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The Awful German Language (1880)

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Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#111

Post by andensande »

scrollaway wrote: post #103
andensande wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty of mastering the tenses is something that I think a lot of English speakers overlook. There's a lot of really precise and difficult-to-explain subtleties in English. (Of course, English isn't unique in this regard -- but I feel like certain things are taken for granted). Something that catches a lot of English as second language people out is the correct time to use the gerund form (i.e., the '-ing' fo…

Love that last example. I think "to have been being watched" is a bit of a reach though? "To have been observed / under observation" feels more natural. When translating it to french i got to "elle aurait dûe être observée". Incidentally, French has an easier time with this, I think because we have more options there. I couldn't reproduce the quirky structure at all, the flow is just more natural in french.

You can gloss it with 'under observation' I think fairly well. But the problem with

(1) She would have had to have been observed.

is that it misses out the gerund form preceding 'observed', which alters the meaning slightly in my opinion. It's difficult to get at precisely but I feel like the original sentence has a feeling of time-boundedness around when she was observed which you don't get without that gerund. I think?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#112

Post by pezezin »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #26

English pronunciation only vaguely follows word spelling and must be memorized in many cases. The classic phrase: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed." shows how the "-ough" has no reasonable rule that can be used to determine word pronunciation, despite similar spelling. By comparison, spelling and word p…

> You know how to spell a word from the way it sounds.

Spanish is my mother language, and actually it's the opposite way: given a written word, there is only one obvious way to read it (except for loanwords and a few words that keep old spellings like "México"), but given a spoken word, it may be written in two different ways (e.g. vaca/baca, kilo/quilo), or it may have a silent H ("ahí hay un hombre que dice ay"). The orthography is not fully phonetic, but you are right it's infinitely easier than English.

If you want to find languages with an almost perfect phonetic spelling, look at Eastern/Northern European languages with an ortography created in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#113

Post by ninefathom »

scrollaway wrote: post #103
andensande wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty of mastering the tenses is something that I think a lot of English speakers overlook. There's a lot of really precise and difficult-to-explain subtleties in English. (Of course, English isn't unique in this regard -- but I feel like certain things are taken for granted). Something that catches a lot of English as second language people out is the correct time to use the gerund form (i.e., the '-ing' fo…

Love that last example. I think "to have been being watched" is a bit of a reach though? "To have been observed / under observation" feels more natural. When translating it to french i got to "elle aurait dûe être observée". Incidentally, French has an easier time with this, I think because we have more options there. I couldn't reproduce the quirky structure at all, the flow is just more natural in french.

Native English speaker here, with training in linguistics, and several other languages under my belt over the years.

In my native dialect, statements including "had to have been being" are rather common. My friends, family, co-workers, etc. use them regularly. In fact, I recall saying "he'd have had to have been being reckless" just earlier today. All five of the other people present- both immediate family and non-relatives from this area- knew precisely what was meant. In other words, that intimidating clump of verbs passed unremarked.

Further, to andensande's point, one might be inclined to replace that god-awful monstrosity with something like "he must've been reckless." To do so would be to wipe out some subtleties of meaning from the original. A replacement like "he must've been acting recklessly at the time" feels like the same general meaning to me, but it also sounds stuffy and snobbish in tone (for all that it's probably a much more effective construction).

All things considered, every language that I've ever dealt with in any capacity has had its share of peculiarities. In hindsight, however, I don't recall Arabic, Zulu, or even Gallo-Lati... er, I mean French... having quite as few peculiarities as my sponge-like mother tongue.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#114

Post by trompetenaccoun »

quercusa wrote: post #106
locallost wrote: post #84

As someone who's had to (or maybe wanted to) learn both english and german, I'd say german has a steeper initial learning curve, but it becomes easier later, whereas english can be easy to get going, but it's difficult to master (obviously the spelling, but also the more advanced use of tenses etc). Regarding Twain's complaints, the biggest lesson I learned from learning german at an older age was: languages are nons…

> languages are nonsensical, illogical, and the sooner you stop trying to make sense of it all,the faster you will advance. In the first day of Koine Greek class, the instructor asked who had programming experience. She made a point of stressing, as she would again, that unlike computer languages, human languages show no signs of design, and not to spend any time looking for it. It was good advice.

Well... not that the advice isn't solid, and she's a good teacher for driving this point into the programmer student's minds. But saying no sign is a bit extreme, there is some level of design in any natural language. Icelandic has a committee that decides on new words. Instead of using foreign loan words they largely make up their own new Icelandic words when needed for new concepts. In German the spelling is centrally planned and gets reformed every other year. Which is why German words are mostly spelled as they're pronounced, as opposed to English. Chinese grammar is super simple and logical. I don't know if this is due to design but it wouldn't surprise me if there had been some reforms in the past. Especially since standard Chinese used to be a somewhat artificial literary language. And speaking of writing: All alphabets are designed of course. Korean is a great example for a really clever and logical design. The reading and writing in turn will have had an influence on the way we think and speak, since it formalized and standardized languages.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#115

Post by trompetenaccoun »

blahedo wrote: post #80
forinti wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at an eggplant in its early stages, you will understand the name.

More importantly, they were historically egg-shaped and (off-)white; the large and phallic purple variant that now dominates is the result of selective breeding over centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant#/media/File:Eggplant_...

Thanks for that, I had no idea!

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#116

Post by bonchicbongenre »

andensande wrote: post #94
locallost wrote: post #84

As someone who's had to (or maybe wanted to) learn both english and german, I'd say german has a steeper initial learning curve, but it becomes easier later, whereas english can be easy to get going, but it's difficult to master (obviously the spelling, but also the more advanced use of tenses etc). Regarding Twain's complaints, the biggest lesson I learned from learning german at an older age was: languages are nons…

The difficulty of mastering the tenses is something that I think a lot of English speakers overlook. There's a lot of really precise and difficult-to-explain subtleties in English. (Of course, English isn't unique in this regard -- but I feel like certain things are taken for granted). Something that catches a lot of English as second language people out is the correct time to use the gerund form (i.e., the '-ing' fo…

I very much agree with English being a hodgepodge of confusing rules, especially those tense-related.

Re rewtriting (3) though: does not the following suffice? "She must have been being watched".

I can imagine an argument that "She would have had to have" is not equivalent to "She must have" on grounds that the "have had" might suggest additionally that the past-ongoing-watching no longer occurs. I don't really think this flies, though, since the natural reading of "been being watched" already suggests to me that the watching was relegated to the past ("been" being interpreted as only connoting the past, not the "inclusive-or"-type interpretation "previously and perhaps presently"; much as "or" itself is - to my chagrin! - generally interpreted exclusively in standard parlance).

I couldn't think of how to simplify the "been being" though; that is a tough nut.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#117

Post by msrenee »

locallost wrote: post #84

As someone who's had to (or maybe wanted to) learn both english and german, I'd say german has a steeper initial learning curve, but it becomes easier later, whereas english can be easy to get going, but it's difficult to master (obviously the spelling, but also the more advanced use of tenses etc). Regarding Twain's complaints, the biggest lesson I learned from learning german at an older age was: languages are nons…

Absolutely agree. I'm a native English speaker who has dipped their toes in Spanish, Russian, and German. Spanish vocab was easy except for some deceptively similar words with very different meanings. Grammar came fairly easy in spite of the differences with English.

Russian grammar and vocab plus the different alphabet were incredibly intimidating, but the different declensions became familiar very quickly. I was familiar with conjugation from Spanish, so that was just a bit of memorization. I like how clear the alphabet and spelling are. Once you learn how to sound things out, you're good to go besides very few exceptions. Everything is very regular, there's just a lot of tenses and moods to get acquainted with. Perfective and imperfective verbs are still something I have to learn on a word-by-word basis.

German grammar was easy except for the different cases. I'd already been exposed to cases with Russian, so I don't know why it's so much harder for me in German. Maybe because I expected it to be closer to English. It's weird the way I can listen to a sentence in German and it feels like I know what they're saying, but if I try to translate it, I don't have a clue.

I don't think you can really class languages by difficulty. You just have to immerse yourself in each. Even in those with recent spelling and grammar revisions, getting the ear for it and using it is the key.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#118

Post by joefourier »

stan_rogers wrote: post #97
ojosilva wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mincemeat is (was) a way to preserve meat using sour, salty, alcoholic preserves and sweet flavoring.

Um, no. It's a nice folk etymology, though.

Are you saying mince pies didn't traditionally contain meat? Recipes up to the late 19th century include meat, and even today I can find some that do, although very rare - usually beef suet is the only remaining animal ingredient.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#119

Post by trompetenaccoun »

forinti wrote: post #20
turbinerneiter wrote: post #8

It's our revenge for the "th", my dear Englishman.

I find it hilarious that my compatriots try so hard to learn to pronounce the th when a good many brits just use an f sound.

How to Cockney speakers say words like "fifth" or "sixth" though? I've always wondered. Can't just be "fif", can it?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#120

Post by msrenee »

scrollaway wrote: post #103
andensande wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty of mastering the tenses is something that I think a lot of English speakers overlook. There's a lot of really precise and difficult-to-explain subtleties in English. (Of course, English isn't unique in this regard -- but I feel like certain things are taken for granted). Something that catches a lot of English as second language people out is the correct time to use the gerund form (i.e., the '-ing' fo…

Love that last example. I think "to have been being watched" is a bit of a reach though? "To have been observed / under observation" feels more natural. When translating it to french i got to "elle aurait dûe être observée". Incidentally, French has an easier time with this, I think because we have more options there. I couldn't reproduce the quirky structure at all, the flow is just more natural in french.

I could see saying "she'd had to have been watched" or "they had to have been watching her". Both sound very natural to my ear. Observed to me feels more like they're looking at every minute detail with some emotional distance and maybe a feeling of something novel. A scientist observes a rare bug walking on a leaf. A psychiatrist observes his patients' behaviors. It's maybe a more scientific and heavily detail-oriented form of watching. But a would-be abductor would be watching his victim. He may observe their habits, but that's while he's watching them. It's a very fine line and I'm sure that other native speakers would disagree. But for me, "observe" would feel out of place here.
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