Deutschlisch
Lego block building
So I put in my two cents (or gave my mustard, as the Deutschies say) about German as a modular language.
But that was about verbs. Mmm, yes. Nouns (of the compound variety), in German, are a completely different (and somewhat maligned – by Englischers at least) phenomenon. Mark Twain wrote an essay called “The [...]
Neologistic musings
So I was thinking (and no, it DIDN’T hurt!)… a source of interest and flummoxery to Englischers learning Ze Cherman is that there is a difference between Auf Wiedersehen (literally: until seeing again!) and Auf Wiederhören (until hearing again!), depending on whether you are in person or on the telecommunications device.
Could we thus, theoretically also [...]
In celebration of the ‘chen’
Ahhhh, ze Cherman language. What CAN’T it do? Today I was thinking (as you do) about our friendly little suffix, the ‘chen’. Another quirk of Deutsch which allows the speaker to efficiently (who would have guessed!) express the smallness or cuteness of something.
The chen has given us gifts such as Brötchen (bread roll – ‘little [...]
Dedicated to my fellow antipodeans
Ever felt like the deliciousness of something could not be described by the word ‘lecker’?
Well, now there’s an alternative from downunder which will really get the message across: “that was bloody lecker!” (and no, it doesn’t mean covered in blood.)
NB: Please do not take the offence. I only make the Spaß!
Duzen, Siezen, What-zen?
This whole business of having different forms of the personal pronoun ‘you’ is really confusing. Thanks a lot, Germany. Way to make your language even harder to learn.
I mean, if there was a hard and fast rule that said exactly when and with whom you are supposed to duzen and siezen, that would be okay. [...]
Acronymical (video)
Miss V, in a follow-up to her prefixation, muses on the lack of convenient acronyms in the German language.
Verbification
Verbs, as the ‘doing words’ of any language, are always the more fun than boring old nouns. Englischers ‘verb’ (or, as I like to say, ‘verbify’) nouns all the time, especially in slang. For example: if the police use a taser gun on someone, that person was ‘tasered’ (or ‘tased’ – as in “Don’t [...]
Learning a new language! (video)
Join me observing the habits of the Bloggerus Germanicus, a rare breed of blogger found in Germany, and learning a new language… HTML!
Es tut mir Coke Light
Warning: Fizzy Drink Rant approaching.
I have some trouble ordering Coca-cola. You see, it’s just so gosh darned confusing. Not only is there regular Coke, Cherry Coke and Vanilla Coke, but also Coke Light and Coke Zero. (Sidenote: What’s the difference between the last two anyway?) On top of this, where I’m from, Coke Light is [...]
Schuldi (abbrev.)
Abbreviations make life so much easier. I mean, why bicycle around when you can bike? Why go to the trouble of saying celluar phone when you can just use your cell?
My good friend Herr Versteh-a-lot (who, like myself, is Deutschily challenged) has introduced me to the “abbrev.” (of course you have to abbreviate ‘abbreviation’!) for [...]
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