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Trying to learn German. Please save me.

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Chariot

Member
I found German quite easy to learn. Russian felt like more work for me because you basically had to learn all the letters again.
The letters aren't a problem. It's the only thing I still know from school. Had more trouble with the actual grammar.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
To be honest, there's not a whole lot of German quality content around but some good ones include:

Movies:
Victoria
Das Leben der Anderen
Der Untergang
Die Welle
Good Bye Lenin
Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex

TV series:
Deutschland 83
Der Tatortreiniger
Stromberg (the German version of The Office)
Pastewka
Morgen hör' ich auf

No idea about YouTube.

Don't forget the quality content on RTL and Sat1 though.

Who doesn't want to watch 45 different terrible cop-shows?
Is Cobra 11 still on? You bet it is. Still feels fresh after 65 years.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
German is the dumbest language in the world.

The sun? Well, the sun is obviously female, better remember that.
The moon though? Well, that's a male thing if I've ever seen one dummy.
A swimming pool? Well....nobody knows really. It might be a male? But it could also be neutral though, now that I think about it.

Have fun learning.
It gets messy but there are some patterns to it, at least:

RMQ5r4M.jpg
 
Yeah, much like I didn't have to know Greek to know what "Informatik" is, lol.

Also it's "die Nutella," you maniacs. The thing it stands for (Nuss-Nougatcreme) is feminine and it even ends in an "a."
It's "die Colgate" too.

Actually it's not, it is das Nüsschen ^_~ But yes, my first though was also die Nougatcreme. Who cares Nutella is great.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
Where did this come from? It's rather neat so I hope the creator has made more.
Well, I personally got it off of the German Subreddit, but as the bottom right says it's from the German Embassy in London, apparently. Maybe they have more things like that on their site?

Edit: Also, the German Stackexchange has some good stuff and is a nice place to browse regarding the idiosyncrasies of German.
Actually it's not, it is das Nüsschen ^_~ But yes, my first though was also die Nougatcreme. Who cares Nutella is great.
"Die Nuss" :^)
 

Yurikerr

This post isn't by me, it's by a guy with the same username as me.
German is the dumbest language in the world.

The sun? Well, the sun is obviously female, better remember that.
The moon though? Well, that's a male thing if I've ever seen one dummy.
A swimming pool? Well....nobody knows really. It might be a male? But it could also be neutral though, now that I think about it.

Have fun learning.

Reading your comment i realized that in (Brazilian) Portuguese we have the gender for sun and moon reversed.

The sun is male: O Sol
The moon is female: A Lua
And a swimming pool is female too: A Piscina.

I can't remember any neutral substantive right now, every one is gendered.
 

The_Super_Inframan

"the journey to a thousand games ends with bad rats. ~Lao Tzu" ~Gabe Newell
It's Das Nutella... Who in there right mind would ever say Die Nutella...

I really love that this is such a controversial topic, it's a non problem in the grand scheme of things but people can get really angry about it :p
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
It's Das Nutella... Who in there right mind would ever say Die Nutella...

I really love that this is such a controversial topic, it's a non problem in the grand scheme of things but people can get really angry about it :p

I never heard "Die Nutella".
What the fuck. Get out of my face with that.
 

Fritz

Member
Reading your comment i realized that in (Brazilian) Portuguese we have the gender for sun and moon reversed.

The sun is male: O Sol
The moon is female: A Lua
And a swimming pool is female too: A Piscina.

I can't remember any neutral substantive right now, every one is gendered.

You got it right though because in most cultures (at least most european cultures) the sun is a male entity and the moon is a female entity.
 

oti

Banned
You git it right though because in most cultures (at least most european cultures) the sun is a male entity and the moon is a female entity.

Sun is male.
Moon is a thing.

In Greek.

And we invented EVERYTHING so obey.

Der Sonne.
Das Mond.
 

Sesuadra

Unconfirmed Member
It's Das Nutella... Who in there right mind would ever say Die Nutella...

I really love that this is such a controversial topic, it's a non problem in the grand scheme of things but people can get really angry about it :p

It's really something I enjoy fighting over. :D
Kind of a regional thing afaik.
 

The_Super_Inframan

"the journey to a thousand games ends with bad rats. ~Lao Tzu" ~Gabe Newell

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
Maybe the "die"/"das" Nutella business is regional and some areas use "die" whilst others use "das" commonly.

"Das" areas: Feel free to split off and form your own nation.
 

The_Super_Inframan

"the journey to a thousand games ends with bad rats. ~Lao Tzu" ~Gabe Newell
If they would say"Die Nutella Creme" I would kinda be alright, cause then they would just be weirdos. But "Die Nutella" is right up there with "Der Salz"

True words

Maybe the "die"/"das" Nutella business is regional and some areas use "die" whilst others use "das" commonly.

"Das" areas: Feel free to split off and form your own nation.

Yeah, maybe we won't live with you "Die" sayers either!

But it's probably a regional thing, agreed :)
 
German is the dumbest language in the world.

The sun? Well, the sun is obviously female, better remember that.
The moon though? Well, that's a male thing if I've ever seen one dummy.
A swimming pool? Well....nobody knows really. It might be a male? But it could also be neutral though, now that I think about it.

Have fun learning.

Reading your comment i realized that in (Brazilian) Portuguese we have the gender for sun and moon reversed.

The sun is male: O Sol
The moon is female: A Lua
And a swimming pool is female too: A Piscina.

I can't remember any neutral substantive right now, every one is gendered.

My ancient greek teacher once speculated that the gender of the sun and the moon have something to do with how hot it gets in a specific country.

Because if it's 40 fucking degrees celsius outside and you are almost dying while nights are very pleseant temperature wise you bet your ass people will start to declinate the sun masculine.

EDIT

Btw to all my fellow Austrians in here: Servas
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Maybe the "die"/"das" Nutella business is regional and some areas use "die" whilst others use "das" commonly.

"Das" areas: Feel free to split off and form your own nation.

The "Die Nutella" areas are widely known as "The wilderness" or "Hell"


I know what it is, but that doesn't stop people from saying "das pool" and that's one of the cases were nobody cares.
 

Zushin

Member
Just out of curiosity, is there a language that is considered the 'easiest' to learn for native English speakers?
 
Just out of curiosity, is there a language that is considered the 'easiest' to learn for native English speakers?

I would guess that's either French or German actually. Both have quite a bit in common with English, vocabular, grammar, sentence structure etc. Dutch might also be in there, as it sounds like drunk-German.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
The most important thing is that the only appropriate answer to "Mahlzeit!" is "Mahlzeit!" and none of this "Gleichfalls!" nonsense people are doing.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Guten Appetit. Why be so repetitive?

Because you get thrown out of the room if you say that in Austria.
That's like ordering a "Brötchen" here. People would just spit in your face (rightfully so, if I may add)

dude, fuck "der, die, das" "ein, einer, eine" it's random and impossible to learn. just use das and ein for everything and people will understand you just fine.

Or just say "a" instead for everything and people will think you are from Austria or maybe Bayern.
 

NeoRausch

Member
The most important thing is that the only appropriate answer to "Mahlzeit!" is "Mahlzeit!" and none of this "Gleichfalls!" nonsense people are doing.

When you live in the "Pott" you can also use it as a greeting at noon!
Then the correct response would be "Tach!"
 

szaromir

Banned
On the bright side, it looks like reading German won't be too hard. I can guess what a lot of words mean from their similarity to English.
Don't expect an easy time. While most European languages often has common words that stem from Latin or Greek, Germans decided to make up their own words instead. Examples:
English - French - Polish - German
Distribution - distribution - dystrybucja - Verteilung
Representation - représentation - reprezentacja - Darstellung
You can see the pattern. :p And yes, there are many similar words across English and German (eg. bread and das Brot), but I don't think it's easy to just guess when similar words have the same meaning, at least in the early days of learning a language.
 

sphinx

the piano man
Articles in German is perhaps the most annoying thing in the language because they are very necessary. You can learn the declination rules in some lessons but if you don't know the articles it's all useless, everything is as wrong as if you hadn't learn a thing.

however, every language has its shitty areas.

from what germans told me about spanish, (my language) the hardest stuff to learn is the different modi of the verbs.The complains go like:

"dude, what the fuck is that with the verbs?? why do you need all those "hubiera, habria, hubiese, haya" I have no idea what to use" and I lol, cause it's true, it's hard to grasp.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
When you live in the "Pott" you can also use it as a greeting at noon!
Then the correct response would be "Tach!"
Yeah, but I go "Mahlzeit!" when people greet me with it as well, lol.

I'm living in Saarland currently and that "Mahlzeit!" "Mahlzeit!" rule is one of the first things people taught me when I moved here. People here go bloody mental with the lingo too:
 
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