Comment on Learning a new language is easy!

themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• rockSlayer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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  • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Alles gut. Deine Vergesslichkeit hindert mich nicht daran, hier zu pfostieren.

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    • ogeist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Doch

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  • LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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    • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      oh Christ, please. it really is just the lack of spaces that make them a nightmare.

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  • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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”

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    • colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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      • PlexSheep@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I learnt to write after hearing in Grundschule. It doesn’t work that well.

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    • Phen@lemmy.eco.br ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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      • Siegfried@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I once talk to a guy that was learning portuguese all by himself using Langenscheidt’s portuguese course.

        They are pretty neat.

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    • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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      • Saleh@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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…

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      • obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.’

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  • brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Oh I thought those were false cognates

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    • lugal@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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      • elvith@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Another example of a false friend:

        German: Bekommen (to get), English: Become (werden)

        Hence a joke I often heard while learning English:

        • Guest: “I become a steak.”

        • Waiter: “Well, I do hope you won’t, but I could ask the chef, if you insist…”

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  • PlexSheep@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Tja

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• VitaminF@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.”

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    • wieson@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Sorry, I wasn’t clear about that being a tongue in cheek remark.

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    • Jonnynny@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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…

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• thedarkfly@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  In which context would you use Hilfeleistungslöschgruppenfahrzeug instead of Feuerwehrfahrzeug?

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  • sirprize@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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    • emhl@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      But they would just call it by it’s abbreviation HLF of course

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    • Saleh@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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

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  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    No idea, I don’t speak German. I just studied it a bit and barely remember a few basic phrases.

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  • Siegfried@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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

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• Asafum@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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.

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• OmegaLemmy@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Hahahaha German makes words like I do in conlangs except it somehow never became unique words with time

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