What are you doing about languages? (German language primer)

hello babytigger,

nice story.

Yes the best to learn any language is really to find nice friend and talk to him in foreign language. You can learn from your friend and your friend can learn from you. Good deal.

So you if you Americans help me to improve my English, I can help with German.. Good business and it is free of charge.

bltleo
GERMANY

 

Die Hand (f), Der Ball (m), Das Spiel (n).

Der Handball (m) - (the) handball, refering to an actual ball (the thing you play handball with)
Handball (without a article) - the sport handball
Das Handspiel (n) - basically handball as well, that's the one in soccer
Das Handballspiel (n) - this would actually refer to a game of Handball

The grammatical gender of a combined noun always follows the gender of the last single noun.

Kein Problem

 

I got the 4 tape last christmas. Supplementing with Pims conversation, pims + (which isn't really consecutive with the 1st set), and Pims III (very hard).


what is "zag - an - ze"? I assume ze is you, what is "zag an"

 

Sagen Sie, which means "Say",

Sagen = Say
Sie = (formal) You

 

Danke

 

I know German pretty well, I just have to brush up a bit. I'm renting a bunch of german movies from Netflix to prepare.

 

Wow! What a photo! For some reason, I have never seen this before! You could almost even argue that it's over the goal line! (look at Kahn's shadow)

 

I was going too learn, probably will memorize a few important things (like BEER and RESTROOM ), but when I asked around a few places online for advice on learning tools I was told by friends who are from or live in Germany that it wouldn't be necessary since there will be people who understand English all over the place.

 

My roommate was born in Germany, speaks fluent German, so I should be set there. Oh, and his family keeps an empty apartment in Frankfurt for whenever they go back, so we've got a free place to stay.

 

I started studying way back before the first FIFA draw. Made some progress until I got screwed out of tickets in that lottery last spring. I lost all motivation assuming that my chances were slim.

Now I'm lucky enough to get a pair to Czech Rep and Italy through the USSF fiasco. I might try to learn a little more German, but I'm not going to worry about it. After the number of beers I plan to drink, my English will sound like German anyway.

 

A German vocabulary word appropriate to recent events 'round this forum:

freicheit "fry-shyte" - a complete screwup.

Ich sprechen deutsch wie italienisch Fußballtrainer!

 

that's easy enough...
to ask for the bathroom, just ask for "toilette".

Beer = Bier (even pronounced the same)
more importantly, though
beers= bieren

as in, "i'll buy my new buddy mike d zwei bieren after the yanks beat the czechs"


see? it's easy!

 

Do you mean Frechheit? It means impudence though.

It would be "zwei Bier" (the plural is identical with the singular in this case).

 

UltraP was looking for "Frechheit", as in "nerve", or "a nervy thing to do to someone." One of my favorite German words, right up there with "jain" and "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz".

 

Re: What are you doing about languages?

As long as you're aware that that only works in Bavaria, yes.

 

Re: What are you doing about languages?

???

 

Hear that. I dropped my class because that's $400 I might need to pay scalpers for tix now. Dammit, the professor was HOT, too.

 

Just keep showing up at the class. If your teacher calls on it explain your situation to her -- maybe she'll be understanding. And if she really presses you on it then offer to perform certain, um, "favors" in exchange for class and special tutoring privileges. That's the way it works in the movies, anyway.

 

Point one from a once long-time resident of Germany and Austria:

Will you be able to get by in Germany without knowing a WORD of German? Yes.

Will you make a good impression and possibly open a few doors that would otherwise have remained shut if you even just learn a little bit of German? Yes.

As an American, you have a choice: You can reinforce the stereotype that Americans can't/don't/don't want to/don't think they have to learn any of another language at all, or you can shock your hosts by showing that yes, you actually are aware that other languages exist.

To that end, a completely free online course geared very nicely towards just learning a bit of what you need as a tourist:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj/

Enjoy. I wish I could be there, too.

 

I think I told it already...the best way to learn foreign language or in this case German it is to find nice german friend....or even boyfriend or girlfriend...
but nice friend is already enough....talking to people....

if you show your effort, german will appreciate this....and help you..

so learn at least few basic words....if someone come to Germany and don´t know how to say Thanks or Please, it does not look as if you would interested for the country do you visit..

do that like James Bond...if he visited any new country, he always read local newspapers and eat local food and drink local drinks...

so learn few german words..

and find nice german friend

bltleo
GERMANY

 

My words:

"Zimmer frei?"

"Weissbier!"

"Danke schoen!"

"Ich bin ein berliner!"

and my personal favorite ...

"Bush ... dumbkopfen!"

 

Everyone said Parisians and French were unfriendly to Americans. I did not encounter that over the past weekend. All I had to say was "Bonjour.... English?" or just point and ask "English? Espanol?" and I would get helpful responses.

Germans are better at English than the French, and just as, if not more friendly. I'm just surprised how few Swiss speak English!

Just remember your please and thank yous, and youll be fine.

 

Re: What are you doing about languages?

Thankfully, you didn't have to go to pump No. 2 ....