Germans have a reputation for being well organised.
And for well organised being.
As also organised well-being.
How the brain processes German and Arabic
11–20 of 115 posts
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
My native language is Portuguese and I'm currently learning German. The separable verbs are quite a challenge for me, especially in longer sentences. I'm used to simply read a verb and start picturing the sentence meaning in my mind, immediately. Whereas in German there's this need to keep the content in the working memory for possible supplementary info, and only at the end you can figure the meaning. Until the sent…
Obligatory Mark Twain on this, in case you or others haven't read his essay on learning German: "observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to…
Wow, this is such an incredible take-down, thank you for sharing!
German is one of those languages where the spoken and written languages are incredibly distinct. I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.).
The formalities of proper written German are inscrutable, this does a great job of laying the most painful aspects out.
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#13> Leihst du dir das Buch von deinem Lieblingsschriftsteller aus?
Oh, that word! Even in slow motion I couldn’t spell it :)
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obligatory Mark Twain on this, in case you or others haven't read his essay on learning German: "observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to…
Wow, this is such an incredible take-down, thank you for sharing! German is one of those languages where the spoken and written languages are incredibly distinct. I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.). The formalities of proper written German are inscrutable, this does a great…
It's funny to see this actually. I never thought about it the way I read it from Mark Twain. Neither had I ever thought about English being a hard language because it has no regularity and every second word is an exception in how to pronounce it. But French eludes me.
Written German of the times of Mark Twain is also quite different from today's. Of course the actual context dictates formality as well. Personally I can't understand Shakespeare era English nor German. It's just gibberish to me. With lots of concentration maybe but not just reading or listening to it.
Also, the whole Dative and Genetive thing is not just a formality/written vs spoken thing but more a generational and societal one. Using Dative for things where the rules actually prescribe Genetive is a class thing. Working class usually means everything is just Dative. And if you're not good at learning languages. Even as a German native speaker. If you are trying to sound high society and snobbish you'll use a lot of Genetive in the proper way. Or if you simply learned it that way and it became second nature to do it correctly. A lot has changed that way since Twain.
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#15> Leihst du dir das Buch von deinem Lieblingsschriftsteller aus? Oh, that word! Even in slow motion I couldn’t spell it :)
It's a relatively simple compound word. Just two words actually.
I hope this doesn't get auto corrected but how about Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaen (sorry no umlauts here and no fff from me :)).
For the uninitiated: Schiff has 2 f. Fahrt has an f. But there a rule that if you combine words to make a new one you can't have a letter repeat more than twice.
Papplakate? Pappe and Plakate.
Schlaemmkreide? (again no umlaut but you get it thats an a umlaut and not just an e). Coz it's from Schlamm not schlemmen.
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#16Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#17I always wondered if my propensity for learning German was also correlated with my preference for my HP48 given their mutual requirement for “unwinding the stack” style of thinking.
My native language is Portuguese and I'm currently learning German. The separable verbs are quite a challenge for me, especially in longer sentences. I'm used to simply read a verb and start picturing the sentence meaning in my mind, immediately. Whereas in German there's this need to keep the content in the working memory for possible supplementary info, and only at the end you can figure the meaning. Until the sent…
German is not a pure SVO language rather it is classified as V2 (verb second language) in main clauses and SOV in subordinate clauses. At least I prefer to look at it in that - admittedly unsatisfactory - descriptive manner.[0][1]
There are some folks (like in Generative Grammar) arguing that it has an underlying SOV layer which makes kind of sense because it gets processed like half of the time essentially like pure SOV languages. But alas sometimes one size doesn't fit all. In English you have to go through the extraordinary effort of a wedding ceremony in order to utter the words in SOV order: "With this ring I thee wed." That is some pure SVO energy right here, only broken by love ;)
[0]https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/1057/german-...
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obligatory Mark Twain on this, in case you or others haven't read his essay on learning German: "observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to…
Wow, this is such an incredible take-down, thank you for sharing! German is one of those languages where the spoken and written languages are incredibly distinct. I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.). The formalities of proper written German are inscrutable, this does a great…
Honestly, in my experience as a native German speaker spoken and written German are more similar to each other than spoken and written English. Just speak German as you would write it might sound a little bit more formal than is usual, but it won't cause you any trouble to err a little bit on the "too formal" side.
> I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.).
I rather think that the people who you spoke with used a simpler structure of sentences than is common in educated circles because you would otherwise have difficulties understanding them.
You should actually rather feel spoiled: in older German texts, it can actually easily happen that a whole paragraph consists of one single sentence (this rarely occurs in contemporary texts). Just to give one single arbitrary example:
"Wenn es die Verwirklichung von Urträumen ist, fliegen zu können und mit den Fischen zu reisen, sich unter den Leibern von Bergriesen durchzubohren, mit göttlichen Geschwindigkeiten Botschaften zu senden, das Unsichtbare und Ferne zu sehen und sprechen zu hören, Tote sprechen zu hören, sich in wundertätigen Genesungsschlaf versenken zu lassen, mit lebenden Augen erblicken zu können, wie man zwanzig Jahre nach seinem Tode aussehen wird, in flimmernden Nächten tausend Dinge über und unter dieser Welt zu wissen, die früher niemand gewußt hat, wenn Licht, Wärme, Kraft, Genuß, Bequemlichkeit Urträume der Menschheit sind, – dann ist die heutige Forschung nicht nur Wissenschaft, sondern ein Zauber, eine Zeremonie von höchster Herzens- und Hirnkraft, vor der Gott eine Falte seines Mantels nach der anderen öffnet, eine Religion, deren Dogmatik von der harten, mutigen, beweglichen, messerkühlen und -scharfen Denklehre der Mathematik durchdrungen und getragen wird."
(https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/musil/mannohne/chap011.htm...)
And no, I have no difficulties understanding this sentence.
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, this is such an incredible take-down, thank you for sharing! German is one of those languages where the spoken and written languages are incredibly distinct. I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.). The formalities of proper written German are inscrutable, this does a great…
It's funny to see this actually. I never thought about it the way I read it from Mark Twain. Neither had I ever thought about English being a hard language because it has no regularity and every second word is an exception in how to pronounce it. But French eludes me. Written German of the times of Mark Twain is also quite different from today's. Of course the actual context dictates formality as well. Personally I c…
> Written German of the times of Mark Twain is also quite different from today's.
The German language mutated less over the centuries than the English language. An educated native German speaker should be able to mostly understand the "Nibelungenlied" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied), a text written down in the mid 13th century, which is thus nearly 800 years old.
Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic
#20> Leihst du dir das Buch von deinem Lieblingsschriftsteller aus? Oh, that word! Even in slow motion I couldn’t spell it :)
It's a relatively simple compound word. Just two words actually. I hope this doesn't get auto corrected but how about Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaen (sorry no umlauts here and no fff from me :)). For the uninitiated: Schiff has 2 f. Fahrt has an f. But there a rule that if you combine words to make a new one you can't have a letter repeat more than twice. Papplakate? Pappe and Plakate. Schlaemmkreide? (ag…
> For the uninitiated: Schiff has 2 f. Fahrt has an f. But there a rule that if you combine words to make a new one you can't have a letter repeat more than twice.
This is a rule of the old spelling; it does not hold with respect to the new spelling rules.
Of particular importance is because of this rule change, for some words many native speakers actually became aware that they pronounced some words wrongly.
Old spelling: Stilleben [still life]
Many native speaker pronounced wrongly this word as Stil-Leben [long i; style life], but actually correct is Still-Leben [short i; still life]. The new spelling removes this potential source of confusion.