The German Language

Kartoffelbrei · 03-12-2014, 10:17 PM

Neapolitan · 03-12-2014, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kartoffelbrei

Natürlich sprech' ich deutsch ;P I was born here
The sentence you posted just means "Yes, a body Germany.", hehe

That's why i got confused

Actually there are 30 letters, if you count ä, ö and ü, but they are just ae, oe and ue. You should really visit bavaria, if you get to germany. it's so amazing here. we have lakes 'n mountains 'n snow 'n beauty everywhere

Yeah, english is taught here in 3rd grade and all the rest of the time in school

I thought that there were 26 letters. The esset is a ligature, it's when two letters that are joined together, it's from the two S's found in Fraktur joined together i.e. ſ + s = ß. The umlaut is a diacritic, a glyph add to letter e.g. a + ¨ = ä. I don't know if they are considered new letters, I thought of them as modified versions of per-existing letters imo.

French seems to flow because of the liaisons and the words lean into each other as if a sentence is one long word. German has guttural stops, and depending upon regional differences the ending of certain consonants that are vocalized in English are non-vocalized, so g when it is the last letter is pronounce [k] , d when it is the last letter is pronounce [t] and a few others. German also has the voiceless velar fricative ch [x]

It took me a while but I learned to roll my R's in the back of my throat like how Kraftwerk say "Harrisburg" in Radioactivity, and have non-rhotic at the end of words which I don't know is still in practice. I learn to scrap the back of my throat when pronouncing the French R e.g. très bien. I don't know if it is because of those things that make German sound harsher to some people than say French. I took German language 3 years in high school, and I like the language very much. And I studied the French language on my own.

Kartoffelbrei · 03-12-2014, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

I thought that there were 26 letters. The esset is a ligature, it's when two letters that are joined together, it's from the two S's found in Fraktur joined together i.e. ſ + s = ß. The umlaut is a diacritic, a glyph add to letter e.g. a + ¨ = ä. I don't know if they are considered new letters, I thought of them as modified versions of per-existing letters imo.

French seems to flow because of the liaisons and the words lean into each other as if a sentence is one long word. German has guttural stops, and depending upon regional differences the ending of certain consonants that are vocalized in English are non-vocalized, so g when it is the last letter is pronounce [k] , d when it is the last letter is pronounce [t] and a few others. German also has the voiceless velar fricative ch [x]

It took me a while but I learned to roll my R's in the back of my throat like how Kraftwerk say "Harrisburg" in Radioactivity, and have non-rhotic at the end of words which I don't know is still in practice. I learn to scrap the back of my throat when pronouncing the French R e.g. très bien. I don't know if it is because of those things that make German sound harsher to some people than say French. I took German language 3 years in high school, and I like the language very much. And I studied the French language on my own

I had a speech impediment when I was young, and I am bit conscience how I would sound when speaking to a native speaker their language. But then again because of the speech impediment I became interested in languages.

bloody interesting, thank you.
i've never analyzed the language i'm talkin all the time as you did

Kartoffelbrei · 03-13-2014, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rostasi

The esset can be pretty confusing to those
who don't speak German. I found that out
when my sweetheart was looking at a street
sign in, I think, Frankfurt and was at a total
loss. I kind of laughed, but I already knew it
from German language studies when I was a
youngster. A lot of it really does come back
when you have the chance to interact with
the community. I just love it! It ("the guttural")
probably comes from my German (mother's side)
and Ukrainian (father's side) heritage.

The letter is btw called an "sz" (eszett), which kinda explains what it is

it's a mixture between an s and a z. We also call it a "sharp s".
So there are words like "Straße"(street), or "Scheiße"(sh*t), where we use it.
There are also words, that, when I was younger(before 1996), were written with an sz, but now are are written with a double s,
words like "daß" (today it's "dass") or "Kuß" ("Kiss", today it's Kuss)

Plankton · 03-13-2014, 10:07 AM

Do they still have the Joh (Yo!) stores in Deutchland?

I guess I could just look it up.

Kartoffelbrei · 03-13-2014, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plankton

Do they still have the Joh (Yo!) stores in Deutchland?

I guess I could just look it up.

Joh? Never heard of it.
Where does/did that exist?

Plankton · 03-13-2014, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kartoffelbrei

Joh? Never heard of it.
Where does/did that exist?

Apparently it was a one-of-kind back in the mid 80's. It was a department store of sorts located around Bad Nauheim, and I can't find anything about it.

Kartoffelbrei · 03-13-2014, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rostasi

Yes! You're right, I really shouldn't be using the Anglicized spelling of it.
Do you know how many different spellings there are of Oum Kalthoum?
(who was not German BTW)

Om Kalsoum, Umm Kultsum, Om Kalthoum, Oumme Kalsoum, Oom Kalthoum, Umm Kalthoum, Umm Kolthoum, Om Kult.....srsly i don't know... too ****ing many

Neapolitan · 03-13-2014, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kartoffelbrei

bloody interesting, thank you.
i've never analyzed the language i'm talkin all the time as you did

I guess because native speakers learn from infancy, but in most case a person learning a second language learns it as a teenager or an adult, and the rules of pronunciation are taught as well (in most cases) along with simple phrases before one really learns the language.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kartoffelbrei

The letter is btw called an "sz" (eszett), which kinda explains what it is

it's a mixture between an s and a z. We also call it a "sharp s".
So there are words like "Straße"(street), or "Scheiße"(sh*t), where we use it.
There are also words, that, when I was younger(before 1996), were written with an sz, but now are are written with a double s,
words like "daß" (today it's "dass") or "Kuß" ("Kiss", today it's Kuss)

And to confuse matters for the z isn't a z. The "z" in German sounds like a [ts] e.g. zählen. The "s" in the beginning of a German word sounds like the English pronunciation of z (the vocalized s) e.g. Sie is [zee] - I guess that is the "sharp" s you are talking about. That unvocalized s & "sharp" s goes back to non-vocalize consonants at the end of a word or in this case syllable, and vocalized in the beginning. I find that fascinating because it like a precise adherence to pronunciation rules. In English there are no such rules take "...ough" for instance - tough, cough, breakthrough and furlough don't rhyme. Also the v sounds like an [f] as in Vier the sch is [sh] it isn't equivalent to the English [sk] as in school.

TheBig3 · 03-13-2014, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kartoffelbrei

*sigh*
Ya. That's what a lot of people say.. :/
Still I really don't understand it. I mean, I'm from bavaria - we speak a much softer german, but still: it can be very very beautiful, if you talk sophisticated german. Hmm.. Maybe one has to understand the language to understand its beauty.
Well.. it's your opinion. thank you for the answer tho

Ignore Troll, his unsophisticated ear likes whispers and little else.

I took German in college, I work with a lot of Germans at work. I love the language, its just hyper-articulated. To me, Russian is far worse, and as far as unpleasant goes, Arabic/Hebrew is far worse.

My 2 cents, anyway.

03-12-2014, 10:17 PM	#41 (permalink)
Kartoffelbrei una ola nunca viene sola Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Miesbach, Oberbayern Posts: 150	__________________ Abra Kadabra, 3 x schwarzer Kater! ~Todos hablan de la mar, pero en ella nunca estan~

03-13-2014, 10:07 AM	#45 (permalink)
Plankton Just Keep Swimming... Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: See signature... Posts: 7,765	Do they still have the Joh (Yo!) stores in Deutchland? I guess I could just look it up. __________________ See location...