Me: "I want to learn German."
Them: "Why would you do that? Don't bother!"
Me: "Because I spend half my time on the Fediverse clicking on the 'Translate' button."
I can't help it if so many of the awesome accounts I follow are in German. And I want to be able to understand their messages without clicking on 'Translate' 50+ times a day. Plus this way I would understand / could attend ALL the talks at Berlin #FediDay.
I'm putting this here so that people hold me accountable 😅🤗
@johl@mastodon.xyz haha when I mentioned at FediDay that I wanted to learn German, someone immediately recommended this essay. I'm almost scared to read it (I don't want to be discouraged) 😅
@_elena@mastodon.social He picks out things that are strange to English speakers. As a speaker of Italian and French you might not be as confused as Mark Twain by the fact that nouns have grammatical genders 😀
@johl@mastodon.xyz ha! actually I think genders are going to trip me up because a word may be masculine in Italian, feminine in French and then I would have to remember what it is in German... Plus German has neutral !
I have so much love for the English language as it is genderless.
I remarked that natural disasters and horrible things are typically "feminine" in Italian and French (death, destruction, calamity...). Bloody patriarchy 😆
@_elena@mastodon.social @johl@mastodon.xyz Der Tod (death, masculine in German), die Zerstörung (f), das Unglück (neutral). Clear improvement, I'd say.
@_elena@mastodon.social @johl@mastodon.xyz Estonian and finnish are completely genderless, everybody is they (tema in estonian). I think all finno-ugric languages are.
@_elena@mastodon.social
Die Sprachfolge an meiner Schule war Französisch, Latein, Englisch. Es war schlimm. Und besonders schlimm fand ich - wie du - die unterschiedlichen Geschlechter von Nomen in den verschiedenen Sprachen. Vor allem bei Worten die im Deutschen Neutrum sind: Das Brot - le pain. Das Auto - la voiture. Deshalb möchte ich dir einen Tipp geben: Nutze auf Deutsch immer das Neutrum. Das versteht jeder und ist sehr oft richtig :D
@johl@mastodon.xyz
@_elena@mastodon.social @johl@mastodon.xyz how big does a boat have to be in English to be "she"? I ask that as a native speaker.
@_elena@mastodon.social Keine Angst!
Twain was from the USA ...
You are never too old to learn languages. I emigrated to France with merci and bonjour only, and now speak it fluently. And as I'm German, I can say: it's much more complicated!
Learning by doing is the best! I e.g. button-translate Spanish posts, and I'm happy that I begin to understand more and more only by doing this, comparing the words ....
@NatureMC@mastodon.online do you have a classic German children's books / cartoon character to recommend? I typically start there, with the simple language of cartoons
@_elena@mastodon.social Spontaneously ... Biene Maja? It was a children's book by Waldemar Bonsels in 1912, but exists as films (2D and 3 D). You can find it on https:// www.kika.de because the animation character just had it's 50th anniversary.
I also recommend childrens' news: short and with simple language https://www.logo.de
You are in France? Then you can switch languages on ARTE.
But don't make my mistake:I learnt French by imitation and a TV thriller series Le commissaire is angry and cries XY...
@_elena@mastodon.social I like very much "Ritter Rost" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uHM0lHxxCbQ
Unfortunately, the ZDF Mediathek has a geoblock for France, like so often
@_elena@mastodon.social @NatureMC@mastodon.online Momo by Michael Ende is a true classic that I loved.
If you look for something for younger children: the Pumuckl stories by Ellis Kaut are something that everyone knows here (at least from the tv show). "Die kleine Hexe" from Otfried Preussler could also be something that you might like.
@_elena@mastodon.social
Did you read Asterix comics as a kid?
They're French, but as Germany doesn't have a comparable culture with regards to comics/cartoons, we adopted them as ours.
@NatureMC@mastodon.online
@_elena@mastodon.social It can be frustrating to learn „the awful German language“ (Mark Twain) as an adult, but as with other things on the Fediverse, everything is possible with enthusiasm and interest!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language