It makes more context to translate “Zeug” as “tool” in most compound words, it is its original meaning like in Feuerzeug, Flugzeug, Fahrzeug, Rüstzeug.
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themeatbridge@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I mean, yeah. This is an important part of the German language. They create composite words to describe a thing, and learning to break it down into its constituents is a fundamental part of reading German.
VitaminF@feddit.org 3 days ago
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 days ago
In English, it would be a “thingie.” Like Germans are constantly trying to remember the word “lighter” and they’re like, “you know, the whatsit, the… fire… thingie.”
Jonnynny@lemm.ee 2 days ago
It’s a good joke but I don’t think it’s too far off. The comment about it being “tools” kinda falls short of explaining things like Spielzeug=toy (play thing) and Schlagzeug=drum (beating/striking thing). I think “thing” is better. Might be somewhere in between though. Ich weiß nicht…
wieson@feddit.org 3 days ago
No, it’s literally not. It is “tool” or “gadget”. Not just any object or dingsbums.
Zeug used to mean something different back in the day.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sorry, I wasn’t clear about that being a tongue in cheek remark.
thedarkfly@feddit.nl 3 days ago
In which context would you use Hilfeleistungslöschgruppenfahrzeug instead of Feuerwehrfahrzeug?
sirprize@lemm.ee 3 days ago
When you’re a fireman whose job is to plan which vehicles go where or when you need to precisely specify which type of fire vehicle. Non-firemen usually say Feuerwehrfahrzeug or even Feuerwehrauto.
emhl@feddit.org 3 days ago
But they would just call it by it’s abbreviation HLF of course
Saleh@feddit.org 3 days ago
I mostly know Leiterwagen, because a lot of them have a ladder. Also makes sense because when there is an emergency you refer to the multitude of vehicles that move out and the group of people as a “Löschzug” zu an “extinguishing train” and a train has “wagons” -> Wagen
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No idea, I don’t speak German. I just studied it a bit and barely remember a few basic phrases.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Imagine you want to set a buildinh on fire but you dont want to risk being the first suspect. So you call 911 instead of the fire department equivalent and use the long word to lose time
Asafum@feddit.nl 3 days ago
I haven’t tried, but I feel like that concept would be easy for me to grasp because I already find myself doing it with English if I happen to know the old words, Latin or otherwise, used to construct the modern ones.
OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 3 days ago
Hahahaha German makes words like I do in conlangs except it somehow never became unique words with time
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’s also one of the most difficult parts of learning German as an adult, despite being a relatively simple syntactic rule and something we kinda-sorta emulate in English. The other part, at least for me, were false friends. Also sorry to all the lurking Germans waiting to comment, I forgot all of my German the moment I graduated college.
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
Alles gut. Deine Vergesslichkeit hindert mich nicht daran, hier zu pfostieren.
ogeist@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Doch
LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
As a German I can assure you that false friends are something you scare away all pupils (regardless of age). I have very intense memory of our English teacher correcting us again and again.
Regarding the composita in German: we are moving more towards the English approach by splitting these word monstrousities with hyphens. E.g. Donaudampfschifffahrtsamt may be spelled Donau-Dampfschifffahrts-Amt. Its way easier to read and write. While the hyphenated spelling is not something that is used often officially, it got more popular in the last decades.
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 3 days ago
oh Christ, please. it really is just the lack of spaces that make them a nightmare.
Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world 3 days ago
My biggest issue with Duolingo trying to learn German honestly. Sure I can read a compound word when presented with it, but fucking Duo is like “Cool… now spell it… bitch”
colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
German is phonetic though - once you know how pronunciation maps to the alphabet (and certain compounds), it becomes easier to spell any new word. It’s actually why there’s no Spelling Bee in German.
PlexSheep@infosec.pub 3 days ago
I learnt to write after hearing in Grundschule. It doesn’t work that well.
Phen@lemmy.eco.br 3 days ago
I gave up on duolingo very quickly because it had a ton of clearly wrong stuff too. Drops and Rosetta Stone have much better content for learning German.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I once talk to a guy that was learning portuguese all by himself using Langenscheidt’s portuguese course.
They are pretty neat.
Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 3 days ago
That’s your issue? Not adjective declination?
I’m nearly at the end of Duolingo’s German content and spelling has mostly been quite easy (as a native English speaker). You want a spelling challenge, try French.
Saleh@feddit.org 3 days ago
So we have this verb and the ending in third person plural is -ent but we just dont pronounce that so it pronounces the same way as third person singular…
obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com 3 days ago
Fucking French. ‘we’re never, ever going to say this ‘h’ character, but you still need it to spell words correctly because fuck you, that’s why.’
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Oh I thought those were false cognates
lugal@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
That’s something different. False cognates are words that look related even tho they are not and often have a similar meaning that makes it look even harder to be related. False friends often are related but have a very different meaning. Like the German word “eventuell” meaning “maybe” which is very bad if you use it wrong. Unlike the false cognate “emoji” meaning “picture sign” and – etymologically speaking – having nothing to do with emoticon despite its similar meaning. Which is more a linguistic fun fact than any problem for learners.
elvith@feddit.org 3 days ago
Another example of a false friend:
German: Bekommen (to get), English: Become (werden)
Hence a joke I often heard while learning English:
PlexSheep@infosec.pub 3 days ago
Tja