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Learning German
After a break, caused by problems in the way Duolingo interacts with Chrome on my elderly computer, I'm back learning German again.
It's complicated and difficult enough to help me focus on something other than trying to sell my mother-in-law's house and other things with high stress factors.
However, sometimes German can be illogical enough to make even me tear my hair out.
'Ihr' is the most crazy word I've yet come across. What kind of language has the SAME word for 'she', 'your', and 'theirs' ?
When you're already juggling three genders and four cases, and the fact that a simple word like 'the' can be spelt in half a dozen ways depending on which combination you have, 'ihr' is pretty much the last straw.
Mind you, there are compensations. Some German words are glorious and just make me laugh out loud. One of my favourites is 'Krankenhaus' - 'hospital', or 'Schnurrbart' - 'mustache'.
I find transliteration often helps me remember a word - I look up part words in dictionaries. eg. 'Schnurrbart' is nothing to do with snoring in spite of the sound, it means 'string beard', which makes sense.
'Schwiegermutter' is the German for mother-in-law. It transliterates as 'silent mother'. Sort of an unseen family member, but one who is still part of the family. All in-laws are schwieger something.
Although I'm still using Duolingo, I'm branching out into a number of other German-teaching sites. They all have different pros and cons. Few of them are good at teaching grammar - I think they're afraid of scaring people away. I'm using a book from the library as my main grammar guide.
If anyone would like a list of the sites I've found so far, just ask.
BTW, if you're not a native English speaker (and I know at least two of you aren't) do feel free to point out the most crazy things in the English language!
It's complicated and difficult enough to help me focus on something other than trying to sell my mother-in-law's house and other things with high stress factors.
However, sometimes German can be illogical enough to make even me tear my hair out.
'Ihr' is the most crazy word I've yet come across. What kind of language has the SAME word for 'she', 'your', and 'theirs' ?
When you're already juggling three genders and four cases, and the fact that a simple word like 'the' can be spelt in half a dozen ways depending on which combination you have, 'ihr' is pretty much the last straw.
Mind you, there are compensations. Some German words are glorious and just make me laugh out loud. One of my favourites is 'Krankenhaus' - 'hospital', or 'Schnurrbart' - 'mustache'.
I find transliteration often helps me remember a word - I look up part words in dictionaries. eg. 'Schnurrbart' is nothing to do with snoring in spite of the sound, it means 'string beard', which makes sense.
'Schwiegermutter' is the German for mother-in-law. It transliterates as 'silent mother'. Sort of an unseen family member, but one who is still part of the family. All in-laws are schwieger something.
Although I'm still using Duolingo, I'm branching out into a number of other German-teaching sites. They all have different pros and cons. Few of them are good at teaching grammar - I think they're afraid of scaring people away. I'm using a book from the library as my main grammar guide.
If anyone would like a list of the sites I've found so far, just ask.
BTW, if you're not a native English speaker (and I know at least two of you aren't) do feel free to point out the most crazy things in the English language!
no subject
"Ihr" and "Euch" (the oblique form) are the pronouns you'll practically never come across in practice and whose verb-forms you can get away without knowing -- I've only met them in Christmas cards sent to the family.
One of my favourite words is "Nacktschnecke".
Schnecke = "snail"
Nacktschnecke = "naked snail", i.e. without a shell -- "slug"!