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”The Awful German Language”. Was Mark Twain right?
Department of German, University of Bristol 6 December 2011 Professor Martin Durrell University of Manchester
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The DATIVE case In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the plurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case, except he discover it by accident – and then he does not know when or where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how he is going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an ornamental folly – it is better to discard it.
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Learning German My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.
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The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of. [...] after the verb – merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out – the writer shovels in haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. In my note-book I find this entry: July 1. – In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient – a North German from near Hamburg; but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The sad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.
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German adjective declensions
Difficult? – troublesome? – these words cannot describe it. I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.
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Gender “[...] there is no sense or system in the distribution [...] In German a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl [...] a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female - tomcats included, of course [...]
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Tale of the fishwife and its sad fate
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der Löffel, die Gabel, das Messer
der Mund, die Wange, das Kinn der in der bayrischen Hauptstadt geborene Dichter
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Genders in Dyirbal I (bayi) II (halan) III (balam) IV (bala) men women
honey parts of the body kangaroos bandicoots possums dog edible fruit & veg meat bats platypus plants with edible fruit most snakes echidna bees most fishes some snakes some birds some fishes wind most insects most birds yamsticks firefly, scorpion some spears crickets most trees & vines moon sun & stars grass, mud, stones storms, rainbow hairy mary grub noises, language boomerangs some trees
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Endings and gender
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The exception and the rule
A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is [...] when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads ‘Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions’. He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. Could there be a language so perverse, so twisted, so sadistic that it inflicts irregular forms on its speakers a majority of the time? [...] German textbook authors have made heroic efforts to impose order on this mess, but [...] the counterexamples outnumber the examples. One linguist eked out ten rules but tacked on 17 lists of exceptions.
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Rules for German noun plurals
a) Feminine nouns add -(e)n (e.g.: die Frau - die Frauen) b) Neuter nouns add -e, without Umlaut (e.g.: das Jahr - die Jahre) c) Masculine nouns add -e, with Umlaut if possible (e.g.: der Stuhl - die Stühle) EXCEPT: d) Masculine and neuter nouns in -el, -en and -er have no ending (e.g.: der Lehrer - die Lehrer, das Segel - die Segel) Every language has a different mixture of regular and irregular forms
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etc. Noun plurals in Welsh
I: add an ending a) -au siop ‘shop’ siopau b) -iau beic ‘bicycle’ beiciau c) -us nyrs ‘nurse’ nyrsus d) -ion cyw ‘chicken’ cywion e) -ed pryf ‘insect’ pryfed f) -iaid eos ‘nightingale’ eosiaid g) -on modur ‘car’ moduron h) -edd bys ‘finger’ bysedd i) -ydd afon ‘river’ afonydd j) -aint gof ‘blacksmith’ gofaint k) -iadau dosbarth ‘class’ dosbarthiadau l) -od teigr ‘tiger’ teigrod m) -i parsel ‘parcel’ parseli n) oedd gorsaf ‘station’ gorsafoedd II: change a vowel bachgen ‘boy’ bechgyn bardd ‘poet’ beirdd ffordd ‘road’ ffyrdd III: change a vowel and add an ending (a) -au botwm ‘bottom’ botymau (b) -iau bws ‘bus’ bysiau (c) -on lleidr ‘thief’ lladron (d) -od cwch ‘boat’ cychod (e) -ydd gwlad ‘country’ gwledydd (f) -oedd cwm ‘valley’ cymoedd (g) -eydd swyddfa ‘office’ swyddfeydd IV: drop a singular ending mochyn ‘pig’ moch V: drop a singular ending and change a vowel aderyn ‘bird’ adar VI: change a singular to a plural ending cwningen ‘rabbit’ cwningod etc.
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s Finnish cases Case Suffix English prep. Example Translation
Grammatical nominatiivi - Talo on helppo sana. House is an easy word. genetiivi -n of En pidä tämän talon väristä. I don't like the colour of this house akkusatiivi - or -n - (object, whole) Maalaan talon. Auta maalaamaan talo! I'll paint the house. Help me paint the house! partitiivi -(t)a - (object, part/incomplete) Maalaan taloa. I'm painting the house. Locative (internal) inessiivi -ssa in Asun talossa. I live in the house. elatiivi -sta from (inside) Poistu talostani! Get out of my house! illatiivi -an, -en, etc. into Menen hänen taloonsa. I'm going (in)to his/her house. Locative (external) adessiivi -lla at, on Nähdään talolla! See you at the house! ablatiivi -lta from Kiersin talolta toiselle. I travelled from house to another. allatiivi -lle to (outside), onto Koska saavut talolle? When will you be arriving to the house? Marginal essiivi -na as Käytätkö tätä hökkeliä talona? Are you using this shack as a house? translatiivi -ksi into (change, transformation) Muutan sen taloksi. I'll turn it into a house. instruktiivi with, using He levittivät sanomaansa rakentaminensa taloin. They passed on their message with (using) the houses they built. abessiivi -tta without On vaikeaa elää talotta. It's difficult to live without a house. komitatiivi -ne- together (with) Hän vaikuttaa varakkaalta monine taloineen. He appears to be wealthy, with the numerous houses he has. s
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The definite article Die Butter kostet 3 Euro das Pfund Das Auto ist der Fluch der modernen Stadt Cars are the curse of modern cities
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Linking verbs in English
(a) verbs with to+infinitive (b) verbs with -ing participle (c) verbs with to+infinitive or -ing participle AGREE ACKNOWLEDGE (i) EMOTIVE VERBS AIM ADMIT (TO) cannot BEAR ARRANGE AVOID DREAD ASK CONSIDER FORGET ATTEMPT CONTEMPLATE HATE CHOOSE DEFER INTEND CLAIM DENY LIKE CONSENT DETEST (rarely infinitive) LOVE DARE DISLIKE NEGLECT DECIDE ESCAPE PREFER DECLINE EVADE REGRET DEMAND FACILITATE REMEMBER DESERVE FANCY etc DETERMINE FAVOUR (ii) PROCESS VERBS EXPECT FINISH BEGIN HOPE GIVE UP START LEARN cannot HELP CONTINUE LONG INCLUDE CEASE MANAGE KEEP (ON) DELAY (usually -ing) MEAN don't MIND OMIT OFFER MISS PLAN PRETEND, etc. POSTPONE, etc. TRY, etc.
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GHOTI
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How (not) to arrive at the German for: “when we had come with our friends”
1) The formation of the past participle of kommen 'come', memorised from tables of irregular verbs: gekommen 2) The use of sein as the perfect auxiliary of kommen, as an intransitive verb of motion 3) The form of the past tense of sein to form the pluperfect tense, memorised from tables of irregular verbs - war 4) The ending for the finite verb, memorised from the table, agreeing with the subject of the verb - waren 5) The identification of mit 'with' from the memorised list of prepositions taking the dative case 6) The dative plural form of the possessive unser 'our', as memorised from the appropriate table - unseren 7) The formation of the plural of Freund 'friend', memorised with the noun itself - Freunde 8) Adding the ending -n for the dative plural of a noun whose plural stern does not end in -n or -s - Freunden 9) The placing of the verb in final position in a subordinate clause, with the auxiliary following the main verb 10) The placing of the pronoun subject immediately after the conjunction, and before the prepositional phrase, in a subordinate clause [...], als wir mit unseren Freunden gekommen waren
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Learning strategies and language awareness
What determines progress is insight into pattern in language It is good practice to arouse learners’ curiosity about the contrasting patterns of the mother tongue and the foreign language Different people learn a language in different ways - you need to find your own strategy
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FIND THE SUBJECT Who is doing what in sentences 2 - 6?
1. Diesem Nachbarn begegnete Manfred nun öfters 2. Gendarmen attackierte in der Nacht auf Donnerstag in Amstetten ein alkoholisierter Arbeitsloser 3. Im konkreten Fall stellten Rauschgiftfahnder der Landshuter Kripo dem minderjährigen Jakob H. am 30. April 1000 Euro zur Verfügung 4. Unmittelbar vor dem Hauptportal des Parlamentsgebäudes wird bis etwa Mitte 2010, so ein schriftlicher Bahn-Vermerk, ein riesiges Loch klaffen 5. Als er über den Minister schimpfte, hat ihn das nicht sein Amt in der Armee gekostet, sonder ihm viel Beifall von seiten der Orthodoxen eingebracht 6. Mächtigen Kabinettsfürsten, allen voran Justizminister Jack Straw, erschien diese Politik gleichbedeutend mit der Aufgabe sozialdemokratischer Identität
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Noun plural exercise It has been claimed that there are 4 simple rules for forming the plural of nouns in German: a) Feminine nouns add -(e)n (e.g.: die Frau - die Frauen) b) Neuter nouns add -e, without Umlaut (e.g.: das Jahr - die Jahre) c) Masculine nouns add -e, with Umlaut if possible (e.g.: der Stuhl - die Stühle) EXCEPT: d) Masculine and neuter nouns in -el, -en and -er haue no ending (e.g.: der Lehrer - die Lehrer, das Segel - die Segel) Test how valid these rules are either by checking against all the simple nouns given under the letter L in a dictionary, or by checking how many of the simple nouns in a passage of 1000 words from a novel or a newspaper follow them.
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The Nuss test Possible plurals: Nusse Nussen Nüsse Nüsser
Possible genders: der Nuss die Nuss das Nuss
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Relative difficulty of foreign languages
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Lutz Götze on learning languages
Die Fähigkeit, seine eigenen Gedanken in einer oder mehreren fremden Sprachen auszudrücken, ist eine Gabe und ein Wettbewerbsvorteil. Voraussetzung dafür aber ist, dass man die Gedanken zunächst in der eigenen Sprache fassen kann.
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Thank you
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