The Awful German Language (1880) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#71

Post by themodelplumber » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:00 AM UTC

sarabande wrote: post #58

GreeniFi wrote: post #27

I’m not German but spend a lot of time with Germans who are more often than not fantastic fun. And quite “freigeistlich” I find. This is an excellent German stand-up comedian who plies his trade in London: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=48gV9W9UZHk A curious thing that I have noticed that when Germans speak and write English, they often don’t differentiate between 2 previously mentioned subjects or objects. For exampl…

Yes, sometimes the grammar of German will make obvious something that would be easy to lose in careless translation, but not always. Using an example: Dave and Andy each went to London with a pencil and a book. He forgot it at the train station. Dave und Andy sind mit jeweils einem Stift und einem Buch nach London gefahren. Er hat es im Bahnhof vergessen. Here it is NOT clear who forgot (they are both male), but it i…

Interesting. This discussion of such an anti-leverage point(?) of a language reminds me of Japanese, and not having plurals as first-class citizens :-)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#72

Post by dschuler » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

bitL wrote: post #43

Koshkin wrote: post #34

German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…

Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the langua…

I've always felt quite a bit of emotion contained in German, in a way that falls flat for me in English. Most American English writing has this simple form like "Fact. Fact. Fact. The end.". So much for emotional impact or nuance, but this could be a difference felt for your native language vs others acquired later on.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#73

Post by apo » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

English grammar is far simpler than German grammar. Eliminating noun genders, declensions, and cases (as English does) is a great simplification over German. I've never understood the need for noun genders and I scratch my head at a society that makes its members memorize such useless information.

That said, German pronunciation is more regular than English pronunciation. Every letter combination is in most cases pronounced exactly the same in every word.

Take, for example, the vowel combination "ie." No matter where you see it in a German word, it will be pronounced "ee".

Likewise, the combination "ei" will always be pronounced "eye."

Contrast this with the scattershot pronunciations English has for the same combinations:

"Neighbor" uses "ay".

"Albeit" and "Atheist" uses "ee-i".

"Caffeine" uses "ee".

And so on.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#74

Post by tomjakubowski » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:05 AM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #50

bitL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the langua…

Yet, the greatest philosophers after the Greeks were all German-speaking (Hegel, Kant, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Mach...). Also, physicists, mathematicians.

In the meantime, weren't there some very important European scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, etc who wrote almost entirely in Latin?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#75

Post by bitL » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC

KeyboardFire wrote: post #64

bitL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the langua…

The idea that language limits or constrains the way people think (the stronger side of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is now largely discredited by the majority of linguists.

I speak 8 languages from many separate groups (Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Sino-Tibetan, Japanese), and my impression is that languages truly put constraints on one's ability to formulate thoughts. Of course, mentalese, the unspoken one, is different, independent, but it's rare people retain it to their older age and by then prevailing cultural/linguistic currents shape their thoughts. Sapir-Whorf might be discredited as general hypothesis, but it might correspond to 95% practical state statistically-wise.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#76

Post by whatshisface » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:07 AM UTC

bitL wrote: post #43

Koshkin wrote: post #34

German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…

Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the langua…

>You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the language gets in the way in order to satisfy its constraints, often missing the point, being trapped in its structures, unable to formulate way out due to structural constraints inherent in the language

To be fair that could describe a lot of philosophy in just about every language.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#77

Post by carlosgg » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

"I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective."

:)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#78

Post by tomjakubowski » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

codazoda wrote: post #51

Koshkin wrote: post #34

German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…

I took 4 years of German in high school, so I'm no expert, but I do disagree about it making sense any more than any other language. There are at least 3 ways to say "the". Der, die, and das. Which one you use depends on if the object you're talking about is femanine or not. To top that off some geographic areas use "das" for everything. It also has words that are similar to English; toilette (toilet) and hast (have)…

der, die, das, den, dem, des, all depending on case (likewise for indefinite articles + worse for adjective endings). German grammatical case presents information quite efficiently, often replacing the need for a preposition or other helper word, but it is mostly foreign to English speakers.

The "nouns have gender" stuff isn't quite as weird. It's in many other languages and eventually it isn't too hard to learn the noun as the full "der/die/das ________". Where it gets tricky is when an article (like "der" or "einer") is overloaded and applies to one gender in one case (male, nominative) but to a different gender in another case (female or plural, dative). I wish the mapping were one to one.

It's also worth noting that there are actually two ways to _say_ "the" in English (think "thuh" and "thee"). I would challenge any native English speaker to explain when you use each. ;-)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#79

Post by escherplex » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:12 AM UTC

codazoda wrote: post #51

Koshkin wrote: post #34

German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…

I took 4 years of German in high school, so I'm no expert, but I do disagree about it making sense any more than any other language. There are at least 3 ways to say "the". Der, die, and das. Which one you use depends on if the object you're talking about is femanine or not. To top that off some geographic areas use "das" for everything. It also has words that are similar to English; toilette (toilet) and hast (have)…

Seems for casual reader with no knowledge of German you may be oversimplifying a little. Including the plural form and four cases you wind up having to learn 16 forms of the equivalent of 'the' which then serves as a mnemonic for adjectival endings for modifing nouns. Also compound that with gender and idiosyncratic plural forms and you wind up having to learn three aspects for every new vocabulary noun.

some geographic areas use "das" for everything - yeah good point. If you ever tooled around the German-speaking sections of Switzerland you'll still find locals complaining that they have difficulty understanding the dialect of another town only a few km away.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#80

Post by cageface » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

codazoda wrote: post #51

Koshkin wrote: post #34

German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…

I took 4 years of German in high school, so I'm no expert, but I do disagree about it making sense any more than any other language. There are at least 3 ways to say "the". Der, die, and das. Which one you use depends on if the object you're talking about is femanine or not. To top that off some geographic areas use "das" for everything. It also has words that are similar to English; toilette (toilet) and hast (have)…

I've been learning Vietnamese for a few years and it seems to just fine without all the complicated tenses and cases etc in the grammar of European languages. I'm not sure if all those baroque rules really buy much.