The German language

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?

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.

mandarin?

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

Dingsbums (thingummybob)

Genau (popular one!)

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

Or is that obsolete now?

Strumpfhosen

Spachtelmasse

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

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

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).

Ich habe durchfall

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

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!

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

I just learned that stricken means to knit. I think that's funny.

I'm not 100% certain that it still is but for a long time the longest German word was Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän which means something like "the hat of a steamboat captain who sails on the Danube River". Yes, there was actually a word for that.

nurse is krankenschwester. This whole language is hilarious. How do germans not laugh constantly as they talk to each other?

It's a good question.

I've always like the word for oxygen - Sauerstoff.

i like the word for (bicycle) spoke wrench: nippelspanner, i think

OK - here are some other funny ones followed by their meaning and then literal translations.

Flugzeug - airplane - fly thing (or stuff depending on who you ask)!
Brustwarze - nipples - breast warts :-(
Schlagzeug - percussion instrument - hit thing

What might just be the best:

Antibabypille - birth control pill

haha!

ausgezeichnet

todlich verungluckt - learned that in GCSE German class, means "fatally injured in a road accident" (IIRC). Proved very useful on my exchange trip to Nurnberg as a 14 yr old...

Nosebear!

"Handy", which is actually the word for cell phone, which - obviously - is handy, but is not called this in English, despite what they might want to believe.

sehenswuerdigkeiten = sights (i.e. where you go sightseeing) = literally, worthseeingnesses

loving this thread. I think I'm ready to my lifelong German-learning hell next September.

to go back to it, that is

Not forgetting Schaufensterpuppen by Kraftwerk. How much better in German?