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TAC 2012 German Team Tournesol

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Flarioca
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635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 97 of 133
02 January 2012 at 4:25am | IP Logged 
Tournesol wrote:

Anyway I was interested in the following sentence :

"Seit sie in Deutschland lebt, arbeitet sie als Kellnerin".

So I think this translates as

"She’s been working as a waitress since she’s been living in Germany".

It caught my attention because of the use of the present tense. It reminds me of the French "depuis". I suppose
the subject verb inversion will be explained at a later stage…


The "present" in German has a wider use than in English (and Portuguese, btw.) and your translation is right.

In the main clause, verbs usually appear in the second place: Sie arbeitet als Kellnerin.

In a dependent clause verbs appear (always?) in the last position. So, they appear in the last position when you use the conjunction seit (among other subordinate conjunctions, like als, bis etc): Sie arbeitet als Kellnerin, seit sie in Deutschland lebt.

However, when the main clause is inverted with a dependent one, then verbs in the main clause appear in the first position. Then, for a clause with a subordinate conjunction: Seit sie in Deutschland lebt, arbeitet sie als Kellnerin.

Questions are also formed with verbs in the first position: Arbeitet sie als Kellnerin?

Word order is a first problem that I have seen that I should study again/better, after beginning to write some posts in Lang-8 during the last few days.

So, I don't really know it well and hope that someone who does come here and explain it better.

Edited by Flarioca on 02 January 2012 at 4:30am

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Tournesol
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119 posts - 132 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchC1
Studies: German

 
 Message 98 of 133
03 January 2012 at 12:32am | IP Logged 
Thanks Flarioca. Your explanation was useful.

German Log Entry 3
I started the second lesson of Tangram Aktuel 1 (Niveau A1 coursebook). I lost some time trying to figure out what
the word "Meldestelle" meant.

I discovered this online dictionary.

Hueber Online Dictionary

German 45 mins

Edited by Tournesol on 03 January 2012 at 12:37am

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ummagumma
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 Message 99 of 133
05 January 2012 at 10:27am | IP Logged 
I see that the Irish are well represented in the German Team!

Ich komme auch aus Irland! Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg beim Deutschlernen.

You are correct on the grammar point above on the use of the present to express the
past in certain instances. I met it most with representing the past up to the present.
You see it allot with since (seit). I'm no German professional but here are other
examples. They are the type of phase we would meet alot.

e.g
I have been living in Germany for 2 years already.
Ich wohne schon seit 2 Jahren in Deutschland.

he has been selling houses of 3 years.
Er verkauft seit 3 Jahren Häuser.

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Tournesol
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 Message 100 of 133
05 January 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged 
@Ummagumma. Thanks. Keep writing in German - I enjoy working out the meaning even if I can't reply in
German. Thanks for the grammar tips.

German Log Entry 4

No German yesterday evening as I had my weekly French Skype call. Since I don't have a German teacher yet I
decided to search for some online pronunciation resources this evening. All the vowels I looked at this evening
exist in either English or French so there was no difficulty. Here's some vocabulary I picked up at
pronunciation resources:

nicht übel adj. fam.
früh (adj.) früher oder später
Typ (r) fam. e.g. Er ist nicht mein Typ.

I have a question. Is there an abbreviation for "zum Beispiel" i.e. an equivalent to e.g. in German?

German 30 mins


Edited by Tournesol on 07 January 2012 at 10:48am

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Flarioca
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 Message 101 of 133
06 January 2012 at 2:42am | IP Logged 
Yes, it is "z.B.".
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Tournesol
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 Message 102 of 133
06 January 2012 at 8:54am | IP Logged 
Flarioca wrote:
Yes, it is "z.B.".


Selbstverständlich! Danke Flarioca noch einmal.
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Fasulye
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fasulyespolyglotblog
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Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 103 of 133
06 January 2012 at 9:36am | IP Logged 
Hi Tournesol,

ich sehe, dass du Anfänger der deutschen Sprache bist. Du hattest im TAC-Jahr 2011 so einen tollen französischen Log geschrieben! :)

Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg mit dem Lernen der deutschen Sprache!

Fasulye
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Tournesol
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Senior Member
Ireland
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119 posts - 132 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchC1
Studies: German

 
 Message 104 of 133
06 January 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged 
@Fasulye. Danke! It's nice to hear from a native German speaker. I'm hoping to make some progress in German
and that I will overcome the motivational problems that thwarted my progress in German last year. Hopefully I
can find the right mix of learning materials to keep it interesting. Also, this is the first time I'm part of a TAC
team and I think that participation in a team will help.


German Team Log




German Log Entry 5

I listened to the dialogues from my course book CD on the walk to work (chose to walk as the wind had died
down and it had stopped raining!) . A second or a third listening is useful (even at this very basic level) as the
first time I might be mostly focussed on meaning and when I can listen again I can focus on other things like
pronunciation, rhythm and sentence intonation. It’s still all very basic but I’m in no rush.

I played with a German language parser as I wanted to see some syntax trees of simple sentence structure. I find
it much more intuitive to look at a sentence tree than read a paragraph of explanation of grammar. This might
help me cope better with the challenge of word order in German when I get beyond the beginner stage.

(German 45 mins)



Edited by Tournesol on 13 January 2012 at 8:42am



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