|
 |
Reading German | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5139 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 1 of 8 28 July 2010 at 4:49am | IP Logged | ||
|
I am currently having issues reading some German sentences. I can read a few sentences
perfectly fine. But when it starts getting a little bit longer. It starts becoming very confusing. The reason that it is isn't the words that give me the issue. The problem is trying to put it in a order that I can understand like I would in English. Like take this from my book. Ich rufe den Hotelpagen. Nehmen Sie für Ihr Zimmer die Treppe hier links. Der Aufzug fährt leider nicht. If I start translating it word by word and write it in English it makes no sense perce, though I can get the general idea most of the time. What can I do to be able to read it like I would read a sentence in English? Edited by zekecoma on 28 July 2010 at 4:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5147 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 2 of 8 28 July 2010 at 6:02am | IP Logged | ||
|
The thing to keep in mind about German and English, is that the typical position of "extra stuff" in the phrase is reversed. In German, things are written time, manner, and then place, whereas in English it is more commonly said place, manner, and time.
For example: Ich fahre um zehn Uhr mit dem Zug nach Hause. I travel home by train at 10:00. Maybe this helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5139 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 3 of 8 28 July 2010 at 6:10am | IP Logged | ||
|
It does partially. By time does that mean like now, future, present, past (actual words)
or does it mean in the sence of 10.00 Uhr, Mitternacht things like that. Manner would be the car, train (as you gave), plane, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5147 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 4 of 8 28 July 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged | ||
|
Sorry that my example doesn't help so much with the example you listed from your book, but it helps with other kinds of longer sentences.
With time, words that designate when it is happening (jetzt, nun, 10 Uhr, halb elf, etc) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5139 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 5 of 8 28 July 2010 at 6:21am | IP Logged | ||
|
Well your example did help on the time, manner, place sentence structure which I forget
to correctly put in. Because most of the time when I write a sentence with time in it I usually do it wrong. For example this is from one of my lang-8 journals. Wir haben einen Sturm Samstag oder Sonntag ankommen. Which should have been "Am Samstag oder Sonntag kommt ein Sturm." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6234 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 6 of 8 28 July 2010 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
|
@Zekecoma,
Your sentence wasn't grammatically correct, which was the greater problem. "Ein Sturm kommt am Samstag oder Sonntag" would be fine too. I used to have this problem too. If I take an example from "Ich wollte wie Orpheus singen" by Reinhard Mey, "Ich wollte wie Orpheus singen, dem es einst gelang, Felsen selbst zum Weinen zu bringen, durch seinen Gesang." The first few times I translated that, I was so confused by the time I got to how he brought the cliffs to tears, I just didn't understand it. However, once I cracked the way German sentences are put together, I quickly lost those problems. Take, "Holmes raekelte sich in seinem Armsessel/und blies aus seiner Pfeife/dicke blaue Raucheringe in die Luft". If I read it in three blocks as indicated, I have no problems. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5103 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 8 28 July 2010 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | ||
You should learn to understand it the way it is in the language. Constantly relying on English will get you nowhere. If you have such difficulties with understanding complex sentences, you should go back to simpler texts (where there aren't as many pre/postpostions and the sentence has fewer predicates), or to the lessons in your study material where they are being introduced. And you should stay with them until the German constructions feel naturally for you. One tip I can give right away. You should perceive such sentences: Nehmen Sie für Ihr Zimmer die Treppe hier links. ...as: Nehmen Sie (für Ihr Zimmer) die Treppe hier links. Edited by Derian on 28 July 2010 at 3:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5147 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 8 of 8 02 August 2010 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
I personally find this advice to be not overly useful. I agree that to become competent in a language, one cannot be constantly relying on translating the language word for word into his or her own language, but on the other hand, I also believe that with languages, as anything, one must crawl and then walk, before running. The more languages that I study, the easier/more natural it is to "think" in the target language without really requiring much effort for me to do so, but I also realize that this is a more lerned skill, that I believe only comes as one gains more experience with languages. With the above said, I would suggest the following to the original poster: take English sentences, and arrange them into Germanesque sounding sentences. z.B. Morning - go - I - to the store - because - I - groceries - and - beer - buy - want to. This will help you to internalize the different arrangement of words between German and English sentences, and since you only have to worry about one difference (word order) as opposed to both word order and strange words, you will quickly become more accustomed to this way of speaking/reading. Then just change the German in for the English, and voila, it will come more naturally. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
