81–90 of 109 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's not get started with that... those same people also say "viertel vier" to mean 3:15 (one quarter of the "fourth hour" has passed), which is really confusing to the uninitiated, so "viertel nach"/"viertel vor" is preferable IMHO...
We can agree that there is a big disagreement, but "viertel nach"/"viertel vor" just sounds plain wrong to me.
Your answer: fünfundzwanzig nach elf. Correct: fünfunddreißig vor zwölf. Your answer: mittag. Correct: punkt zwölf. Your answer: acht Uhr. Correct: punkt acht. Was zum Teufel?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can agree that there is a big disagreement, but "viertel nach"/"viertel vor" just sounds plain wrong to me.
It's absolutely correct German. Native speaker here.
If I try to rationalize it, it is probably that a quarter (to me) is not a distance or difference, but a single thing. So my internal parser expects a Genitiv or another thing after it, not a preposition like 'vor' or 'nach'. 'Zehn Minuten vor/nach X' sounds fine to me, 'eine viertel Stunde vor/nach X' too, but 'viertel vor/nach X' just doesn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does make sense though (once you know where it comes from): Before the ubiquity of watches, time was announced using church clocks and bell strikes. There's a big bell for hours (low pitch) and a smaller one for announcing quarters (higher pitch). Signalling zero is not possible using "zero bell strikes", so 00:00 is signalled by 4 strikes of the quarters bell and 12 strikes of the hour bell. Thus, the sequences g…
Yes. The other explanation is that time is nothing special, it gets just counted like everything else. You wouldn't say it's a quarter to a full cake either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The other explanation is that time is nothing special, it gets just counted like everything else. You wouldn't say it's a quarter to a full cake either.
If we follow your argument, the number 3.25 would be read "point two five to four" istead of "three point two five". Which is to say, the fact that the quarters are mentioned in connection to the next hour, not the previous one, is indeed unusual.
'dreiviertel Vier' is short for 'dreiviertel der vierten Stunde des Tages'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are words that can have several Artikel, sometimes depending on regional differences (e.g. Austrians have different preferences than Germans), sometimes because of multiple meanings of a word. In that case, I would expect the game to accept all valid answers. But I got the impression that all words were singular, so "der" would be the only valid option for "Ausländer". I had a similar issue with "Geschwister",…
> with "Geschwister" I never heard that used as a singular noun. Maybe it is a Swiss thing. If anything you could say 'das Geschwisterkind'.
1. (männliche wie weibliche) Kinder gleicher Eltern, nur im Plural. Beispiele: "die Geschwister sehen sich alle ähnlich", "ich habe drei Geschwister (wir sind vier Geschwister)"
2. einzelner Geschwisterteil. Gebrauch: Fachsprache; auch schweizerisch Beispiel: "das ältere Geschwister"
So, you are correct, the singular form is only used by the Swiss and as a technical term. So maybe the game shouldn't contain it at all? Or accept both "das" and "die", in case someone thinks it has to be plural?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> with "Geschwister" I never heard that used as a singular noun. Maybe it is a Swiss thing. If anything you could say 'das Geschwisterkind'.
Actually, the Duden article I linked above says (under "Bedeutungen"): 1. (männliche wie weibliche) Kinder gleicher Eltern, nur im Plural. Beispiele: "die Geschwister sehen sich alle ähnlich", "ich habe drei Geschwister (wir sind vier Geschwister)" 2. einzelner Geschwisterteil. Gebrauch: Fachsprache; auch schweizerisch Beispiel: "das ältere Geschwister" So, you are correct, the singular form is only used by the Swiss…
The feminist crowd just perceives a common male word as gendered and a common female word to be not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do I mean? Where to start. Interact with some people from the region and you will find out. As most learners of German know, the hard part of German isn't der die das, it's the exclusive culture. I have C1 in German and have been told "You sound unnatural like a Turk" (I am not a Turk) and "Children sound more natural than you" (of course - they are native speakers). You can get every case, every article, and ev…
Where was that? Berlin by any chance? That's not representative for Germany.
Nice, not sure if "Guess the Artikel" makes sense this way. Sometimes it’s not clear whether the word is singular or plural, which affects the article. For example, I got "Ausländer," which can either be "die" for plural or "der" for singular.
There are words that can have several Artikel, sometimes depending on regional differences (e.g. Austrians have different preferences than Germans), sometimes because of multiple meanings of a word. In that case, I would expect the game to accept all valid answers. But I got the impression that all words were singular, so "der" would be the only valid option for "Ausländer". I had a similar issue with "Geschwister",…
The actual correct singular form of "[die (since plural)] Geschwister" is "das Geschwist" - a word that is rather obscure even for many native German speakers.