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101 Reasons German is a Great Language! | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6076 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 9 of 55 28 March 2010 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was almost ready to start learning it until I saw this :-S 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 11 of 55 29 March 2010 at 12:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think the long words are things to be feared... Personally, I remind myself that there can be often long words as well in Korean which are just simply little words stuck together, like 조선민주주의인민공화국.
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| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5436 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 12 of 55 29 March 2010 at 1:30am | IP Logged | |||||
It never was good style. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) already railed against it. Schopenhauer had an unmatched command of the German language and influenced people like Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann, among others. Especially engineers like to build such chains of nouns, so it is no surprise that the two examples mentioned so far are names of technical devices. There are several problems with your example. Schopenhauer also complained about the misuse of the ending "ung" that seems to have started in his time and is now a lost battle. Nouns ending with "-ung" describe processes, or rather they should. There are different endings for devices, persons, or concepts. Like in this example: Erziehung - process of education Erzieher - male educator Erzieherin - female educator Now, if we look at the last part of the noun you mentioned: "Abdämpfung" you see that this should describe a process. As a side remark, the particle "ab" is redundant and doesn't add anything to the meaning. So now we have "Dämpfung". If you want to refer to a device you should use "Dämpfer" instead. There is a word "Stoßdämpfer", meaning antishock pad. How should a language learner decide when to use "Dämpfung" and when "Dämpfer"? Well, it could be easy with the criteria mentioned above, but it isn't. It is a complete mess. Engineers like to use words like "Ummantelung" for envelopes or shrouds. The simple word "Mantel" would be more to the point but probably doesn't sound complicated enough. Some people like to muddy their waters to make them seem deeper. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5536 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 55 29 March 2010 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wasn't German a must for Science before and more-so nowadays for hosting a great deal of information and resources for Engineering/Industry? Edited by Al-Irelandi on 29 March 2010 at 2:35am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 14 of 55 29 March 2010 at 3:32am | IP Logged | |||||
The chances of running into those things are very slim. Go for it!! German is fantastic, you'll love it :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 15 of 55 29 March 2010 at 3:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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Here I am trying to think of reasons NOT to start studying German until I improve the other languages I'm working on and here you guys are giving me all sorts of great reasons to study German.
I'm moving back to Canada in a couple of weeks. There is a Goethe-Institut fifteen minutes east of my place and an Alliance Française fifteen minutes north of my place. Focus, focus, focus vs. oooooohhh, German. Ok, let me add a reason; it seems wherever you go in the world, you will be able to find a bookstore selling quality German news magazines. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5423 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 55 29 March 2010 at 5:41am | IP Logged | |||||
@cordelia is this thread in response to the "Why does German have a bad reputation?" thread? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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