John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
theguardian.com
John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
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Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#2«The decision to learn a foreign language is to me an act of friendship. It is indeed a holding out of the hand. It’s not just a route to negotiation. It’s also to get to know you better, to draw closer to you and your culture, your social manners and your way of thinking. And the decision to teach a foreign language is an act of commitment, generosity and mediation.»
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#3Learning German, he says, is particularly useful when applying oneself to the task of understanding the Germans, which he seems to be implying may be quite soon something of interest to (con and noncon) tinental Europe.
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#4I like German because it has own words for many things (including, for example, radio and television).
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#5I like German because it has own words for many things (including, for example, radio and television).
French does, too... the Académie Française makes sure of that and slaps you on the wrist if you use loanwords. Germans are rather more laissez-faire about it, and recently are absorbing rather a lot of English. For example, the other day my mother told me that she was going to go "walken", which I guess is a brisk walk for exercise purposes.
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#6I like German because it has own words for many things (including, for example, radio and television).
French does, too... the Académie Française makes sure of that and slaps you on the wrist if you use loanwords. Germans are rather more laissez-faire about it, and recently are absorbing rather a lot of English. For example, the other day my mother told me that she was going to go "walken", which I guess is a brisk walk for exercise purposes.
One such loanword, Angela Merkel amusingly showed the world a couple years back, being “shitstorm”: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/06/europe/angela-merkel-shitstor...
Though the word has a slightly different meaning auf Deutsch than it does in English:
> According to the venerable Duden dictionary of the German language, the word is defined as "a storm of outrage in an Internet communication medium that, in part, goes along with offensive utterances."
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#7I like German because it has own words for many things (including, for example, radio and television).
Boy, those Germans have a word for everything.
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
French does, too... the Académie Française makes sure of that and slaps you on the wrist if you use loanwords. Germans are rather more laissez-faire about it, and recently are absorbing rather a lot of English. For example, the other day my mother told me that she was going to go "walken", which I guess is a brisk walk for exercise purposes.
One such loanword, Angela Merkel amusingly showed the world a couple years back, being “shitstorm”: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/06/europe/angela-merkel-shitstor... Though the word has a slightly different meaning auf Deutsch than it does in English: > According to the venerable Duden dictionary of the German language, the word is defined as "a storm of outrage in an Internet communication medium that, in part, goes a…
How would you define it in English? I'd guess (German is my first language, so words existing in both are always tricky) a) it's considered a lot more vulgar in English and b) is more general for a bad situation with s* flying around?
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#9I like German because it has own words for many things (including, for example, radio and television).
> radio
If you're thinking of "Rundfunk", it's a lot less common than "Radio".
Re: John le Carré: Why we should learn German (2017)
#10«The decision to learn a foreign language is to me an act of friendship. It is indeed a holding out of the hand. It’s not just a route to negotiation. It’s also to get to know you better, to draw closer to you and your culture, your social manners and your way of thinking. And the decision to teach a foreign language is an act of commitment, generosity and mediation.»
Fyi, you can italicize quoted text by wrapping it in asterisks.