161–170 of 377 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think there should have been an uprising (violent, if necessary) in 1996, but the ship has sailed. Lol you want a popular revolution over the Rechtschriebereform? Strong contender for First World Problem hall of fame here.
You're a prime example of what I've talked about: people without any love for or sense of their language (whichever one in your case).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really easy, because "keyboard" is "teclado" which ends with o (so it's masculine) while "rock" is "roca" which ends with a (so it's feminine). :)
And there are, of course, counter-examples: el águila, el ala. I believe the rule should just be "it sounds right", as to say "la águila" is well, a third 'a' in there, two or them consecutive, and is just harder to even pronounce.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's so bad about gendered nouns? They are quite useful, especially when the language allows you to omit the noun and leave only a pronoun, or maybe the entire subject altogether.
English lets you omit the noun and only use a pronoun. Colloquial English lets you omit the subject sometimes, too. And it doesn't have official gendered pronouns. This sentence is short. It is short. "What did you do today?" "Rode bike" Sometimes we even use genders for nouns even though it's not official: The ship sank. She sank. Compared to German: The dog jumped on the table and bit the man . Aww shit there are t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea is old, yes. But except from the one singular example, noone ever used it. It has no place in the language.
That can be said about every feature of every language at some point in time.
It's not good when an unelected body decides on language changes, without that change already extant and in use by a significant part of the speakers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think there should have been an uprising (violent, if necessary) in 1996, but the ship has sailed. Lol you want a popular revolution over the Rechtschriebereform? Strong contender for First World Problem hall of fame here.
You're a prime example of what I've talked about: people without any love for or sense of their language (whichever one in your case).
Languages with priesthoods make me chuckle.
You'll likely be downvoted by the way you made your point, but there is a point to be made here. Native English-speakers, for instance, probably couldn't fathom there being an official body that makes decisions like this about the language. It just so happens that some of these official bodies make a point to stave off the influence of English on their respective languages (for better or worse - I won't argue either here).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're a prime example of what I've talked about: people without any love for or sense of their language (whichever one in your case).
You say that as if it's an inherently bad thing. Different people have different passions, and assuming one's own interests are "more important" seems kind of ridiculous to me. Most people simply use their language to communicate, and nothing more.
That's why we consider the Turks eradicating the Kurdish language a human rights violation, but don't say the same thing when, say, a swimming pool closes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't, the Swiss easily live without ß and use ss – the meaning is usually apparent from the context.
Well, many things are clear from context and spelling could be simplified. For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same…
EDIT: Erroneously swapped 'c' and 'k'.
"straße".toUpperCase() is still "STRASSE", though. Wondering how any current i18n system will get out of this mess ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a German, I disagree with you. German's not English, even though you might prefer if it was. Others don't. It's fine that it uses the letters it ended up with historically. This change fixes an internal inconsistency, your reply seems fairly irrelevant. It feels like replying to some bugfix in, say, Ruby with something like "I never liked Ruby anyhow".
How is using "ss" instead of ß in German any worse from using "th" instead of þ in English?