Lingua
Sprachgefühl: do you have it?
Someone recently mentioned to me that a key factor in becoming fluent in a foreign language is Sprachgefühl. Now this is one of these wonderful words that simply does not exist in English, but can be translated as a ‘feeling for the language’. If you’re immersed, e.g. living with, working with Germans/ French/Chinese/Japanese/ New Zealandese people, this is much easier. But even when I was living with Germans last year, it was still tricky, the worst things being prepositions.
Because it’s sometimes hard to remember that in German you have fear FOR something (Angst vor), and you take medicine AGAINST an illness (gegen). You travel WITH the bus (mit dem Bus) and works of literature are FROM Goethe (von). And there are no rules to learn them, it’s a matter of Sprachgefühl.
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Well, English is not better at this stuff…
Except the question when to use which of your strange Zeitformen the most confusing thing for me as a pupil was the question of which preposition to use for which verb.
And to give you one rule:
When you utilize some techical equipment to enhance your physical abilities you usually use “mit”.
Du fährst mit dem Auto/mit dem Bus; du fliegst mit dem Flugzeug; du fegst mit dem Besen und du schneidest mit dem Messer. Und wenn ich ab Januar meine Wehrpflicht ableiste, dann schieße ich mit dem Gewehr.
And the use of “gegen” with the medicine should be obvious for English-speakers. You use it to fight against your illness.
And all the books are von Goethe not because his name was “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe” but because Germans are ach-so-genau and make no linguistical difference between physical and mental(?) property. (What’s th correct English expression for “geistiges Eigentum”?)
Some examples:
Das Buch von Goethe, die Tat vom (von dem) Einbrecher, das Auto von BMW aber auch das Buch von meinem Bruder und das Auto von meinem Nachbarn.
In the case of the fear I doubt your translation of “vor”. “For” usually means “für”.
Obviously these are more than one rule…
Note: Read twice before appling pressure to the button.
NO! I so do not have “Sprachgefühl” … why does one have to take one’s shoes “out” (aus) rather than off? And, really – you “carry” your clothes????
And I accept that one must “just learn these things” but I have a shockingly bad memory!
Mind you, I’m also at a loss to explain, in English, why something is “in” a document – but “on” an agenda …
but thank you – for giving me an excuse for my (very) frequent german faux pas’ … “Es tut mir leid, Ich habe keine Sprachgefühl..” Yep. Think I’ll be using that A LOT!
A brain teaser from me:
Traditional grammar books tell us about prepositions that they’re called that because they are found in front of the term they define.
But is that connection the most important?
You might “be afraid OF cats” or “look AFTER your mom”, but giving it a little thought you will realize that the terms that stand before the preposition are more frequent collocates than the terms after the preposition.
You can be afraid of many things, but “afraid” and “of” are a pretty fixed pair, just like you can look after many things and people, but “to look” and “after” are way more constant than whatever you are looking after.
In this sense, shouldn’t prepositions be re-labelled postpositions?
