• Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      😁 Wait til u learn the glorious wonders that are capitalization:

      Sich brüsten und anderem zuwenden.

      Sich Brüsten und anderem zuwenden.

      Sie konnte geschickt Blasen und Glieder behandeln.

      Sie konnte geschickt blasen und Glieder behandeln.

      Er hatte liebe Genossen.

      Er hatte Liebe genossen.

      Have fun 😁

      • glorkon@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        No need for capitalization even to fuck with people, wrong emphasis is enough:

        Da steht eine Frau auf der Straße. Ich werde sie umfahren.

        (To my non German speaking friends, this can mean two things depending on how you pronounce “umfahren”: Either “There’s a woman on the street. I will drive around her.” or “There’s a woman on the street. I will run her over.”)

  • BenLeMan@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Of course you realize that English is a Germanic language? Therefore it is you who have strayed from the proper words. 😉

    • diverging@piefed.social
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      German is not the same as Germanic. Both German and English evolved from a common ancestor, which we call Proto-Germanic.

      ‘Who’ and ‘Where’ are ‘*hwaz’ and ‘*hwar’ in Proto-Germanic.

      I would say that in this case German strayed more than English.

    • SippyCup@feddit.nl
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      6 days ago

      We added a bunch of French. It’s not a romance language by any stretch but it’s kind of a Francish one. Francish being a Celtic word, because we added a bunch of those too.

        • SippyCup@feddit.nl
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          6 days ago

          I just looked it up, German isn’t even the biggest influence. French and Latin are. German is 3rd

          OUI OUI BON BON LE PETITE CROISSANT EIFFEL TOWER I AM LE FRENCH NOW MOTHERFUCKER

          • hakase@lemm.ee
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            6 days ago

            The vast majority of the 100 most common words in English are still inherited Germanic words.

            • SippyCup@feddit.nl
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              6 days ago

              Well yeah that stands to reason, our grammar structure is still Germanic, which is why they still call it a Germanic language. The 100 most common words are almost entirely basic grammar, like to, be, it, for, etc. Words used to reference other words.

              The first non grammar based word, the first actual noun, is Time, which is a French word.

              We are speaking French with German sentence structure and referencing everything in Latin.

              • antbricks@lemmy.today
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                5 days ago

                We’re speaking German after French aristocrats gave us the names for all the fancy things we couldn’t afford when we were all peasants.

  • cobysev@lemmy.world
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    I had this problem learning Norwegian.

    • “And” is “og”
    • “Or” is “eller”

    Everytime I see “og” in a Norwegian sentence, I immediately want to translate as “or.” It keeps tripping me up! “Eller” feels like too many letters to be “or,” so I keep translating it as “and” instead.

    • Nikko882@lemmy.world
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      You would also get the same problem as the op in Norweigan.
      Hvor = Where
      Hvem = Who
      (Hvorfor = Why / Wherefore)
      English is the odd one out here, it seems. (Also why I would rather be learning German from Norwegian than English, but oh well.)

  • observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca
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    It’s actually really easy to remember when considering the Proto-West Germanic etymology, one comes from *hwār, the othe from *hwaʀ. Just apply regular sound changes to find the modern form!

  • Phen
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    “Push” sounds exactly the same as the word for “Pull” in Portuguese (Puxe)

  • pedz@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    Und dann es gibt wann und wenn.

    I’m a native French speaker that learned English in school, and we had to get used to words spelt the same but with a different pronunciation and sometimes a slightly different meaning.

    Don’t worry, you’ll probably get used to it.

  • madjo@piefed.social
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    And then you listen to the Frysian song “Wer Bisto” by Dutch Frysian duo Twarres, where “wer” means “where”.

    • hakase@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      English shares a common Germanic ancestor with German. German and English are sisters.

  • janNatan@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    Just memorize and then internalize the lyrics to “Wo Bist Du” by Rammstein and then never get confused again!

  • naught101@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Trust me, pretty much everything about German is easier than English (I’m a native English speaker who learned German). The only difficult thing is learning all the verb cases.

    • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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      6 days ago

      Not the genus of nouns? It makes so little sense I couldn’t explain it to anyone.

      Edit: That’s why we argue whether it is der, die or das Nutella. When of course it is obviously die Nutella.