• Laser@feddit.org
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      9 days ago

      Though it’d be maybe even more helpful if you’re and columns were named; from my understanding, the columns are “male | female | neuter | plural” and the rows “Nominativ | Akkusativ | Dativ | Genitiv”

    • kopasz7@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      This actually makes more sense than the arbitrary grammatical genders. (Sure, english has it simpler with, “from where”, “where” and “where to”)

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        8 days ago

        Until you introduce whom (and, occasionally, whose) and native speakers’ brains explode. It’s soooo easy: Whose brain was exploded by whom? His brain was exploded by her, not He brain was exploded by she. Native English speakers do understand cases, they just don’t know that they understand.

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Thither and thence/hither and hence/whither and whence are also counterparts to there/here/where, for older and/or more literary English

  • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 days ago

    English: We have one definitive article: “The”.

    Me: OK, that’s nice and simple.

    Scots Gaelic: Our’s is a little more complicated. We have “An”, which becomes “Am” for words beginning with B and P, for words starting with an h as the second letter (Th, Bh, Mh…) we use "A’ ", and for plurals we “na”, oh and if the first word in a word is a vowel, you slap “h-” onto it.

    Me: OK, a we bit more complex but I can vibe with it, German what’s your Definitive articles?

    German:

    • yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      and if the first word in a word is a vowel

      Damn, that sounds a bit complex /j (Thanks for the insight on how Gaelic definitive articles work btw)

  • dandelion (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 days ago

    in order of masculine, feminine, neuter, plural

    • nominative: der, die, das, die
    • accusative: den, die, das, die
    • dative: dem, der, dem, den
    • genititive: des, der, des, der

    which becomes:

    • RESE
    • NESE
    • MRMN
    • SRSR

    in high school I pronounced this mnemonic as:

    • resee
    • nesee
    • Mormon
    • sir sir

    My teacher didn’t like the “Mormon” bit, he wanted me to say “merman” but I found it easier to remember “Mormon” and his discomfort only made it stick better, lol.

  • Sheepy@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    This is so painfully close to being Loss. There’s got to be a way to juggle those squares around just right.

  • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Fuck gender and fuck german for letting “the” get THIS fucking out of control.

    I studied this fucker for 5 years in secondary school, got a B , but fuck it.

    I’m learning/speaking Spanish now, it’s still got gender and el/la/al but it’s not this bad.

    My first language of Turkish doesn’t even have “the” for fucks sake.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      9 days ago

      Spanish is a rather easy language

      German on the other hand not so much. On the other hand, it’s usually very precise and information-dense, which is reflected in how fast it rather slow it’s spoken, especially compared to Spanish.

      • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 days ago

        Talking speed differs greatly by region though. Slowest speakers are probably Swiss and fastest being citizens of Frankfurt.

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        9 days ago

        Eh, there’s lots of filler in German, too. I learned both Spanish and German and as far as I can tell, Spain-Spanish fast talking is more a feature of cultural extroversion than anything inherent to the language. Even many of the american Spanish speakers speak considerably slower than the Spaniards, and there’s no obvious reason why Spanish should be spoken so much faster than Italian, Portuguese or even French.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 days ago

      there’s a cheat code called “not giving a fuck” where you just say “die” or “das” for every word, and natives will just cringe slightly and then forget about it

    • exocortex@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 days ago

      Maybe you know it but if not read Mark Twain’s Essay “The Aweful German Language”. It’s a fantastic and bellyachingly funny thing to read. I am a native speaker and have to admit Mark makes so many brilliant points.