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How the brain processes German and Arabic

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Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#41

Post by weinzierl »

myth2018 wrote: post #7
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #3

I 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…

You are saying. For me as a native German speaker I feel very much the same when trying to speak Portuguese.

I'm used to simply read a verb and start picturing the sentence meaning in my mind, immediately. Whereas in Portuguese there's this need to keep the whole conjugation table in working memory so you can figure out the meaning.

Also in Portuguese verb forms are really important to understand and communicate meaning whereas split verbs are just fancy dressing even Germans get wrong sometimes.

Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#42

Post by kevin_b_er »

tharkun__ wrote: post #24
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

-Ish I guess :) Uns ist in alten mæren wunders vil geseit von helden lobebæren, von grôzer arebeit, von freuden, hôchgezîten, von weinen und von klagen, von küener recken strîten muget ír nu wunder hœren sagen A "mær" (as Maer - imagine an a umlaut) does exist still but the word is so antiquated that I don't expect kids these days to know it. "wunders"? No idea. Something about "wonder"? "vil" sure, viel (a lot). "ge…

> If anything, except for spelling mistakes like syd vs. syde, I think that's actually more consistent than modern English. I.e. I'd say syd for side is perfect. A y by itself makes the "why" sound. So syd is exactly how I'd write it if I was told to write it just from hearing the word once and knowing the alphabet.

Because it used to be pronounced with the e, not unlike Seite, but has long since been dropped. In the 1300s, in the time of Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales, this would've been pronounced with the trailing e.

Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#43

Post by l3000 »

myth2018 wrote: post #7
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #3

I 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…

The thing is, when you become accustomed to the language there is no such thing as keeping stuff in the working memory. I think that’s just a convoluted way of explaining the processes that are behind speaking/understanding a language. As a native speaker of German I pretty much know at the first few words of the sentence which verb/words will have to follow and how the sentence will have to end. The meaning or information is not necessarily encoded in the verb or in those words that are moved to the end of the sentence. It’s just the shell of the sentence that is so common and you‘ll see/hear so often, you don‘t think about it anymore. Ultimately it‘s just pattern recognition that doesn’t require a lot of effort, IF you know the sentence structures that go with it.

That’s also why I guess learning a language with a lot of input goes a long way to absorb the structure of a language, because at some point you‘ve seen everything and only the important bits (the real information) remain if you look at a sentence.

Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#44

Post by interfixus »

tharkun__ wrote: post #15
redbell wrote: post #13

> 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…

> Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaen

Eminently parsable for me. But then, I'm Danish and used to this kind of bolt-on word construction, or wordconstruction as I should far prefer it.

Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#45

Post by katzenversteher »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #18
gen220 wrote: post #12

Earlier 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…

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,…

I'm a native German speaker as well. While I understand this sentence, I think it is bad style in many cases. It's fine for artsy things where the reader is focused but if you have sentences like this in e.g. a report for a project you did or in an email to a colleague at work, it will most likely not be read at all or not understood correctly. What I mean with this: In everyday situations where people are stressed and/or in a hurry they don't take the time to read anything long properly. Also the the longer the sentences become, the harder it is to get the grammar right.

Very often I heard (and applied) the rule for "everyday" communication to keep the sentences short and to split longer ones if possible.

Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#46

Post by FearNotDaniel »

tharkun__ wrote: post #31
myth2018 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha thanks for bringing this quote. That reminds me of a german friend listening to an announcement in a train station. He raised his hand signing he couldn't be disturbed and seemed to hold his breath during that fairly long speech. And at the end he told me "this language is so messed up, I had to listen it all up to the end to figure out whether we should wait some more minutes or leave and take a bus".

Like "Ladies and Gentlemen. Train XYZ 123 from Hamburg Hauptbahnhof to Hamburg Harburg, originally arriving on track 12. This train is going to be late by 3 hours. Please take bus 112 instead"? And yes this is how they would say it, just literally translated to English. Seriously, which part here is language related vs. just structuring your announcements in a way where all information you need is presented in the wa…

My take on this kind of announcement structure, independent of language: the specifics (e.g. train/flight number) should be repeated at the beginning and end of the message. Why? Because people listen differently, also depending on the context and how many low-importance messages are being broadcast into the environment. When I'm at a station/airport and there is an announcement every two minutes of something mundane, e.g. which platform or gate is the next departure, I filter them all out, because I've already looked up that information on the screens or on my phone. Only when I subconsciously register something like 'cancelled' or 'changed platforms' or 'severe delay' do I start listening to hear if it is pertinent to me or not. That's when it's useful for the announcer to reiterate which service they are talking about, for those who only started paying attention half way through the message.

Re: How the brain processes German and Arabic

#47

Post by valenceelectron »

myth2018 wrote: post #7
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #3

I 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…

As a native German speaker, I have a very similar problem with Japanese. In Japanese it is possible (and popular, I'd say) to describe an object before mentioning what you are describing. For example, I can go on a tangent and have elaborate descriptions of an object ("is painted white, has two floors, a nice garden, a bus stop is close by, ...") but only at the very end of this description I tell the audience what object I'm describing ("a house"). It feels like my brain has to buffer all the adjectives and verbs before I finally know what I can apply them to. Very challenging for me.

Well, I guess the better you get, the earlier you can deduct what this is about and I also guess that my analogy of "buffering" is not how it actually works but it feels like it.

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