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The Awful German Language (1880)

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Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#131

Post by irrational »

lemoncucumber wrote: post #121
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…

A similar example: As a reply to the question, “what’s the most expensive car on the market?” 1) “I’m guessing it’s some German supercar.” 2) “I would guess it’s some German supercar.” 3) “I guess it’s some German supercar.” As a native speaker, the first two both sound correct to me, and essentially equivalent. The third sounds a little weird, even though it’s grammatically the simplest. I can’t put my finger on exa…

I would say “I’d guess it’s some German supercar.” Does contracting the “I would” make it more difficult for a non native speaker to understand?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#132

Post by rsa4046 »

lemoncucumber wrote: post #121
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…

A similar example: As a reply to the question, “what’s the most expensive car on the market?” 1) “I’m guessing it’s some German supercar.” 2) “I would guess it’s some German supercar.” 3) “I guess it’s some German supercar.” As a native speaker, the first two both sound correct to me, and essentially equivalent. The third sounds a little weird, even though it’s grammatically the simplest. I can’t put my finger on exa…

The first two seem consistent as tentative responses to a statement that might contain hyperbole, joke, play on words, double entendre, etc., by maintaining some distance with the statement of supercar-as-fact. In contrast, the third seems to accept the fact outright, and lets the accuracy of the responder assume the uncertainty.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#133

Post by arduanika »

dang wrote: post #58
gweinberg wrote: post #36

The article seems to miss the point that Twain was a humorist trying to be funny, not a linguist trying to write a serious criticism of a language's defects.

We've since changed the URL. A Wikipedia article about another article that's easily available is not a good HN submission. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27177026 Side note - in all the many times Twain's essay has come up on HN (partial list at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27177031 ), I don't think I've ever seen a case of a German speaker taking offence at it or even reacting defensively. That's impr…

Maybe this goes to show the Germans have a sense of humor after all.

Thanks for the link change.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#134

Post by irrational »

User23 wrote: post #99
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…

One of my favorites is adjective order. Pink riding big elephant just sounds wrong to a native speaker, but almost none could tell you why.

I studied linguistics in college and I remember a class on this. But that was 25 years ago. I think it had something to do with how much a part of the object the adjective is, or how easy it would be to change. Red concrete wall instead of concrete red wall because it is fairly easy to change the color of the wall from red to blue, but much harder to change the wall from concrete to wood. So we put concrete closer to the object and red farther away.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#135

Post by detaro »

irrational wrote: post #131
lemoncucumber wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar example: As a reply to the question, “what’s the most expensive car on the market?” 1) “I’m guessing it’s some German supercar.” 2) “I would guess it’s some German supercar.” 3) “I guess it’s some German supercar.” As a native speaker, the first two both sound correct to me, and essentially equivalent. The third sounds a little weird, even though it’s grammatically the simplest. I can’t put my finger on exa…

I would say “I’d guess it’s some German supercar.” Does contracting the “I would” make it more difficult for a non native speaker to understand?

As a non-native speaker, I'd say it depends on their background and how they learned. To me it feels completely normal and the non-contracted form took longer for me to parse, I think because the contraction is more common in colloquial communication with native speakers, but I'm also sure that if you tried this on me at a point in life where I had mostly school english to go on, the contraction would be more difficult.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#136

Post by irrational »

quercusa wrote: post #107
User23 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorites is adjective order. Pink riding big elephant just sounds wrong to a native speaker, but almost none could tell you why.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/...

This explains the most common order, but not why that is the order. What are the underlying rules that determine that is the best order?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#137

Post by jacobr1 »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #104
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…

> and the sooner you stop trying to make sense of it all, the faster you will advance. I wish they would pound that forcefully into the grammarians torturing children in school. I look at the grammar they teach, and I think someone got paid to make stuff up.

In the US, my understanding is that english grammar is no longer taught in public schools.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#138

Post by irrational »

pmoriarty wrote: post #14

Unsurprisingly, there are many articles published about "The Awful English Language" , such as: [1], [2], [3] Some examples from [2]: Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. Besides the above, there is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet,…

> One index, two indices?

Huh, I do use indices for 2+ index. I guess I’ve been wrong. I’m surprised nobody has ever said anything in my nearly 50 years.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#139

Post by boloust »

bonchicbongenre wrote: post #116
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…

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…

Someone must have been watching her

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#140

Post by jacobr1 »

cameronh90 wrote: post #73
russellbeattie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit still being confused about sweetmeats. If a Brit uses the word, are they talking about a specific type of candy, made in a specific way, from a specific type of shop? Does it need to be baked? Or have flour? Or does a Snickers bar count as a sweetmeat? Or a gumdrop? Hard candy? Or is it more like something from a bakery? Indian sweetmeats also seems to be a thing (from an image search right now). What…

As a Brit, I've never heard of sweetmeats. Is it not an American thing?

Americans have an odd view of the UK that merges both historical periods and regions. We are just likely to consider something we read in a Jane Austin novel British (which it might indeed have been ... 1-200 years ago!) as more recent media like the film Notting Hill.

My understanding is that sweetmeat is just an older word for candy, sweets or confections, archaic to both the UK and US english.

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