Es sieht immer noch aus wie mein verrücktes altes Gehirn
kann mehr neue Wörter ziemlich gut auf Deutsch lernen. Ich habe fast täglich
für zwei Monaten die Sprachübungen arbeiten. Ein Teil meiner Grammatik ist
manchmal falsch, aber ich (langsam) weiter zu verbessern. Ich benutze auch ein
Sprachübersetzer Programm für mich zu testen. Ich kann Sätze jetzt mit weniger
Anstrengung komposieren. Wann ich deutsch dazu spreche, versteht mich das
Programm gut, also ist mein Akzent zumindest verständlich. Ich kann es besser
schreiben, ich lese es gut genug und ich habe die Bedeutung von unbekannten
Worten durch ein bisschen besser intuition zu erraten, aber ich mache immer
noch schlecht beim Lernen durch das Zuhören. Das ist immer noch ein eine
ständige Schwierigkeit für mich mit Deutsch und anderen Sprachen. Vielleicht
sind meine Erwartungen jetzt zu groβ, aber ich versuche es noch.
Translation (or at least what I tried to say): It seems that
my crazy old brain can still learn some more new words in German fairly well. I’ve
been working on the language exercises almost daily for two months. Some of my
grammar is sometimes incorrect, but I am continuing to (slowly) improve. I also
use a speech translation program to test myself. I can now compose sentences
with less effort. When I speak German to it, it understands me well, thus my
accent is at least comprehensible. I can write it better, I read it well enough,
and I’ve been correctly guessing the meaning of unknown words through a bit
better intuition, but I’m still doing poorly at learning through listening. It
is still the constant difficulty for me with German and other languages.
Perhaps my expectations are too great now (at this age), but I’m still trying.
I sort of did a review of some progress notes on earlier attempts
and reasoning for learning German in an entry some while ago (Deutschhackung).
Some of that commentary still applies here. This is the third of my language
projects (after Swedish and Ukrainian). This re-immersion into German has
stepped me up into a more intermediate level. In all honesty though, despite
the fluency rating my program gave me (which I think is over-generous), I feel
that I’d be dead in the water if I had to engage in a more technical or
colloquial conversation in German with someone. My “know enough to avoid
getting jailed or shot” principle applies equally to learning this as it did
with learning Spanish many years ago.
It’s a really shame that more Anglophones don’t learn more
about this language, as they are closely related, and there are some really
cool tricks about German, mostly to do with its flexibility for compounding
words, more so than English has. Unfortunately, the taste for learning and
acquiring it generally has been soured somewhat for most North Americans and non-Teutonic
Europeans alike in the past, for the fact that Germans were our adversaries in
two of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history. People, out of some defiant
reaction toward a perceived enemy’s propaganda of being a “master race”, won’t
readily pick up an interest in learning that other language or culture,
especially when one’s own national or cultural pride takes over, from the fact
that one’s side proper was victorious over such opposing forces, not just once,
but twice*. It thus made the language, and the culture around it, maligned for
a long while, even perhaps subconsciously if not overtly. Sadly, there were
several decades of this friction going on between us and the Germanic states in
the early and mid 20th century, and even though over 100 years has
passed since the beginning of it in World War I, with a worsening of it by
fascism throughout the second World War to follow, the result was that, either
through our own ethno-centric pride after those war years, or through lingering
stale resentments. Thus, German’s popularity as an alternate language to learn
waned and became a lesser desired form of protocol language. Sadly, I feel that
German was uncooled for us in that
sense. This ignorance became a meme that continued to stick around long
afterward, even being passed on into the generations who didn’t or don’t even
have such grudges about the past. More sadly, it’s also commonly perceived that
the only other reputed keeners for any such renewed interest in learning German
here in North America, outside of those who already have familial ties with the
culture, are mostly amongst those who allegedly belong to or associate with
Neo-Nazis, the Skinheads, or those who have similar such sociopathic racist
tendencies. That’s not exactly good PR for the language either. That’s my
theory for its weakened popularity anyway. If I could make up a nice concise German
word that adequately sums up this meme, it would be probably be Bedrohungkulturvermeidung**: a defiance
against, or willful shunning of, something representing a cultural force that is,
or once was, thought of as corruptively evil or potentially destructive to your
own. It’s an ignorant concept meme that I suppose I’m actively trying to
shatter.
Now that I’ve been more immersed, here are a few things of
note that I like/love about the German language, or at least keep me curious
and interested enough about it to make me keep learning it:
1.
Easy to spell – No, honestly! Some other people
look at the longer words and get intimidated, but it’s really quite logical. If
I do misspell it, it is due to me being a shitty typist (and unable to find the
umlaut characters in the Alt-key sets). There are no silent letters in German
that I can find, unless they are adopted foreign words. There are some
signature diphthongs, but at least those are restricted to only one sound each.
The only confusing part in writing it for me is when to use “v” and “w” when guessing
the spelling of some words, as those sound the same to me, and when to use “s”
or “ss” or the “ß” in the spelling. Otherwise, it’s all pretty straight
forward.
2.
Prefixes and suffixes – The prepositional prefixes
(ab-, an-, auf-, aus-, . . . -, über-, un-, unter-, ver-, vor-, zu-) ,
and the suffixes (like -heit, -keit, -ung) can be affixed to an infinitive verb
to make a lot of options with a lot more flexibility than what English has.
3.
Easier pattern recognition for me for
translating cognates – For example, the German words with “cht” in them
generally equate to the same word with “ght” in it in English (sicht = sight,
licht = light, Nacht = night, Macht = might (power), acht = eight) … und so
wieder (etc.).
4.
Lots of similar and common words in German with
not only English, but other languages – Dutch, what little I studied of it,
looks like a very vowel splattered marriage between English and German. If I
choose to learn more of it, it would be easier knowing English and some
improved German. Swedish has lots of words that are related to German, which
makes it a little more retainable.
5.
It’s multinational – Germany, Switzerland,
Austria speak it, as well as pocket German ethnic communities like in the Czech
Republic, the Alsace region in France, plus in Northern Italy, Southern
Denmark, Western Poland, and whichever other countries share borders with the German-speaking
nations. It’s more likely that the German language extends into these other bordering
nations rather than the other way around.
The things that aren’t so nice about German:
1.
The dreadful grammatical gender issue – not just
masculine and feminine to know, but neuter as well. As an Anglophone, my
revulsion for such a complicated system, which includes having to match all
case articles and adjectival forms accordingly, seems to be deeply ingrained.
2.
The numbers – the way the order gets switched
for the tens and ones after the teen numbers. This doesn’t help a mind like
mine, which is already tainted with a bit of innumeracy.
3.
The guttural ‘ch’ sound – Not such a pleasant
thing to hear, but at least it’s not as heavily used in German as it is in
other languages like Dutch or Arabic. My reluctance to learn either one of
those other two is greatly based on the frequency that this horrid sound is
made in general parlance when I hear these languages being spoken. It’s
somewhat of a hostile sounding phoneme. I’d hate sounding like I’m going to spit
or hock up phlegm all over someone while I talk. The word ‘Küche’ (kitchen) is
a particularly awful word for me to hear. If someone said ‘Gehen Sie in die
Küche.’ (Go in the kitchen!), just the sound of that final word in that
sentence would make me feel like I was getting punished instead of going to
this room that ordinarily makes me happy. To be a fair critic, I give equal
weight in comparing annoying sounds between German and English, I’ll readily
admit that the most unpleasant sound to come from the English language (as many
foreign learners of it would probably agree) is the silly ‘th’ diphthong. In
fact, I hate the word ‘diphthong’ itself for the fact that it has ‘th’
compressed in it. A lisping sound that
is considered generally ear-grating and annoying in most other languages is all
too common in spoken English***. Linguistically, in general I find that these
are the two most unsexy sounds that any language can have.
4.
Genitive Case confusion – A Germanic language
like Swedish is similar to English when changing to a case form that indicates
possession, the advantage being that neither language has grammatical
gender. German itself is inherently so
much more complicated because of that issue of grammatical gender.
5.
Accusative and Dative Case definite and
indefinite articles – this is a nightmare for me to keep straight in my mind
between all the stupid genders. Added to that are prepositional article contractions
to account for too (am, im, zum, vom, zur, beim, etc.). This is not at all easy
for an English thinking mind.
6.
Which “This” to use – I cannot for the life of
me keep it straight in my head about which form of the demonstrative adjective
‘this’ to use in German (dies, diese, dieses, diesen, diesem, dieser) for the
right case. I cheat a little and generally play at safe all the time by simply
using das (that) or ‘das hier’ (the English equivalent to ‘that there’ or ‘this
here’).
The some of the more useful to adopt and interesting German
words, in my mind, are as follows:
1.
Schadenfreude
– (harm joy) that twisted sense of pleasure you get when you find out that
someone you absolutely despise becomes stricken with some sort of misfortune.
It has been adopted into the Oxford English dictionary, and I don’t think we
use it enough when we witness things that pertain to it.
2.
Ohrwurm
– (ear worm) that song that enters your head and then just won’t stop playing
itself over and over again through your mind.
3.
Words ending in -ig, -ling, -us – those endings denote that a word is masculine, less
shuffling around to do in my mental junk drawer.
4.
Words ending in -ung, -ie, -ik, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -ion, -ur – those endings automatically
indicate that the nouns are feminine. Again, a detail that helps me do less
mental hunting and pecking.
5.
Words ending in -um, -ment, -chen, -el – those ending indicate that the noun is
neuter. Again, a helpful mnemonic.
6.
Weltschmerz
– (world pain) A feeling of melancholy about being sick and tired of dealing
with too many problems. Another German word readily adopted into the OED.
7.
Reichen
– a verb (infinitive form here) roughly meaning ‘to be sufficent’ or ‘to be
enough’. Handy to know if you are in a situation like when you’re with some
hard-drinking German buddies who are trying to order round number five of Jägermeister
shots each chased with one litre steins of beer, and you’re half-wrecked
already and haven’t yet finished your third. It’s easy enough then to say
half-pissed “Nein danke, das reicht!” (No thanks, that’s enough!). I’d probably
be drunk enough by then to pronounce those awful “ch” sounds correctly.
8.
Hintergedanken
– (behind thoughts) I actually learned this word from one of the lectures of
Alan Watts. It’s used to describe a thought in the back of your mind that you
are instinctually trying to act on. It’s sort of like working on an ulterior
motive that you are not really conscious or aware of.
9.
Fernweh
– (wanderlust) Given that I’m typing this entry on what is yet another
staycation, I’m getting too intimately familiar with the meaning of this word.
It is the complete opposite of homesickness (Heimweh in German). That is, it’s a desperate intensified and
unsatisfied desire to be anywhere else: for the sake exploration of someplace
novel and unfamiliar; to be anywhere else than where you currently are at.
10.
Bierficker
– Here comes the nasty word number 10, the spot reserved for profanity, vulgarity,
and potty-mouth vocabulary. I learned this one many years ago (and not because
it was directed at me though). It’s a compound word used as an insult directed
at a guy’s masculine endowment: the combination of ‘beer’, and a word that means
the same as the English one with the ‘i’ substituted for the ‘u’. It’s meant to
suggest that some guy’s Schwanz ist so klein dass er in den Hals einer
Bierflasche passen kann. Again, this sentence is semi-Anglified since I can’t
use the genitive case very well, even to describe genitals. However, the gist of
this word implies that indecent acts with a beer bottle could be performed,
because one’s genital unit is so miniscule that it could fit into the neck of
one. Leave it to the beer-drinking, applied science/technical engineering minds
of the Germans to dream up this kind of trash talk.
I found the time to complete this language program five days
early. Partly because I was a bit more ambitious because I’ve been finding more
comfort and ease with this language from, and partly because I had nothing much
else planned during my week of holidays. I filled the void with some more
lessons.
The next two-month language
learning session I have lined up is French, which is appropriate: because the
program begins on July 1st, on the 150th birthday of this
great nation, and thus it would be very fitting to learn more in my country’s other
official language. I was hoping that I’d get some direct immersion in it from a
trip to Montreal, but that’s going to have to wait.
*- It should be made clear that there are no real winners of
a war. Lives are still lost, industries, infrastructures are razed, the
environment gets destroyed, and debts amass all for the sake of destruction on
both sides. Resources get taken away from education, reducing social poverty,
enhanced development, and responsible sustainability. Victories have an expense
just as losses do. The one thing I’ll say for the resilience of the Germans,
despite being defeated twice, they came together again as a leader in technical
and economic development on the world stage, far better in ways perhaps than we
have as North Americans, who were the so-called victors of both conflicts.
Another reason they should be respected.
**- A compound word I constructed from what I think roughly
translates to “threat-to-culture avoidance”. It’s probably incorrect. I don’t
know if such a word actually exists in German, but it wouldn’t surprise me at
all if it, or some variant of this word really did.
*** - I had a living example to bring this fact to light to
me during my brief time as an English teacher in a foreign country. I was
tutoring English to other teachers in the faculty of the school where I was
working at after class hours. This one teacher, though interested in learning
some English, had great difficulty in pronouncing the ‘th’ sounds, and judging by
her reaction, she also found this diphthong a repugnant nerve-grating thing to
hear. To make matters worse, she was a math teacher, so I assumed she would be
interested in learning the proper way to say the numbers. Big mistake! The
ordinal numbers after 2, and the way fractions are expressed make learning
numbers in English a nightmare for someone without ability or liking for
pronouncing the ‘th’ sound. Teaching her ordinal numbers (4th, 5th,
6th etc.) and fractions was almost like the scene in the Monty
Python film, The Life of Brian, where
the Judean masses were taunting the lisping Biggus Dickus with the recitation
of ‘S’ laden names. I realize now that I could have been exceptionally
torturous to her, and could have made her recite the ordinal fraction
3333/33,000 (three thousand three hundred and thirty-three
thirty-three thousandths)
