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German articles- dilemma

  Tags: Grammar | German
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
LangOfChildren
Tetraglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5186 days ago

82 posts - 141 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian

 
 Message 17 of 19
01 September 2010 at 8:43pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:

I'm really surprised a native speaker would say that. I spent a month in Germany in 1991 and I was pretty fluent; I stayed around Düsseldorf and I would hear this all the time, from young and old. I never noticed any kind of stigma to it.


It's only my personal oppinion, nothing that should be taken as a universal truth or anything. In general, I tend to be a bit sensitive when it comes to the way my mother tongue is spoken. I cringe when certain recurring grammar mistakes are made, for instance. Not even because of linguistic purism, it's just a feeling I naturally have towards my language and I can't exactly pinpoint where it's coming from. I also grew up in Berlin, and people here speak differently from people in the south obviously. Using definite articles before names is not something that was usual in Berlin. The only time I would hear it, is when someone was speaking to children or rather, when speaking about children in front of children, which is why I think this use of articles sounds like "speaking to kids" to me. It's all oppinion though, so don't worry about it :)
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Spanky
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5715 days ago

1021 posts - 1714 votes 
Studies: French

 
 Message 18 of 19
02 September 2010 at 12:11am | IP Logged 
This phenomenon spread briefly to America in the 1950s.   Anyone remember "The Fonz"?   Anyone?   Okay, I am probably dating myself with this.
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Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5079 days ago

1256 posts - 2363 votes 
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 19 of 19
02 September 2010 at 12:17am | IP Logged 
LangOfChildren wrote:
I also grew up in Berlin, and people here speak differently from people in the south obviously. Using definite articles before names is not something that was usual in Berlin.

I'm a Berliner, too and agree with LangOfChildren. Using an articles before names seems to be phenomenon restricted to some regions in Germany. In some ways this is similar to saying "Samstag" instead of "Sonnabend" or "viertel vor sechs" instead of "drei viertel sechs" for 17:45 (5:45pm).


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