The Awful German Language (1880) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#81

Post by LolNoGenerics » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:20 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 makes at least more sense then the difference beteween the and the.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#82

Post by escherplex » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:23 AM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #78

codazoda wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If referring to phonetics then thee would be for emphasis to a construed subordinate with thuh used generally. Really idiosyncratic.

If referring to written words then use thee if you find yourself in Pennsylvania Dutch country trying to hail a horse drawn taxi or thuh if trying to play dumb while text messaging.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#83

Post by acomjean » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:24 AM UTC

apo wrote: post #73

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 pro…

I often wonder if all that extra grammatical baggage and more rigid pronouciation would make it easier for a computer to understand german over english.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#84

Post by LolNoGenerics » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:26 AM UTC

louisswiss wrote: post #68

noonespecial wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. German always follows the rules. You might not like the rules, but it always follows the rules!

Until it doesn't. Is it das Nutella or die Nutella?

When is it ever die nutella?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#85

Post by LolNoGenerics » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

apo wrote: post #73

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 pro…

Just today I had a chat with a friend about a movie named "rogue one". Roug, Rook, Roug, Rook. If feel quite fit writing english but talking - as someone with very litte practice - drives me mad.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#86

Post by geowwy » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

rolleiflex wrote: post #63

amelius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I like about English is that it naturally supports gender neutrality. For example: "the user should upload their photo, and then they should press enter", instead of "the user should upload his/her photo and then he/she should press enter".

English still has he / she, so it’s not fully gender neutral, it still has gendered constructs in its ‘runtime’. There are a few fully gender neutral languages, Turkish is one.

Chinese is interesting because the spoken form has no gender but the written form does (he/she/it are written 他/她/它 but all pronounced “tā”)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#87

Post by Koshkin » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

escherplex wrote: post #82

tomjakubowski wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If referring to phonetics then thee would be for emphasis to a construed subordinate with thuh used generally. Really idiosyncratic. If referring to written words then use thee if you find yourself in Pennsylvania Dutch country trying to hail a horse drawn taxi or thuh if trying to play dumb while text messaging.

Well, IIRC the "official" rule is that 'thee' is to be used before a vowel and 'thuh' before a consonant.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#88

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

lemoncucumber wrote: post #60

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 were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German As I recall that didn't work out so well last time it was tried...

[deleted]

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#89

Post by azernik » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:42 AM UTC

LolNoGenerics wrote: post #85

apo wrote: post #73

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 pro…

Just today I had a chat with a friend about a movie named "rogue one". Roug, Rook, Roug, Rook. If feel quite fit writing english but talking - as someone with very litte practice - drives me mad.

That specific example points to the root cause of most English pronunciation weirdness - an insistence on preserving original spelling for loanwords even if they come from languages with very different orthography. "Rogue" and "chef" are both French loanwords that English still spells as if they were French, not to mention all the Latin loanwords that still give middle-schoolers endless pain.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#90

Post by dang » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 12:43 AM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #25

Reminds me of this joke, the basis of which seems commonly attributed to Mark Twain but as far as I can find, it not actually from him. Not sure what the original is, but here is one of its many copies floating around: https://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/european-commission.html

That definitely wasn't Twain. It originated as a letter to the editor (perhaps to the Economist?) and got revised as people passed it around on the internet. Unfortunately I can't now find the article I once read which traced this. Perhaps someone else can conjure it up.