The German language

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I gather Finnish is extremely phonetic which I am sure is nice in theory but how do I learn to pronounce all of those VOOOOOWEEEEELS? Words I know in Finnish already =

KIPPIS - cheers!
Hei - hallo!
Moi moi - bye bye!
KRAPULA - HANGOVER!

Hooray!

― Bhumibol Adulyadej (Lucretia My Reflection), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

"krapula" is a great word ! (especially for a french speaking person)

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

Arschkalt

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:31 (nineteen years ago)

Megahammeraffentittengeil

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

CRipes, what do these words mean, DV and Colin?

― Daniel Giraffe (Daniel Giraffe), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

Dreilochstute

― StanM (StanM), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

(you don't want to know, trust me.) (or, if you do, look it up at Urban Dictionary)

― StanM (StanM), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:54 (nineteen years ago)

"Cold as hell" and "totally fucking awesome", although they're better taken literally ("asscold" and "mega-hammer-monkey-tits-horney").

Stan oughta be ashamed of himself. I ain't translating THAT.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:58 (nineteen years ago)

drei means three, loch means hole... the mind boggles

― Daniel Giraffe (Daniel Giraffe), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:59 (nineteen years ago)

"Stute" is mare. Do the math yourself.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

I enjoyed the pun in Bild when I was over in Germany for the World Cup. When Klose scored the winning goal in one game, Bild called him Klosartig (grossartig means great)

― Daniel Giraffe (Daniel Giraffe), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

genau.

― stop moving. (cis), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:07 (nineteen years ago)

nippelspanner

― nazi bikini (harbl), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:11 (nineteen years ago)

I like the way the Germans will make up a word which is required to explain something, if no word already exists. For instance, if you want a "return ticket on the express train", the word you use is "Schnellzugzuschlagschein". Cobbled-together words are just brilliant.

― C J (C J), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:13 (nineteen years ago)

Das war sehr einsichtig.

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:46 (nineteen years ago)

Vielen Dank!

― C J (C J), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

Elfenbein = ivory

― StanM (StanM), Thursday, 27 July 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

It's not exactly SO, for example the "e" is "Kaiser" is pronounced differently than in "Freund".

No, the "e" in "freund" is part of the vowel combination "eu", which is always pronounced the same say.

Eliminating the Sz (sorry, I don't know the html code for it), C/D?

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 27 July 2006 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

same way, rather

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 27 July 2006 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

I gather Finnish is extremely phonetic which I am sure is nice in theory but how do I learn to pronounce all of those VOOOOOWEEEEELS?

Hääyöaie!

Every teach-yrself-Finnish tape I've ever listened to has had two speakers, one of whom observes the difference between a and ä described in the text of the book and one of whom either says them the same or does the umlaut a bit German. HATE. Plus not aspirating my consonants = no chance, and making the difference between single and doubled letters = only if I speak at three words per minute.

Then I listen to Finnish music and they seem to pronounce a and ä about the same, but it's ok for them because they are on Trendy Fonal Records. Even the ones who aren't.

Do real Germans say glückschmerz? That is a good word. I need to learn German.

― Rebecca (reb), Thursday, 27 July 2006 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

Eierlegendewollmilchsau (although this word gets way overused by lazy writers in product reviews.)

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 27 July 2006 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

*"geil" does not just mean horny but can also mean something similar to "cool"
x-post.

― clodia pulchra (emo by proxy), Thursday, 27 July 2006 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

Uh.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 27 July 2006 19:52 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think there's a language in the world where every letter is pronounced the same way every time

mandarin?

Not really! A single character can be pronounced with different inflections depending on the inflection of the character immediately following it.

― c('°c) (Leee), Thursday, 27 July 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

and not Japanese kana, thinking about it: the i-syllable can be used after a syllable ending in e to lengthen it, and the u-syllable after an o-ending syllable lengthens the o, so ke-i-ta-i is pronounced 'k?tai' and kyo-u is pronounced 'ky?'. Also the n-syllable represents an m-sound when it precedes a 'b', e.g. sa-n-bya-ku is pronounced 'sambyaku'.

― stop moving. (cis), Thursday, 27 July 2006 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

Libelle. Tonarmgeraet. Tafeldienst. Kegeln.

― patita (patita), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:45 (nineteen years ago)

saujud

― ferzaffe (flezaffe), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

Tohuwabohu (it's German for brouhaha)

Dingsbums (thingummybob)

Genau (popular one!)

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 27 July 2006 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

das Wolkenkuckucksheim

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 July 2006 23:01 (nineteen years ago)

Treuhandgesellschaft
GmbH = Gesellschaft mit beschräankter Handlung
Einzelgänger
Personalmangel

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 July 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

or my favorite -- FREIE FAHRT

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 July 2006 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

Ally kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 July 2006 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

Ally kennt ein bisschen Deutsch!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 31 July 2006 22:01 (nineteen years ago)

Dan should say more about German camp, where he learned to be German.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 31 July 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

Augenblick
Ursprach

― That Feymous Biting Guy (xave), Monday, 31 July 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVmfIUR1DA

― de latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 31 July 2006 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

I like the rule that if you spilt a word with -ck- across lines, eg drücken, it goes

Falls man in einem Buch so ein Wort drük-
ken will, muss man die Zeilenenden beobachten.

Or is that obsolete now?

― The Vintner's Lipogram (OleM), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 08:11 (nineteen years ago)

Also the canonical dictionary is called DUDEN rofl.

― The Vintner's Lipogram (OleM), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 08:11 (nineteen years ago)

my current favourites:

Strumpfhosen

Spachtelmasse

My favourite poetic object name in German is Gluebirne, the word for lightbulb which literally translates as glowing pear.

― Jack Battery-Pack (Jack Battery-Pack), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 09:52 (nineteen years ago)

That should have been Gluehbirne

Christ my German is terrible despite living in a German speaking country for 6 years.....

― Jack Battery-Pack (Jack Battery-Pack), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 09:53 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.orlyowl.com/upload/files/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NAZI_RLY.JPG

― StanM (StanM), Thursday, 3 August 2006 23:46 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

Ich lerne deutsch.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,9572,00.html

Dieser kurs ist gut!

Mein lieblingswort ist "lieblingswort."

(I can't say much else -- it's only my third day).

― Garri$on Kilo (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 7 July 2009 19:08 (sixteen years ago)

Ich habe durchfall

― snoball, Tuesday, 7 July 2009 19:14 (sixteen years ago)

so I'm basically challenging myself to learn as much German as possible in the three weeks before my trip. I will try to form some sentences from memory. Forgive my spelling and grammar.

Ich heiße Josh. Ich bin neunundswanzig jahre alt. Ich wohne in Brooklyn. Ich bin verheiratet, aber
Ich habe keinen kinder. Englisch ist meine muttersprache. Sprechen sie englisch?

Das ist mein hund. Es heißen Struppi.

Heute ist Mittwoch. Morgen ist Donnerstag. Gestern war Dienstag.

Ich esse fleisch und bohnen. Ist es frisch? Ach, ja!

― Garri$on Kilo (Hurting 2), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:38 (sixteen years ago)

OK your dog's name is adorable.

Spelling grammar won't matter much as a tourist and if doing this well after only 4 days is a pretty good sign!

― $^o$ (/o^)/ (ENBB), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:40 (sixteen years ago)

It's not really my dog's name. It's the name of the dog in the german program I'm using, but I want to get a terrier and name it that.

― Garri$on Kilo (Hurting 2), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:42 (sixteen years ago)

I get really obsessive about things like this for short periods of time. I've been reading my german book on the subway and in the bathroom every chance I get, and I use the program after my wife goes to bed.

― Garri$on Kilo (Hurting 2), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:43 (sixteen years ago)

My favourite German word is Gefährten which according to google translate thingy means fellowship.

― The Sorrows of Young Jeezy (jim), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:44 (sixteen years ago)

lol

I like how they join a load of words together to make huge nouns so you can usually work it out from a literal translation of each segment. German engineering and technical dictionaries are great for huge words that essentially mean "join all the bits together and you've got one of these."
― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, July 27, 2006 5:12 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

That is my favorite part about German too.

Ken picked "handschuhe" as his favorite word and it's one of mine too. HAND SHOES!

― $^o$ (/o^)/ (ENBB), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:45 (sixteen years ago)

Hurting - you should totally get a dog and name it Struppi - it's amazing.

― $^o$ (/o^)/ (ENBB), Thursday, 9 July 2009 02:46 (sixteen years ago)

Skipping 530 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

My days of German fluency are long gone, but I still favour Zahlungsmittel and verkehrsgünstig over their English equivalents.

― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 20 August 2024 09:02 (one year ago)

This was fun:
https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/dialekt-test-wir-wissen-woher-sie-stammen-jetzt-noch-genauer-205060715129

Apparently, I am from Hannover. (I am not from Hannover. I am from Pittsburgh.) My husband was a bit north from where he is from, though (Hamburg).

― This is how the spicy nonsense becomes loose. (doo dah), Sunday, 25 August 2024 17:30 (one year ago)

three months pass...

German compound word of the day (a mere 24 letters): Kundenzufriedenheitsumfrage
It means "customer satisfaction survey", so it's a regular, everyday word.

― giraffe, Thursday, 12 December 2024 08:57 (one year ago)

Not bad, but German children's books can do better than that:

"An good way to learn German is to try reading children's books to familiarise yourself with basic grammar and vocabulary"

German children's book: pic.twitter.com/GENRnrL0vw
— Nic Houghton (@40PercentGerman) December 10, 2024

― Wry & Slobby (Portsmouth Bubblejet), Thursday, 12 December 2024 09:50 (one year ago)

Lol that's like a mega-compound word: Hilfeleistung (assistance, from Hilfe help and Leistung performance), löschen (extinguish), Gruppen (well, groups), Fahrzeug (vehicle). Apparently you can say HLF: three letters :P

― Nabozo, Thursday, 12 December 2024 12:12 (one year ago)

Nice one encountered in the wild re:South Korea: Amtsenthebungsverfahren (impeachment, literally office removal procedure). The h is accentuated.

― Nabozo, Sunday, 15 December 2024 10:03 (one year ago)

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