Git reference in german
https://github.com/danielauener/git-auf-deutsch
It is hilarious to 'pick up raisins' instead of cherrypicking a commit
German for Programmers
171–180 of 266 posts
Re: German for Programmers
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would recommend starting with something like Duolingo. It will give you a head start on listening comprehension and grammar. In my opinion, reading texts is more efficient than listening to conversations. It's basically "on demand language streaming", you can slow down or speed up as desired.
Duolingo and apps like it, including Memrise, really fail with German. They can be good for syllable pronunciation and maybe memorizing gender of some nouns, but they never will explain or brush on the more complex nuances of any language, which you would learn in the second week of any formal education.
I think the problem is that these apps sell themselves as a one-stop shop to learn a language, but they're not. When they're effective, is when you treat them as tools, to target various areas.
Re: German for Programmers
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about if I say 'J'ai mis la téléphone dans la peau" instead of 'j'ai mis le téléphone dans le pot"?! I find in french that there is always another meaning behind a noun and it is easy to slip up.
But that's using a whole different noun, albeit one that sounds similar. In this case using the correct gender won't help, especially if the sentence could make sense with both nouns.
They are homophones so they are different nouns but have the same sound. The only audible difference is the article gender. I think the original point was the (audible) gender doesn't change the meaning much in German vs French.
Re: German for Programmers
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Duolingo and apps like it, including Memrise, really fail with German. They can be good for syllable pronunciation and maybe memorizing gender of some nouns, but they never will explain or brush on the more complex nuances of any language, which you would learn in the second week of any formal education.
I agree with that. I banged my head on Duolingo and Memrise for ages before I got a tutor, and things fell in to place within weeks. Out of disgust for the solutions that existed, I went so far as to start working on my own Memrise style app which understands enough German grammar to generate English/German sentence pairs, so you can practice sentences with nouns/verbs/adjectives swapped around. So it shows you the f…
It's not that easy to get kicked out of Germany...
Duolingo is but a tool among many. For one thing it tends to not force you to repeat enough, and for another the grammatical explanations are not that elaborate and easily ignored.
But for basic drilling it's great and I would prefer it over most other tools. After a point, of course, other things like reading, listening and writing become more important and efficient.
Re: German for Programmers
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
There is a defacto standard, and telling otherwise to non-speakers is just misleading. Auslautverhärtung is part of that standard.
What is the ending of the pronunciation of 'und' in your region? Is it 'd' or 't'?
Re: German for Programmers
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Duolingo and apps like it, including Memrise, really fail with German. They can be good for syllable pronunciation and maybe memorizing gender of some nouns, but they never will explain or brush on the more complex nuances of any language, which you would learn in the second week of any formal education.
Duolingo has notes explaining the grammar as it introduces it, for the most part, and the grammar gets reasonably sophisticated by the end. Not really what I'd call complex nuances, but probably equivalent to a year or two of university study. What second-week German grammar concepts do you think it doesn't brush on?
In my experience Duolingo does have good grammar notes. But they are easily ignored and the exercises don't force you enough to read and understand them. Which may be impossible for any such tool.
Re: German for Programmers
#177Tip for remembering if a noun is male, female or neuter, visualize it as burning/being burnt/blowing up for coding female and freezing for coding male. Of course you can reverse the system if you prefer. Also in my experience, reading text eventually is the most efficient way to learn a language, including the grammatical pecularities. If you come upon the phrase "das kalte Bier", you know that it is "das Bier". At t…
I took German back in high school but I don't really remember anything about it. How can you read if you don't at least have an idea of what each word or phrase means? I'm a native born English speaker, and I occasionally have to look up English words if I have no idea what they're supposed to mean. It's one thing if it's an obvious random word for a gadget such as doohickey. I can't imagine reading a foreign languag…
That's why I propose a two-phased strategy where the first phase is dominated by drilling and the second phase is dominated by reading and immersing.
Re: German for Programmers
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
In case no one told you "en" words usually map to masculine and feminine in German, and "ett" words are neutral.
As a native Swedish speaker, albeit with little interest in languages and grammar, I can't see how that would help anyone. How do you know if "bil" (car) is masculine/feminine or neutral (en bil, ett bil)? Open to learn here :)
Well, it works for many cognates. Haus/house/hus all come from the same word, so if you know that it's "ein/das Haus" you can expect it to be "ett hus/huset" in Swedish. Same with e.g Hund/hound/hund, "ein/der Hund" is masculine so it is of common gender in Swedish "en hund/hunden".
Re: German for Programmers
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Unlike French, there are very few words where changing the gender has a different meaning Being French myself I'm curious what makes you say that. I can't think of many nouns that change meaning if you swap their gender. They exist but I never thought that it was common enough to cause issues. For the most part I can understand strangers just fine even if get the genders wrong. "J'ai mis la téléphone dans le voiture…
Not sure what you mean about "sonhar em/com". In this case em" is used to depict the medium, while "com" regards the subject. For example, "sonhar em alemão" means "to dream in German" (e.g. everyone talks in German), while "sonhar com alemão" means "to dream about German" (e.g. you dreamed you were in class).
In Portuguese you can also use "em" in sentences like "sonhou em regressar ao Brasil" (quoting an example from the Wiktionary). In French we would say "J'ai rêvé de retourner au Brésil", the literal translation with "en" would be nonsensical.
Re: German for Programmers
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Unlike French, there are very few words where changing the gender has a different meaning Being French myself I'm curious what makes you say that. I can't think of many nouns that change meaning if you swap their gender. They exist but I never thought that it was common enough to cause issues. For the most part I can understand strangers just fine even if get the genders wrong. "J'ai mis la téléphone dans le voiture…
What about if I say 'J'ai mis la téléphone dans la peau" instead of 'j'ai mis le téléphone dans le pot"?! I find in french that there is always another meaning behind a noun and it is easy to slip up.
I hadn't thought about homophones, that's a good point (and due to our quirky phonology there are many of those in French). That being said even in proper French we lose the distinction in the plural and I don't think that's really much of an issue, "le" and "la" both become "les": "les peaux" and "les pots" are pronounced exactly the same. I believe German does the same thing with plural "die".
Clearly if you told me the strictly correct sentence "les téléphones sont dans les pots" I would never wonder if you meant "the phones are in the pots" or "the phones are in the skins" because we don't generally put phones in people's skins (yet).