Questions about German Thread

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Imralu wrote:Image

And your English translation was ingenious ... separating nightmare and favourite with topicalisation. Well done! You have fully earned this violin and rose. (!?!)
hwhatting wrote:in some German dialects hocken is a neutral equivalent for sitzen
Bairisch is one of them, isn't it? In standard German, I always think of it as meaning squat, and to me, zusammenhocken sounds kind of like "huddle together", although I haven't found that as anyone else's translation.
In practically every Swiss German dialect, sitzen doesn't even exist. It's always hocken.
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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Imralu wrote: violin and rose
That was unexpected. I almost blushed. ;-)

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Re: Questions about German Thread

Post by Imralu »

Hi!

Are there any resources out there to help with vocabularly learning that contrast prefixes and go through the differences between, for example schließen, abschließen, anschließen, aufschließen, ausschließen, beschließen, entschließen, erschließen, verschließen, zuschließen? In the ESL world, phrasal verbs are acknowledged to be a very hard part of vocabulary to learn, but looking googling for what as basically the German equivalent, verbs with prefixes, only gives you page after page of the same shit about separable and inseparable prefixes and when the separable ones are written separately. That's basic stuff that people learn early on in the course of learning German. Surely I'm not the only one who wants to improve their German vocabulary and sometimes struggles with things like the difference between prallen and aufprallen and things like that. Also, it's easy enough to see in English because all of the phrasal verbs with "shut" will be listed under "shut" but in a German dictionary, there's all the ab- words together etc.
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Re: Questions about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

Minor question: plural of Nachlass?

My instinct says Nachlaesse, and I normally go with that just because I'm proud to have an instinct at all (even though I don't know why). Looking it up it can apparently be Nachlaesse OR Nachlasse. Or possibly Nachlasses (if I'm reading that right?).

Is there are difference in meaning or use between the two of these? Or is it regional or something?

Speaking of which, while I'm at it, could someone remind me of the answer to the equivalent question re: Worte vs Woerter, which I know I've asked before? [Hopefully not in this thread?]

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Imralu: oh, I know what you mean. I recognise a verb, or think I do, and then realise 'oh blast, I've no idea what that prefix does to the meaning...'.
And they teach you them one by one, so each time you think 'oh, i know that alre... oh, do I? What prefix was it last time? Was it aus- or auf- that we did before?'
It would be much more useful is someone sat you down and explained which was which at the time (of the common words, obviously, there may be some that are recondite enough to be left until they arise).
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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Salmoneus wrote:Minor question: plural of Nachlass?

My instinct says Nachlaesse, and I normally go with that just because I'm proud to have an instinct at all (even though I don't know why). Looking it up it can apparently be Nachlaesse OR Nachlasse. Or possibly Nachlasses (if I'm reading that right?).
You can't be. Nachlasses is the genitive singular. (In general, -s plurals are reserved for borrowings and colloquialisms, including acronyms.)

Nachlasse tends to be listed first in lexicographical entries, but Nachlässe gets more Ghits. I don't think it's regional, but it could be. Southern dialects tend to drop final -e, so umlaut plurals have the advantage of being more distinctive.
Salmoneus wrote:Speaking of which, while I'm at it, could someone remind me of the answer to the equivalent question re: Worte vs Woerter, which I know I've asked before? [Hopefully not in this thread?]
Wörter is the usual plural. Worte is only used in reference to connected speech. (To quote Duden: "Der Plural »Worte« wird meist für Äußerung, Ausspruch, Beteuerung, Erklärung, Begriff, Zusammenhängendes oder bedeutsame einzelne Wörter gebraucht[.]") E.g. mit wenigen Worten "in a few words", Irgendwelche letzten Worte? "Any last words?"
Salmoneus wrote:Imralu: oh, I know what you mean. I recognise a verb, or think I do, and then realise 'oh blast, I've no idea what that prefix does to the meaning...'.
And they teach you them one by one, so each time you think 'oh, i know that alre... oh, do I? What prefix was it last time? Was it aus- or auf- that we did before?'
It would be much more useful is someone sat you down and explained which was which at the time (of the common words, obviously, there may be some that are recondite enough to be left until they arise).
An explanation of what a particular prefix does to the meaning of verbs would be comparable to the appendix to Women, fire, and dangerous things where Lakoff attempts to account for the various uses of "over" by means of image schemata and semantic extensions. I don't have my copy handy, but as I recall it runs to at least twenty pages.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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linguoboy wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:Imralu: oh, I know what you mean. I recognise a verb, or think I do, and then realise 'oh blast, I've no idea what that prefix does to the meaning...'.
And they teach you them one by one, so each time you think 'oh, i know that alre... oh, do I? What prefix was it last time? Was it aus- or auf- that we did before?'
It would be much more useful is someone sat you down and explained which was which at the time (of the common words, obviously, there may be some that are recondite enough to be left until they arise).
An explanation of what a particular prefix does to the meaning of verbs would be comparable to the appendix to Women, fire, and dangerous things where Lakoff attempts to account for the various uses of "over" by means of image schemata and semantic extensions. I don't have my copy handy, but as I recall it runs to at least twenty pages.
Exactly. There is a regular meaning for most prefixes, and this is usually closely connected to the meaning of the equivalent preposition. (And even for those prefixes which don't have such a preposition, such as ent-, a basic meaning exists [for this prefix it's similar to English dis-].) The problem is: For just about every prefix, and for most roots that appear with prefixes, certain combinations have shifted in meaning idiomatically. As a L2 learner, you might not really have to learn every single combination of prefix + verb individually, but you will have to do so for all the idiomatic ones, roughly a third of all combinations if I estimate correctly.

I don't know of any good resources like the one you're asking for though, sorry.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

I meant, and I thought he meant, the other way around. Not going through each preposition, but through the verbs. So that when you got to schließen, it would say "while you're at it, here are some prefixed forms of this verb, so that you can remember which is which..."

It would normally be common sense that when things are easily confused, the teacher teaches them together and explicitly contrasts them, making the distinction clear at the time. Unfortunately when it comes to languages that doesn't seem to happen.
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Re: Questions about German Thread

Post by linguoboy »

If it helps, words grouped by common stem in German are called "Wortfamilien". Googling that finds lots of instructional pages (so there definitely is some paedagogical precedent for this sort of approach), but nothing with the comprehensiveness Imralu is seeking. But then I didn't look that hard and didn't try a bookseller's website like buecher.de.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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@ Imralu: I obviously never had to formally learn German as a foreign language, but for Russian the usual approach is to teach you what the preverbs mean in general, with examples, and if you then still do not understand what a certain combination of prefix and verb means, or if the meaning is idiomatic, you're referred to the dictionary. The only group of verbs where you normally are taken through all combinations of prefix and verb are the movement verbs. So I assume the different approach in English on one hand and Russian (and German) on the other hand may simply be triggered by something stupid (but very practical) like how you are going to find the entry in dictionaries - in English, entries are grouped by verbs, so learning material is grouped by verbs, in Russian and German, entries are grouped by prefixes, so learning material is grouped that way.
But there is stuff like what you're looking for,, e.g. this book seems to give material the way you are looking for. Didn't check how much of it is available online / for free.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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linguoboy wrote: You can't be. Nachlasses is the genitive singular. (In general, -s plurals are reserved for borrowings and colloquialisms, including acronyms.)
Besides that, it also forms the plural of words ending in a vowel other than schwa, e.g. Opa, Oma, etc. (most of them are loans, anyway)
Nachlasse tends to be listed first in lexicographical entries, but Nachlässe gets more Ghits. I don't think it's regional, but it could be. Southern dialects tend to drop final -e, so umlaut plurals have the advantage of being more distinctive.
IMD (and I'm Northern) it's only Nachlässe. I didn't even know that Nachlasse exists (and that indeed Duden has it as the first variant); if I'd seen it in someone's German in the fluency thread, I'd have marked it as wrong . :oops:

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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hwhatting wrote:IMD (and I'm Northern) it's only Nachlässe. I didn't even know that Nachlasse exists (and that indeed Duden has it as the first variant); if I'd seen it in someone's German in the fluency thread, I'd have marked it as wrong . :oops:
Do you have a plural for Erlass in your speech? If so, what is it?

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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linguoboy wrote:
hwhatting wrote:IMD (and I'm Northern) it's only Nachlässe. I didn't even know that Nachlasse exists (and that indeed Duden has it as the first variant); if I'd seen it in someone's German in the fluency thread, I'd have marked it as wrong . :oops:
Do you have a plural for Erlass in your speech? If so, what is it?
Strange enough, it's Erlasse, although I've seen Erlässe used. And as we're on it, for other compunds of -lass the plurals IMD are: Anlässe and Durchlässe; I don't use Ablass, Verlass, Einlass in the plural - Ablass, because it's only used in a certain religious-historical context, and Einlass and Verlass only in certain fixed expressions. But if I'd derive a rule, it's that IMD all compounds with plural in -lässe are those stressed on the first constituent, while Erlass (with plural Erlasse) is stressed on the second constituent. The only other one with stress on the second constituent listed here would be Verlass, which doesn't have a plural.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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On a different note, does anyone know of any information on Highest Alemannic dialects? The only detailed account of it I've been able to find is a 100 year old thesis on Walser German in German. Does anyone know where I might find some more up to date info? Either in English or German would be good for me.
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Re: Questions about German Thread

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This one may seem pretty basic, but is tsch ever pronounced separately (i.e. stop-fricative -t-sch- instead of affricate -tsch-)?
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Apical vowels: [ɿ]≈[z̞̩], [ʅ]≈[ɻ̞̩], [ʮ]≈[z̞̩ʷ], [ʯ]≈[ɻ̞̩ʷ].
Vowels: [ᴇ]=Mid front unrounded, [ᴀ]=Open central unrounded, [ⱺ]=Mid back rounded, [ⱻ]=Mid back unrounded.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Seirios wrote:This one may seem pretty basic, but is tsch ever pronounced separately (i.e. stop-fricative -t-sch- instead of affricate -tsch-)?
Yes, tsch may stand for a cluster /tʃ/ rather than an affricate /t͡ʃ/ when there's a morpheme boundary between the two sounds, for example in compounds like Rotschimmelkäse [ˈʁoːt.ʃɪ.ml̩.ˌkʰɛː.zə] ("cheese with a red mould rind") or in family names like Gottschalk [ˈɡɔt.ʃalk] (etymologically "servant of God"). There is no separate release of the /t/ though, so the phonetic difference is minimal, if there is any.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Cedh wrote:
Seirios wrote:This one may seem pretty basic, but is tsch ever pronounced separately (i.e. stop-fricative -t-sch- instead of affricate -tsch-)?
Yes, tsch may stand for a cluster /tʃ/ rather than an affricate /t͡ʃ/ when there's a morpheme boundary between the two sounds, for example in compounds like Rotschimmelkäse [ˈʁoːt.ʃɪ.ml̩.ˌkʰɛː.zə] ("cheese with a red mould rind") or in family names like Gottschalk [ˈɡɔt.ʃalk] (etymologically "servant of God"). There is no separate release of the /t/ though, so the phonetic difference is minimal, if there is any.
Thanks! So for example, is Zeitschrift [ˈtsaɪt.ʃʁɪft], Entschuldigung [ɛnt.ˈʃ-] and Rechtschreibung [ˈʁɛçt.ʃ]? Could you give some examples that have word-internal cluster EDIT: affricate tsch besides Deutsche? Also, are all the tsch's in compound words across morpheme boundary, no matter what the compound words have come to mean, regarded as clusters?
Last edited by Seirios on Mon Nov 03, 2014 11:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Apical vowels: [ɿ]≈[z̞̩], [ʅ]≈[ɻ̞̩], [ʮ]≈[z̞̩ʷ], [ʯ]≈[ɻ̞̩ʷ].
Vowels: [ᴇ]=Mid front unrounded, [ᴀ]=Open central unrounded, [ⱺ]=Mid back rounded, [ⱻ]=Mid back unrounded.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Seirios wrote:Thanks! So for example, is Zeitschrift [ˈtsaɪt.ʃʁɪft], Entschuldigung [ɛnt.ˈʃ-] and Rechtschreibung [ˈʁɛçt.ʃ]? Could you give some examples that have word-internal cluster tsch besides Deutsche?

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Seirios wrote:Also, are all the tsch's in compound words across morpheme boundary, no matter what the compound words have come to mean, regarded as clusters?
As long as the compunds are still analysable, I'd say they are.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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hwhatting wrote:
Seirios wrote:Thanks! So for example, is Zeitschrift [ˈtsaɪt.ʃʁɪft], Entschuldigung [ɛnt.ˈʃ-] and Rechtschreibung [ˈʁɛçt.ʃ]? Could you give some examples that have word-internal cluster tsch besides Deutsche?

lutschen
"to suck", klatschen "to clap", Patsche "mess", fletschen "to bare (one's teeth)", Matsch "mud", Quatsch "nonsense", quatschen "to talk, to gab", Peitsche "whip"
@hwhatting: Could you please explain why you classify these words as having a cluster /tʃ/ rather than an affricate /t͡ʃ/?

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Seirios wrote:Thanks! So for example, is Zeitschrift [ˈtsaɪt.ʃʁɪft], Entschuldigung [ɛnt.ˈʃ-] and Rechtschreibung [ˈʁɛçt.ʃ]? Could you give some examples that have word-internal cluster tsch besides Deutsche? Also, are all the tsch's in compound words across morpheme boundary, no matter what the compound words have come to mean, regarded as clusters?
It might be worth noting here that, colloquially, I've heard Entschuldigung abbreviated to Tschuldigung. (Of course, this doesn't mean it's not still a cluster--I've also heard es tut abbreviated to 'stut.)

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Cedh wrote:
hwhatting wrote:
Seirios wrote:Thanks! So for example, is Zeitschrift [ˈtsaɪt.ʃʁɪft], Entschuldigung [ɛnt.ˈʃ-] and Rechtschreibung [ˈʁɛçt.ʃ]? Could you give some examples that have word-internal cluster tsch besides Deutsche?

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"to suck", klatschen "to clap", Patsche "mess", fletschen "to bare (one's teeth)", Matsch "mud", Quatsch "nonsense", quatschen "to talk, to gab", Peitsche "whip"
@hwhatting: Could you please explain why you classify these words as having a cluster /tʃ/ rather than an affricate /t͡ʃ/?
Oh, sorry, I got the question wrong. I thought Seirios had asked about word-internal tsch outside of compounds, as in Deutsch. Actually, for me the tsch in Deutsche is an affricate as well - I pronounce it exactly the same way as in lutschen, klatschen, etc.
linguoboy wrote:It might be worth noting here that, colloquially, I've heard Entschuldigung abbreviated to Tschuldigung. (Of course, this doesn't mean it's not still a cluster--I've also heard es tut abbreviated to 'stut.)
At least for me, the pronounciation of Tschuldigung is different to that of Entschuldigung - in Entschuldigung, there is a syllable boundary between /t/ and /ʃ/, while in Tschuldigung there isn't.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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Etymologically speaking, there is an old morpheme boundary between the t and sch in deutsch. In Old High German, the word is diutisc = diut 'people' + -isc '-ish'. But synchronically, deutsch is unanalysable. There is no word **Deut 'people' anymore. (There is a word Deut, but it is the name of a (historical) small coin and has nothing to do with deutsch.)
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Re: Questions about German Thread

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A question:
Why the weird verb order in this sentence?:
"Und glaubst du wirklich, dass ich hier sitzen und mit dir sprechen würde, wenn ich ihm keine befriedigenden Antworten hätte geben können?"
It was translated from: "And do you really think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answers, I would be sitting here talking to you?”"
Why not "geben können hätte"?

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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awer wrote:A question:
Why the weird verb order in this sentence?:
"Und glaubst du wirklich, dass ich hier sitzen und mit dir sprechen würde, wenn ich ihm keine befriedigenden Antworten hätte geben können?"
It was translated from: "And do you really think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answers, I would be sitting here talking to you?”"
Why not "geben können hätte"?
Because this is the rule with so-called double infinitive constructions. I have no idea how it originated, but it's very consistently followed in the written standard.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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linguoboy wrote:
awer wrote:A question:
Why the weird verb order in this sentence?:
"Und glaubst du wirklich, dass ich hier sitzen und mit dir sprechen würde, wenn ich ihm keine befriedigenden Antworten hätte geben können?"
It was translated from: "And do you really think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answers, I would be sitting here talking to you?”"
Why not "geben können hätte"?
Because this is the rule with so-called double infinitive constructions. I have no idea how it originated, but it's very consistently followed in the written standard.
maaan, thanks. i've read about (and found it weird) how it works "im Hauptsatz" but "im Nebensatz" this rule seems like a total mess, pretty unintuitive. maybe it was influenced by the dutch word order, idk. i'll just have to let it sink in.

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Re: Questions about German Thread

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awer wrote:maaan, thanks. i've read about (and found it weird) how it works "im Hauptsatz" but "im Nebensatz" this rule seems like a total mess, pretty unintuitive. maybe it was influenced by the dutch word order, idk. i'll just have to let it sink in.
Or the result of dialect mixing. There's a lot of syntactical variation among the various forms of German, both dialectal and colloquial, and it's not that unusual to find the type of word order you consider "Dutch". For instance, the ordinary way of expressing "Ich weiß nicht, ob ich dir es geben kann" in Südbadisch (an Alemannic variety of far southwestern Germany) is "I weiß nit, eb dr s ka gää" and this order sometimes bleeds over into colloquial forms of Standarddeutsch spoken there.

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