The Awful German Language (1880) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#211

Post by reshlo » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:23 AM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #172

sfblah wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a native English speaker here and it’s clear to me. I also think it’s somewhat tricky to express it more succinctly without changing the sentence a fair bit. Essentially it means “it must have been the case that, at the moment we’re speaking of, someone was watching her.” Your sentence is slightly different, in that it implies that, in general, someone was watching her during the timeframe we’re talking about, bu…

AH! Ok, I think I distilled it down to something simpler: It seems to be similar to the difference between "I would've been spoken to" vs. "I would've been being spoken to". Is that correct? Ugh, I have to admit it seems technically "correct" after all :-) but with such a painful (and uncommon) sentence structure that it makes you question if it's right...

The former is past perfect[1], and the latter is past perfect progressive.[2]

There are subtleties involved, but the most basic use case is that the former refers to an action that took place before some point in the past (to which the sentence refers), while the latter refers to an action that was still happening at that past point.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_of_English_verb_forms#Pas...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_of_English_verb_forms#Pas...

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#212

Post by flobosg » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:30 AM UTC

pezezin wrote: post #201

aspaviento wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You most often cannot guess the gender of a noun in quite a lot of languages That's far from true. In Spanish it's quite easy most of the time: Female form (-a): casa (House) taza (cup) armadura (armour) luna (moon) leona (lioness) escritora (female writer) Male form (-o/-or/-on): camión (truck) sillón (sofa) león (lion) escritor (male writer) You don't even need the article to guess which one is which one.

It's not so clear and cut. For example, "acción" and any other noun that express the result of a verb ends in -ón, but they are female words. There are also plenty of male words that end in -a, and female words that end in -o: https://www.practicaespanol.com/mas-de-40-palabras-que-acaba...

To add some female words ending in -o:

- Female forms of occupations and roles, such as la modelo and la testigo

- Shortened forms such as la foto

- La mano

- La líbido

- La nao

- La virago

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#213

Post by denton-scratch » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:47 AM UTC

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.

Oh, really?

PHP is a programming language, and it shows every sign of having been designed to the same level of detail as English.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#214

Post by mejutoco » Mon, May 17, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

zvr wrote: post #75

mejutoco wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can very often guess the gender of a word in german using some heuristics. For instance, anything ending in -heit is feminine, and -chen neutral. I wrote an elaborate analysis os these heuristics (if someone is into this kind of thing) https://mejuto.co/statistical-grammar-guessing-a-german-noun...

Thanks for this link; it was very interesting! But you should take into account that some rules are more general expressions of others. For example, in your penultimate "(recommended)" table, there is no point in having both "-hen" and "-chen" for neutral, as the latter is a specialization of the former. Same for "-ung" and "-rung"/"-tung" in feminine.

Thanks! I will take a look. There is room for improvement with the repetitions, as you say.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#215

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Mon, May 17, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

wizzard wrote: post #126

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your examples are participles, not gerunds.

That’s how I learned it too, but apparently that is “traditional” grammar. In “modern” grammar any verb with the -ing ending is a gerund now according to Wikipedia.

Gerunds are used as nouns. Nobody writing for wikipedia can change that.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#216

Post by denton-scratch » Mon, May 17, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

secondcoming wrote: post #149

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The BBC pronounces 'sixth' as though it was spelled 'sikth'

Native english speaker here.

Hardly anyone enunciates the 'x' in a word like 'sixth'. I say 'sikth' (and I fancy myself a fairly eloquent speaker). It's got too many consonant sounds; the human tongue just isn't agile enough for a word like that. You might get it properly-enunciated by a university don, or certain kinds of very pernickety radio presenters.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#217

Post by denton-scratch » Mon, May 17, 2021, 9:45 AM UTC

amagasaki wrote: post #9

xg15 wrote: post #4

> It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and oh the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye. And it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry…

Perhaps “Weib” An outdated,today slightly pejorative, word for “Frau” But to me the term “das Fischerweib” doesn’t sound familiar either, so I am not sure

I didn't know Weib was considered perjorative - although I've never had occasion to use the word.

The English word 'man' used to mean 'person'. A female person became a 'wife-man', i.e. a woman. So the word 'mankind', for example, doesn't (or didn't) imply that female humans don't exist.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#218

Post by soco » Mon, May 17, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

jtsuken wrote: post #159

meowface wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. As a native English speaker, this is definitely a big plus. I've had German friends who've regularly expressed frustration that there's often no real rhyme or reason or pattern to either English spelling or pronunciation; you just have to memorize…

English does not have a concept of THE right pronunciation. If you try to change the spelling of a "word", you'd first have to get a number of former British colonies to agree on how to pronounce it. Is it Woed, Worrrd, Woid, Waed? Germany, after losing both world wars only needs to deal with Switzerland and Austria to agree on updated spelling of something.

There's no attempt of synchronization among German speaking countries, as much we'd appreciate it sometimes.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#219

Post by Teknoman117 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #174

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 find it weird that many English natives try to claim that English grammar is in fact complex (you are by far not the first). I think it might be because in general many don't speak another language and the most common second language is Spanish which has also a very "simple" grammar. Regarding your example with the gerund, yes it is subtle, but similar subtleties exist in German, e.g. The difference between perfect…

English grammar is heavily taught in elementary school (K-5, ~age 5 to 11) and middle school (6-8, ~age 11-14) curriculum in the US.

You're pretty much expected to have the grammar down by high school, where the focus shifts to composition (essay courses, etc.)

This was my experience growing up here anyways. The last time I had a test question ask me to circle the past participle was middle school (and the SAT).

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#220

Post by ddxxdd » Mon, May 17, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

sharken wrote: post #178

lmm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's perfectly normal English yes. "She would have had to have been watched" means she would have had to have been watched at that moment (e.g. because someone was watching the area where she did whatever it was), whereas "being watched" implies that the watching was ongoing and therefore that someone was continuously watching her at the time.

Admittedly English is not my primary language, but "She would have had to have been being watched" seems to be a construct used in a class, but not something you would hear in day-to-day English.

I feel like I'm being gaslighted by half the people in this thread that are saying that "have been being watched" is a normal phrase.

For context, I was born and raised in Northern NJ with Jamaican parents, and have lived in Michigan for the past 10 years. I have never heard anyone use grammar like this.