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German for Programmers

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Re: German for Programmers

#161

Post by tom_mellior »

madez wrote: post #154
tom_mellior wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use "High German" in English to mean (some perceived) "Standard German". It's bad (and incorrect) enough to use "Hochdeutsch" in German, but "High German" has a specific meaning in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages and the dialect spoken in Hannover is not in fact a High German one.

Wikipedia calls it Standard (High) German. To be more specific, I meant German Standard High German. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_German

Right, but that standard is more about the written standard language than about the language as spoken in Hannover. I know it's a trope that TV news announcers supposedly pronounce things like they are pronounced in Hannover, but that pronounciation is not a standard.

And for whatever it's worth, the Auslautverhärtung you referred to in several places in this thread is also just a Northern regional thing: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auslautverh%C3%A4rtung / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-obstruent_devoicing#Germ...

Here (eastern Austria) "Rad" and "Rat" (can) sound different.

Re: German for Programmers

#162

Post by leadingthenet »

chousuke wrote: post #133
pantalaimon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use the English words like everyone else. It seems like there was an effort in the 80ies/90ies to have native German names for concepts in computer science, but today those just sound very dated. Datenfernübertragung died with the 56k Modem ;)

I find this interesting because my native tongue, Finnish, is quite good about accepting neologisms. People do use English terms, but it's also very common that there exists a native word and people will use that. Calling computers "kompuutteri" would sound hilariously old-timey compared to "tietokone" (or "tietsikka"). The same goes for "telefooni" vs. "puhelin", though curiously enough I'm perfectly fine using both…

Hungarian is the same. Finno-ugrics ftw!

“Computer” is non-existent in Hungarian, we call it számitógép, built from the words számitás (to calculate) and gép (machine). Since most Hungarian words are constructed like that, it sounds completely native to the language.

I cringe whenever I hear English words mixed in with Hungarian ones, they sound completely out of place, which is probably not true for German.

Re: German for Programmers

#164

Post by jacobush »

pluma wrote: post #79
levosmetalo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that people that want to understand you would understand you, even if you speak wrong, it's not something "not to worry about". Using the wrong gender or articles quickly gives a hint that you are some lowly educated factory worker living in Germany for 20 years and not caring to learn the language.

That's true but I'd say it's less about appearing lowly educated than about reinforcing your foreign-ness. A lot of Germans are to varying degrees prejudiced against foreigners, especially if you're brown or can be read as Turkish/Arabic or Eastern European. If you pass as white European you're more likely to be read as educated but still learning the language whereas otherwise your language problems are more likely…

East of France?

Re: German for Programmers

#165

Post by k__ »

I'm a native German speaker and for programming I mostly use English only.

Some of my customers and co-programmers don't speak good English, but that's the only reason for using German on the job.

Re: German for Programmers

#166

Post by jacobush »

ascar wrote: post #91
pluma wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true but I'd say it's less about appearing lowly educated than about reinforcing your foreign-ness. A lot of Germans are to varying degrees prejudiced against foreigners, especially if you're brown or can be read as Turkish/Arabic or Eastern European. If you pass as white European you're more likely to be read as educated but still learning the language whereas otherwise your language problems are more likely…

It also shifts with time. 30 years back the prejudice would have been flipped. As a white immigrant you would've probably been a low educated russian or polish worker, while with a taint you would've been Italian and much more respected. It's the general bad practice of putting individuals into larger groups with a stigma based on visual appearance. I think a lot of the resentment about bad German skills in my genera…

Some comes from the attitude of creating the group "2nd generation immigrants". In the US, that's basically not a thing.

There are reasons of course, just sayin'.

Re: German for Programmers

#167

Post by kwhitefoot »

jlangenauer wrote: post #65

Having lived in Germany for 3 years now, and managed to speak German to a half-decent level (B1/B2), I offer the following observations. 1. The genders don't matter nearly as much as non-speakers think they do. If you talk to your bank, it doesn't matter if you ask about "der Konto", "die Konto" or "das Konto" (the last is actually correct), you will be able to communicate quite fine. Unlike French, there are very fe…

> das Mitleid - "mit" means with, and "leid" would be related to the verb "leiden", to suffer. So you'd have "with-suffering", which makes it possible to guess the actual meaning - "compassion"

That is just the same in English. Although you probably need to remember a bit more etymology, and some Latin doesn't hurt, "compassion" is just the same. "com" means with and "passion" in this context also means suffering.

Re: German for Programmers

#168

Post by jacobush »

leadingthenet wrote: post #162
chousuke wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this interesting because my native tongue, Finnish, is quite good about accepting neologisms. People do use English terms, but it's also very common that there exists a native word and people will use that. Calling computers "kompuutteri" would sound hilariously old-timey compared to "tietokone" (or "tietsikka"). The same goes for "telefooni" vs. "puhelin", though curiously enough I'm perfectly fine using both…

Hungarian is the same. Finno-ugrics ftw! “Computer” is non-existent in Hungarian, we call it számitógép, built from the words számitás (to calculate) and gép (machine). Since most Hungarian words are constructed like that, it sounds completely native to the language. I cringe whenever I hear English words mixed in with Hungarian ones, they sound completely out of place, which is probably not true for German.

I think we can roughly equate Swedish with German, and gosh do English words sound "cringe" in Swedish. Luckily, we can often use the direct translation, English being very Germanic. Pointer becomes "pekare" for instance. Mouse "mus" and so on. So people recognize what it came from and can use the familiar sounding native version. "Computer" becomes "dator" meaning something operating on "data". "Data" is "data" in both. "Linked list" is "länkad lista". You see the pattern?

Re: German for Programmers

#169

Post by [deleted] »

cjslep wrote: post #42

American who moved to Switzerland 1.5 years ago and learning High German (now in A2). Hardest thing for me right know is knowing when it is appropriate to use the Akkusativ versus Dativ cases. Declining is always difficult, especially considering that adjectives are declined and also this declination depends on the presence and kind of article (which is also declined). I love Switzerland but since I am learning High…

[deleted]

Re: German for Programmers

#170

Post by usrusr »

wolfgke wrote: post #134
Semaphor wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's funny because I'd say "das Blog" precisely because I remember weblogs and I'd say "das Log". Duden agrees with me [0] Oh and "Das Logbuch" has nothing to do with "log" but everything with "Buch". When you have compound words only the last word matters for gender. [0]: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Log_Logdatei_EDV

> Oh and "Das Logbuch" has nothing to do with "log" but everything with "Buch". "das Log" is a device for measuring the speed of vessels: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Log_(Messger%C3%A... So of course a "Logbuch" has a lot to do with a "Log".

The log (as in chronologically written record) surely derives from the book where the log measurements were recorded, so it's all the same basically. Nauticalese is like a separate language that "infects" coastal languages with common terminology. Of course this would all be much more interesting if Log and Buch did not share gender.
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