As a German, I still learned a lot from the article. Thanks!
German for Programmers
201–210 of 266 posts
Re: German for Programmers
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. In HTTP on TCP over IP? Speaking "on" English doesn't seem so strange if we can talk over (i.e. through) the radio. And English gets so much less reasonable. "Put up" is to house, "put down" is to insult, "put up with " is to suffer, "put through" is to test, "put around" is to spread, "put in" to contribute, "put out" to have sex or produce, "put over" either to delay or to decieve, "put past" to offer, "put…
> In HTTP on TCP over IP? I think I would use over for all of those. Is that wrong? And English phrasal verbs aren't really different from German verbs with separable prefixes. I agree though that it's one of the harder parts of the language.
> I think I would use over for all of those. Is that wrong?
You're probably right, I should have tried harder to find a better example. The "on" doesn't sound too awkward to me, though, and I might say it just to avoid saying "over" three times in a row.
Re: German for Programmers
#203Got excited when I read the title but. I speak fluent German - like a native. Only after 20 years in London I cannot participate in a hard- or software-related technical discussion in German, because I wasn't exposed to that milieu in a German-speaking environment. And so I excpected something that maybe explains how you might say "inversion of control" or "edge/perimiter network" or "public key cryptography" or "tie…
German here. I've never heard German words for any concepts like that outside of university. You'll usually get by just pronouncing those words a bit more German or replacing the ones that are very close to German words with the German one (e.g. cryptography -> Kryptographie but "public key cryptography" -> Public Key Kryptographie). If you want to "pass" while speaking German but need to use English jargon, just use…
> most Latin-based English words work in German as long as you pronounce them like a German would
Only those that were introduced from Latin texts (alongside all the ancient Greek we tend to confuse with Latin). Those that came from Latin via French are for when you need to cheat in the same way west of the Rhine.
Re: German for Programmers
#204Having 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…
Native German speaker: Most of the time we think it's just funny if you get the gender wrong, no harm done. As you said, there's very few instances where there are words changing meaning if you swap out the article. And even then, it's ususally obvious from context. (Der Schild => the shield; Das Schild => the sign). I do get the frustration though, I had to learn French in school and I'm currently learning Swedish (…
Back when I Lived in Germany a colleague used to have fun when I said "meine Deutsche" instead of "mein Deutsch" when referring to my knowledge of the language.
After 2 years I just stopped worrying about articles, knowing that I would anyway always sound like auslander to them.
Re: German for Programmers
#205Having 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…
Well, sometimes Germans themselves are not quite sure about which article to use. It differs from north to south, from east to west and depends a lot on the dialect you're used to. An (Upper-)Bavarian would for example never say "die Butter". It is and will always be "der Butter". Same with "der Radio" in the South and "das Radio" for the rest of the country. Another funny thing I stumble upon every time Oktoberfest…
I think this is misleading: Dialects exist but they don’t change the rules of standard German grammar. In German, only “die Butter” is correct, regardless of where you are. Upper Bavarians may use “der Butter” but there’s an understanding that this is dialect, and not correct German. It’s fine in daily usage but not in more formal speech or in writing.
(A better example is “Mus”, which has multiple correct genders.)
German is a lot more prescriptive than English. This is only different for neologisms and anglicisms (“Newsletter”), where a generally accepted gender hasn’t been established through usage yet (Duden now lists “Newsletter” as masculine, but both “die Newsletter” and “das Newsletter” were common until recently).
Re: German for Programmers
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
That's also the composition of 'sympathy', just that's Greek instead of Latin.
While you're right, I can't help but notice: It's important to know the difference between "composition" and "symposium" ;-)
Re: German for Programmers
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, sometimes Germans themselves are not quite sure about which article to use. It differs from north to south, from east to west and depends a lot on the dialect you're used to. An (Upper-)Bavarian would for example never say "die Butter". It is and will always be "der Butter". Same with "der Radio" in the South and "das Radio" for the rest of the country. Another funny thing I stumble upon every time Oktoberfest…
I have asked multiple germans about gendered nouns and other funky grammar points. I often end up getting different answers or confusion when I relate what I learnt from a reliable source elsewhere. Honestly, despite the confusion, I love how diverse the German language is despite the relatively small range and number of speakers, but also considering it came under many of the same forces for "flattening" the rules a…
It really isn’t as diverse as you seem to think. As suggested in another comment, these German speakers you talked to simply didn’t know the correct forms: The German language is generally quite prescriptive, there’s little room for variation outside dialects (which are not “correct/standard German”).
(And then there are Platt (= Low German) and Alemannisch/Schwyzerdütsch, both of which are distinct languages from High German.)
Re: German for Programmers
#208> Prepositions claim different areas of ‘cognitive space’ in English and German The thing about pre/postpositions is, their use is almost entirely idiomatic in modern language, i.e. it doesn't follow from the meaning of individual parts and thus doesn't translate without reconstruction. In English, afaict, practically all adpositions signify relations in space or time, plus there are ‘of’ and ‘for.’ However, once you…
Right. In HTTP on TCP over IP? Speaking "on" English doesn't seem so strange if we can talk over (i.e. through) the radio. And English gets so much less reasonable. "Put up" is to house, "put down" is to insult, "put up with " is to suffer, "put through" is to test, "put around" is to spread, "put in" to contribute, "put out" to have sex or produce, "put over" either to delay or to decieve, "put past" to offer, "put…
(Ah dang, "put together" is to construct, "put out" also to extinguish, and to be put out is also to be disappointed... I'm not going to add to the list.)
Re: German for Programmers
#209Re: German for Programmers
#210The thing I and many other people hate the most in any language that has it (German included) are cases. The rest is easy.
My biggest gripe with german is the redundancy, all articles and form changes they create are actually redundant, they don't contribute to the meaning in any significant manners. Remove all of them and all the complications, different forms they create, you would still perfectly understand it.
Yeah I know, languages, organic, beautiful, but subtle things , etc etc.. But still.