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Do you speak it like a native? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 58 14 April 2010 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, "Ami" normally is something coming from or ressembling something from AMerica, so Amischlitten could be big gasoline-guzzling square cars with wings.
"Die stärksten Ami-Schlitten" = the most flashy/smart? Certainly not a question of horsepower. "Wir, die frustrierten Wähler, haben sie im Glauben gelassen, wir wollten jetzt aber wirklich mal so richtig durchregiert werden". Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed to me that no. 1 should just be read literally as: we the frustrated voters have [been stupid enough to] let the politicians remain in the belief that we really wanted to be thoroughly governed. zurückveräppelt, - I don't remember that expression, but 'veräppeln' is something like cheating people/ make fools of them. Maybe it is just a planned revenge by the fooled towards the foolers? ---> this is page 2, so maybe we can get some hints now ?? Edited by Iversen on 14 April 2010 at 10:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 10 of 58 14 April 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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SOLUTIONS
Basically, Iversen got them all except the reference of the second.
The broader context for these two was Volker Pispers' brilliant radio commentary on the outcome of the 2005 federal elections, which ended with neither party or coalition having the advantage despite contrary expectations, thereby being forced to consider a coalition with parties that they had maligned during the campaigns. In this commentary, he suggested that the people wanted to get back at the politicians fooling the people for ages with campaign promises. "zurück-veräppeln" is a neologism which to a German would mean to fool someone in reaction to having been fooled yourself. The English would have to be something like "to fool back at him" ;-) Because of the context, which you couldn't know, the "been stupid enough to" assumption is off, but the rest is correct. The "durch" in "durchregieren" suggests a particularly rigorous kind of governing, like "through and through". According to Pispers, the people pretended that they wanted to give the CDU/FDP coalition a solid majority which would allow them to realize all their most ambitious goals (durchregieren), and the fact that it was just pretend is what was characterized as "zurückveräppeln". As for the reference of "Ab heute wird zurückveräppelt!", which none got... because of the weird passive construction, the word order and the zurück-, I was reminded of "Seit 5:45 Uhr wird jetzt zurückgeschossen!", Hitler's very well-known radio phrase commenting on the invasion of Poland, implying the Poles had shot first.
Yes, "Ami" is a mostly friendly slang term for American. "der Schlitten" normally means "sleigh", but it's slang for a fancy car (not necessarily with wings). "stark" normally means "strong" and in slang it can mean "awe-inspiring". So these are two different kinds of things that fluent language students still have trouble with and which are easily understandable to native speakers. 1. implications of neologisms or plays on words and 2. rarely-taught parts of slang. Comedy tends to be rich in both, so it's the perfect test. Edited by Sprachprofi on 14 April 2010 at 11:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5464 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 11 of 58 15 April 2010 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I had no idea what these phrases meant, but your explanation of them, Sprachprofi, was
fascinating, so thanks very much! I'd love to see some similar sentences in other languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 12 of 58 15 April 2010 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'll give someone $50 for their German, wired by paypal :D Edited by datsunking1 on 15 April 2010 at 12:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5435 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 13 of 58 15 April 2010 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Nobody had a go at "Hinterweltler" yet, but I'll lift the secret anyway. There is the regular German word "Hinterwäldler" which contains "hinter" (behind/beyond) and "Wald" (forest). A Hinterwäldler is someone who literally lives behind the forest. This is a derogative term for someone who doesn't seem to know what is going on in the world. A direct translation would be backwoodsman, but I never heard anything like this in English.
Now, Hinterweltler is pronounced exactly the same way. Instead of "Wald" it contains "Welt" (world), so this would translate to backworldsman. You cannot live behind the world, so what does that word mean? It actually refers to "metaphysics", the volume written by Aristotle that came after (meta) the volume "physics": τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά. Hence the name of the disciplin that, ironically or not, deals with transcendental concepts, things beyond the physical world, or in Nietzsches witty term with Hinterwelten, i.e. backworlds. So when talking about Hinterweltler he means metaphysicists, and he probably had Hegel and Schopenhauer in mind. The derogative connotation of the "real" word is of cause preserved with this pun. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 58 15 April 2010 at 8:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
There is a third one: history (including recent history). I knew of course that Hitler blamed the Poles for his aggression towards them, but because I didn't learn about it in German I have never seen/heard the exact phrase he used. Exactly the same thing with more recent history - you have to know not only that a certain discussion took place, but also in which terms. I get some background from watching German television (including the news), but I rarely read German newspapers and never German popular magazines. So a person who has lived in Germany will of course have an advantage. One of my own tests of my level in German is trying to understand what the participants in "Genial daneben" (SAT1) are hinting at, and from where they get their wildest associations. Edited by Iversen on 15 April 2010 at 11:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 15 of 58 15 April 2010 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Indeed, cultural references may be the hardest part of native-like fluency, but it is
possible to a large degree, because natives don't know everything that happens in their culture either. Last night I remembered a nice language question for Canadian French: 
Explain. Edited by Sprachprofi on 15 April 2010 at 5:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6151 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 16 of 58 15 April 2010 at 11:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The following article Jean Charest's green smokescreen I think sums up the issue.
Would the phrase "green washing" to describe the idea of companies dressing themselves up with green credentials to hide their severe environmental impact be regarded as C2, or beyond, in English ? Edited by DaraghM on 15 April 2010 at 12:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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