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Post by lolaruns on Apr 3, 2008 11:08:06 GMT -5
So, since a bunch of you watch the German shows without speaking the language, any words you have learned by now? Aside from "schwul" I mean
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 3, 2008 12:11:25 GMT -5
I've gotten better at understanding things though in intense fighting/yelling scenes where people are speaking rapidly, I can lose my way pretty quickly. My mom is pretty fluent in German but I never really bothered to learn it other than a few phrases and words. I picked up a book to brush up and thanks to her blathering to me in German growing up, I've picked up a lot more pretty quickly. But dative, accusative and all the compound nouns are killers. Why are there so many ways to say "the"?? French is so much easier! PS: I taught my mom "schwul" after I started watching AWZ as she she only knew the more classical way of saying homosexual, so yay!
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Post by elloreigh on Apr 3, 2008 21:48:05 GMT -5
My use of German since my college days has been mostly limited to translating old church records, but a lot of the vocabulary is gradually coming back to me. There's some pretty common phrases I've noticed a lot on the soap...
"Es tut mir leid"
"Es hat nichts zu bedeuten"
verliebt, küssen
I could never really master the whole gender/case thing, either. The compounds don't give me too much trouble. For me it's all the different meanings of verbs depending on the prefix (ver-, er-, zer-, emp-, ent-, be-, usw). Not to mention the separable verbs.
Then there's all that waiting 'til the end of the sentence to find out what the verb actually is, depending on tense of course.
Still, I like it better than any other language I've studied. Actually, Welsh is kind of interesting, too.
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Post by lolaruns on Apr 3, 2008 22:52:51 GMT -5
I kinda love that. It gets me in a lot of trouble when I'm writing in English because I keep making up words that don't exist, which is totally legit in German. In English it drives me crazy that you don't have put-together words. So when I make up one of those words like let's say leg warmer I'm never sure whether it's supposed to leg warmer, legwarmer or leg-warmer, because all these variations of put together words exist in English apparently depending on how well establish the words are as a combo or something like that.
It drives me crazy that the Christian/Oliver storyline keeps using "thought the wind/ganz durch den Wind" to describe being confused emotionally. It's not a bad word but they use it constantly.
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Post by susurrus on Apr 4, 2008 12:24:54 GMT -5
I never thought I'd be so happy to speak German. Even though Germany's German sometimes seems like a foreign language to me as well. ;D Just kidding!
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alex
New Member
Posts: 71
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Post by alex on Apr 6, 2008 0:10:33 GMT -5
I love German (perhaps because my nanny was german, she used to call me klein schwein, really don't know why ). I was learning german in school, but I wasn't gifted, so I stop after 4 years. Sometimes I realise I understand a scene, but I really don't know how. The easier for me to understand at the beginning : - Es tut mir leid : not a scene without someone apologize - Überraschung : easy in every language... - Verstehen
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Post by apollux on Apr 6, 2008 0:58:08 GMT -5
I studied German for about 1.5 years while in the university, but that was 6 years ago and have since forgotten most of it. With VL it is slowy coming back. Right now I'd say I can understand about 40% of the dialogs.
The characters whose pronunciation I understand better are Gregor and Olivia... I don't know why!
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Post by crazycoconut21 on Apr 9, 2008 14:39:52 GMT -5
Hello! I am German. So if you want a translation, ask me! Post me the Link of the video on YouTube and I'll do it, if it isn't that long. But I am sad that I can't watch Hollyoaks, because I don't understand a fucking word! Don't know why! I watched 5 Seasons of Queer As Folk and I understand them, but Hollyoaks is very different for me to understand! GREETZ
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 9, 2008 14:44:37 GMT -5
Hello! I am German. So if you want a translation, ask me! Post me the Link of the video on YouTube and I'll do it, if it isn't that long. But I am sad that I can't watch Hollyoaks, because I don't understand a fucking word! Don't know why! I watched 5 Seasons of Queer As Folk and I understand them, but Hollyoaks is very different for me to understand! GREETZ The accent can be heavy & there's a lot of slang. It took me a few clips to get it. Hopefully you can get some help in the Hollyoaks section from some of the other fans if you decide to try watching the show again.
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Post by ivaniv on Apr 10, 2008 0:54:07 GMT -5
And they have a mix of different accents on HO, too, so it takes a bit of practice. I saw situations when even native speakers could not make it out what was said ;D
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Post by crazycoconut21 on Apr 10, 2008 9:43:44 GMT -5
I saw situations when even native speakers could not make it out what was said ;D ;D I see I have no Chance
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 10, 2008 10:56:10 GMT -5
Ok, how in the world to I do umlauts and es-zetts? Does anyone know the commands on a PC (work) and a Mac (home) how to do this? I am a soap lover and my great-great grandfather was half German!
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Post by nanna on Apr 10, 2008 11:50:03 GMT -5
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 10, 2008 12:34:03 GMT -5
I wanted to seem all authentic and go for the umlauts and es-zetts ;D Thanks so much, Nanna!
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Post by ivaniv on Apr 10, 2008 12:49:29 GMT -5
On PC Windows XP/Vista, in Control Panel, you should have a group called something like International Settings (it's called Regions- und Sprachoptionen on my Vista ;D ), there you can add new keyboard layouts, one of them is German. Then those characters with umlauts will be left to the Enter key.
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Post by tirpse on Apr 10, 2008 14:49:10 GMT -5
Fortunately, I understand what they are saying on Hollyoaks. Actually I am used to the American accent but surprisingly I don't have a huge problem understanding the British/English as well. I love JP & Craig by the way. I am addicted to the JP & Craig clips on "Youtube".
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 13, 2008 23:05:22 GMT -5
Between the genitive, accusative and dative conjugations, my blonde brain is officially overwhelmed. I know a bunch of words in German so I picked up a book to better help me with conjugations so I can actually speak using complete sentences versus halting words in incomplete sentences not to mention understand AWZ and VL better. My mind rebelled with the genitive. Why are there so many ways to say "the"?
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Post by ivaniv on Apr 14, 2008 0:48:37 GMT -5
Plus the words have gender. But German isn't that bad, there are languages that have 7 conjugations, like Latin has
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 14, 2008 10:55:08 GMT -5
Plus the words have gender. But German isn't that bad, there are languages that have 7 conjugations, like Latin has I thought French had prepared me for gender then German had to up it by having the gender neutral words too! So while my German vocab is definitely sharper than it was say a month or two ago, my ability to conjugate complete sentences correctly is still meh. I guess it just takes time. I know watching the AWZ and VL clips in German only helps too (I do have the subtitled ones for "cheating". ).
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Post by lolaruns on Apr 14, 2008 11:32:44 GMT -5
I always amuses me that I haven't been able to come up with a good way to translate "verarschen". You can see it has Arsch/Ass in it. It essentially means to play a trick on somebody, make an ass out of somebody, but it can mean anything from mean deceit (Christian bitterly accusing Olli of verarsching him and laughing behind his back while Christian was chatting with him), to mean that somebody says something but isn't serious about (Christian saying that the guy at club was trying to verarsch Olli, probably meaning that the guy was just into Olli's body), to harmless fun (Christian was verarsching Olli when he pretending he had flunked the entry exam and then revealed he actually had passed).
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 14, 2008 11:35:11 GMT -5
I always amuses me that I haven't been able to come up with a good way to translate "verarschen". You can see it has Arsch/Ass in it. It essentially means to play a trick on somebody, make an ass out of somebody, but it can mean anything from mean deceit (Christian bitterly accusing Olli of verarsching him and laughing behind his back while Christian was chatting with him), to mean that somebody says something but isn't serious about (Christian saying that the guy at club was trying to verarsch Olli, probably meaning that the guy was just into Olli's body), to harmless fun (Christian was verarsching Olli when he pretending he had flunked the entry exam and then revealed he actually had passed). You can always go with the British version to wind someone up in place of verarschen. I think that fits better than teasing because "winding someone up" can be both good and bad versus teasing, which tends to lean more towards good though there is malicious teasing. *shrugs*
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Post by ivaniv on Apr 14, 2008 11:41:56 GMT -5
Wind up. mess around, take the piss. The last one is just the next door ;D
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Post by lolaruns on Apr 14, 2008 11:46:10 GMT -5
I think taking a piss might be the most fitting term, because it kinda conveys the sort of cussword aspect of it Gotta remember that one
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Post by Bonobochick on Apr 14, 2008 12:04:35 GMT -5
I think taking a piss might be the most fitting term, because it kinda conveys the sort of cussword aspect of it Gotta remember that one I forgot all about take the piss! Yea, that's perfect.
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Post by babylondancer on Apr 15, 2008 3:52:14 GMT -5
'messing with someone's head' is a good translation too.
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