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The Awful German Language (1880)

cs.utah.edu

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Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#111

Post by ThJ »

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'm a native speaker of Norwegian, a language which also has three grammatical genders. I don't experience it as having to memorise genders. I only notice them when they are wrong.

They're not completely useless.

"Det regner." - It's raining. "Den regner." - It's calculating.

The verb "regne" is ambiguous and the gender helps disambiguate ut.

Sometimes, the grammatical gender conveys information about the noun. Is it abstract or inanimate? Probably neuter. Is it alive? Can it move? Probably masculine or feminine.

Sometimes, when a follow-on sentence discusses previously introduced objects, gendered articles can clue you onto which objects are being discussed.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#112

Post by wolfgke »

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?

> Is it das Nutella or die Nutella?

> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nutella&oldid=181...

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#113

Post by howeman »

azernik wrote: post #89
LolNoGenerics wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interestingly, "chief" is the same word as "chef" just imported from the Normans. French had a consonant shift, while English did not, and then imported the word again with the new pronunciation and spelling.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#114

Post by escherplex »

louisswiss wrote: post #69
KeyboardFire wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've long thought it a real possibility that people are constrained (in certain areas) by their language. No expert and not disagreeing with you, but I'd be very interested to read any literature you can recommend on the subject.

For an introduction see:

Linguistic relativity

URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#115

Post by samatman »

ThJ wrote: post #111
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'm a native speaker of Norwegian, a language which also has three grammatical genders. I don't experience it as having to memorise genders. I only notice them when they are wrong. They're not completely useless. "Det regner." - It's raining. "Den regner." - It's calculating. The verb "regne" is ambiguous and the gender helps disambiguate ut. Sometimes, the grammatical gender conveys information about the noun. Is it…

There is no critique of a language's difficulty which is relevant to native speakers.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#116

Post by gweinberg »

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.

There were certainly plenty of great German speaking physicists and mathematicians. But those philosophers all sucked.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#117

Post by escherplex »

themodelplumber wrote: post #71
sarabande wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

And not just plurals. Juxtapose the relatively sophisticated time sense expressable in English verb forms with the Japanese imperfective and perfective verb forms. With the imperfective form and without further cues you're expected to telepathically intuit whether the referrent is present or future.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#118

Post by KineticLensman »

amelius wrote: post #106
escherplex wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender references generally disappear in the English plurals. So the above should read "Users should upload their photos". Then you can just restrict gender pronouns for reference to specifics.

That does not work when the plural is not appropriate. For example, you would have trouble saying: "the above commenter wrote about their experience", i.e. when talking about a specific person with unknown gender. I'm glad that English still allows this.

As I understand it, use of they/their is on the increase even for singular rather than plural specifically because it is gender neutral. The older alternatives often exclude women (by saying 'he') or require the writer to spell out 'he or she' or 's/he'.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#120

Post by ziftface »

DavidSJ wrote: post #95
soperj wrote: post #92

2 favorite words in german: hand = hand schuh = shoe handschuh = glove schlaft = sleep anzug = suit schlaftanzug = pajamas

Don’t forget: Zahn = tooth, Arzt = doctor, Zahnarzt = dentist.

Well "dentist" is just a fancier way of saying "toothist" so "tooth doctor" doesn't sound too bad.
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