this is less difficult than it seems) and torture them with your bad Deutsch and/or practice your comprehension by eavesdropping. I do this at every opportunity

[A Horse Named Stranger]

As somebody who is getting back to German language lessons after a year off: 

 

Learn those friggin articles! Or you will regret it :P It's the reason for the conjugations. Even the adjectives are conjugated based on the gender of the noun. SIGH. 

 

Because we speak English in my study programme, my German has been quite slow. (Been here 2.5 years).  I understand basic stuff - I am currently A2 - but I really feel nervous when making straight sentences beyond asking for directions, can I have that bread, and 2 beers please. I really really want to be more confident. Recently I have been using duolingo - it's  a good refresher course. However, I find it too repetitive and basic sometimes and the grammatik can be lacking. But for every day vocabulary, duolingo helps them stick in my head. 

 

I am starting B1 next week.  Wish me luck!

 

Somehow this reminded me of something.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECWoPwPK864

 

Probably funnier for ze Germans than for the learners, still...

[Faceless She-wolf]

You might try Duolingo and/or Livemocha as online resources. There's really no substitute for classes, though.

 

Thanks! I've already made a start on Duolingo and already learning a lot!  :wideeyed:

[Faceless She-wolf]

Adjectival endings were the bane of my existence (bloody gendered language!).

 

Yeah I'm definitley already struggling with the different Eine, Einen, Der, Die etc.  :dunno:

[Neumond]

:rofl: the video is hilarious.

 

 

If you want to learn it, don´t listen to those who say it´s difficult. There are far worse languages out there ;).

German isn´t half as bad as people say it is. The articles for example actually have some kind of rules. Well not always, but very often. They match natural genders and if something doesn´t have a natural gender they often (admitted, not always) correspond to the ending of the noun.

Some other rules are: fish and jobs are masculine or flowers are female.

I´m sure, you´ll get a feel to it if you´re really interested.

 

A friend read this blog while learning. Also youtube has tons of german grammar videos...

 

I think music is a great way of learning a language. If you tell me your favorite genre, I could try to help you with that.

 

Viel Erfolg und viel Spaß beim Lernen :).

[The Marquis de Leech]

Some other rules are: fish and jobs are masculine or flowers are female.

 

Der Büstenhalter? I mean, really. That's just taking the piss.

[Neumond]

It´s a compound so the last noun is the defining one and there is nothing wrong with der Halter.

(-er is often masculinum...)

 

[url=http://www.mein-deutschbuch.de/lernen.php?menu_id=52]endings[/url]

 

Edit: I actually expected the "das Mädchen" comment ;).

[Jo498]

I think Mark Twain already poked at "die Rübe" (beet or turnip) and "das Mädchen" in "The awful German tongue". The latter is completely unfair as this is an exceptionless rule: ALL diminutives (with suffix "chen" or "lein", or in regional dialects "le", "li", "ken" etc.) have the neutral gender, and Mädchen clearly has the diminutive ending (although the basis "Maid" is obsolete, except in poetry). A (red) squirrel is an Eichhörnchen, so this is again grammatically neutral.

[Neumond]

Twain gets a pass.

His essay was quite beautiful and he must have wasted suspiciously much time to learn this awful language. :lol:

[Lykos]

Some other rules are: fish and jobs are masculine

 

Ahem, except for fish whose names end with e.  Die Forelle, die Brasse / Brachse, die Äsche, die Plötze, die Scholle, die Nase. Of course there are exceptions to the exception. Der Seehase.

 

Just don't worry about it, but remember to Never Argue With A German If You're Tired

[Jo498]

There are some rules, some rough guidelines with lots of exceptions but in the end one simply has to learn the genders for the non-obvious cases. But this is hardly special about German; it's the same in Latin, Greek, all? Romance languages and probably many others.

 

As for -er, there are obvious exceptions: Mutter, Tochter, Feier, Leier, but Halter is a noun derived from a verb (halten) expressing the agent enacting the activity described by the verb and I think these are all masculine. E.g. Leiter (ladder) is feminine, but Leiter (leader or also for electrical conductor) is masculine because it's from "leiten"

(literally Büstenhalter (BH) is obviously "bust-holder").

[Neumond]

 

Ahem, except for fish whose names end with e.  Die Forelle, die Brasse / Brachse, die Äsche, die Plötze, die Scholle, die Nase. Of course there are exceptions to the exception. Der Seehase.

 

Just don't worry about it, but remember to Never Argue With A German If You're Tired

 

 

The GEMA won´t let me watch it...

 

Well those fishs all have a female -e at the end. Endings most of the time trump other rules. As natural gender trumps endings most of the time.

Those rules are for words which don´t have a genus-defining ending: der Wal, der Hai, der Rochen, der Aal, der Delphin, der Kraken,... (yes I know not all of these animals are fishes. But at the time those endings were made people obviously weren´t as concerned with such matters...)

 

As always, there are exceptions languages aren´t very logical in general...

[Jo498]

 

Ahem, except for fish whose names end with e.  Die Forelle, die Brasse / Brachse, die Äsche, die Plötze, die Scholle, die Nase. Of course there are exceptions to the exception. Der Seehase.

I wasn't even aware of the fish "rule". Apparently the stronger rules in place here are: ending with -e is usually female, but "Seehase" is masculine because Hase (hare/rabbit) is another exception.

 

It is tough: Rivers are more often feminine, but there are many masculine ones (Rhein, Main, Mississipi), lakes are almost always masculine and seas can have all three genders: Die Ostsee, die Karibik, der Atlantik, das südchinesische Meer. But this is because "-see" is feminine, "Ozean" masculine and "-meer" neutral, so there is a rule behind it. Similarly mountains go with the gender of some part of their name: das Matterhorn, der Watzmann, die Zugspitze etc.

[Neumond]

It´s not always logical and it might be easier to just learn the article with the noun.

But it´s good to know about the endings and natural genders I guess. These two things will probably get you the right article most of the time :).

 

I just wanted to say that there are some rules. Many learners seem to think it is impossible to guess an article...

[Lykos]

Neumond, sorry about the nitpick. I didn't properly read your post and missed that you mentioned the general rule of gender corresponding to the ending.  I just read the bit RBPL quoted and thought - hey all my favorite fish are female.

 

You can sidestep the GEMA lock, if you're using firefox´ with proxtube (I know that it doesn't work with some other browsers).  You'll find that when you search for add-ons.

 

I think the ending rule is a good orientation for a start, the exceptions for nouns ending with e being female are often obvious - der Junge. It's problematic with animals - die Schlange, der Löwe, der Rabe, die Möwe, der Hase, die Robbe.