Who said:
"Life is too short to learn German"
???
I see it attributed to Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Susan N. Bayley, etc.
"Life is too short to learn German"
???
I see it attributed to Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Susan N. Bayley, etc.
"Life is too short to learn German"
I don't mind, whoever said that is stupid. Probably his brain was too small to learn German.
Learning of languages is good cure for Alzheimer and other brain diseases.
It MIGHT have been Mark Twain.
Here's what he said on the German language: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/german/the-awful-german-language.html
Here's what he said on the German language: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/german/the-awful-german-language.html
Being Spanish and unemployed I am obviously a poor man.
German suits me perfectly.
German suits me perfectly.
Thanks for the link Fifinette.
Those are the kind of reviews that are needed, not just for languages.
Mark Twain wasn't neither stupid nor a loser. He belongs to that rare but true, open-minded, inhibited American way of seeing things that never made it into the 20th century.
What a shame. The world would be such a much better place if the US had people like him in power.
"... and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."
More than a million Filipino civilians were massacred short thereafter.
Those are the kind of reviews that are needed, not just for languages.
Mark Twain wasn't neither stupid nor a loser. He belongs to that rare but true, open-minded, inhibited American way of seeing things that never made it into the 20th century.
What a shame. The world would be such a much better place if the US had people like him in power.
"... and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."
More than a million Filipino civilians were massacred short thereafter.
I'm complaining about French imperialism, but German imperialism on Slavic peopels was even worse. Anyway, a person calling German a 'complex language' doesn't know that much about languages I think. ;-)
German declensions are very watered down compared to Latin or Greek. But I guess that for an English speaker it must be too difficult anyways.
<<German declensions are very watered down compared to Latin or Greek. But I guess that for an English speaker it must be too difficult anyways. >>
For English speakers, learning any foreign language is an arduous ordeal, unless you have a genuine knack for them.
I guess prolonged exposure to the pidgin-like simplicity of English causes atrophy of those circuits in the brain that handle elaborate inflections. (In other words, the brain gets dumbed down.)
For English speakers, learning any foreign language is an arduous ordeal, unless you have a genuine knack for them.
I guess prolonged exposure to the pidgin-like simplicity of English causes atrophy of those circuits in the brain that handle elaborate inflections. (In other words, the brain gets dumbed down.)
>>For English speakers, learning any foreign language is an arduous ordeal, unless you have a genuine knack for them.
I guess prolonged exposure to the pidgin-like simplicity of English causes atrophy of those circuits in the brain that handle elaborate inflections. (In other words, the brain gets dumbed down.) <<
Don't be ridiculous. Inflections might be a new concept at first, and difficult to get your head round straight away, but once you do, they certainly don't represent the main difficulty in learning a foregn language, or a language like German at least. Maybe it might be a different story with a language like Navajo, and its reported 900 different verb forms, but there is really nothing that difficult about the German system of inflection.
I guess prolonged exposure to the pidgin-like simplicity of English causes atrophy of those circuits in the brain that handle elaborate inflections. (In other words, the brain gets dumbed down.) <<
Don't be ridiculous. Inflections might be a new concept at first, and difficult to get your head round straight away, but once you do, they certainly don't represent the main difficulty in learning a foregn language, or a language like German at least. Maybe it might be a different story with a language like Navajo, and its reported 900 different verb forms, but there is really nothing that difficult about the German system of inflection.
Quoted from Mark Twain's piece:
>>I say to myself, "Regen (rain) is masculine -- or maybe it is feminine -- or possibly neuter -- it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine. Very well -- then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion -- Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something -- that is, resting (which is one of the German grammar's ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively, -- it is falling -- to interfere with the bird, likely -- and this indicates movement, which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem Regen into den Regen." Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) den Regen." Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences -- and that therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."<<
What on earth was he going on about here? If he was indeed serious, he had definitely contorted everything out of all perspective. 'Der Regen' in every one of the above examples (except after 'wegen') is simply the subject, so nominative, regardless of whether it is just being mentioned, falling, or 'even lying'.
'Das ist der Regen' (That is the rain)
'Der Regen faellt' (The rain's falling)
'Der Regen liegt herum' (The rain's lying around, doesn't make sense obviously, but for argument's sake to demonstrate the grammar)
ALL NOMINATIVE!
He was obvously thinking about the movement (takes accustaive)/location (takes dative) rule, but getting confused thinking it somehow affects the subject of the sentence, whereas it in fact affects the case used with objects in the sentence.
So, if you wanted to say 'The rain's falling onto the street' and 'The rain is lying on the street', you would say respectively:
'Der Regen faellt auf DIE Strasse'
'Der Regen liegt auf DER Strasse'
'Auf die' translates here into the English 'onto the' and a 'auf der' into the English 'on the'. But the point is, it is the case used with 'Strasse' which changes and not 'Regen'.
As for which case to use after 'wegen', well of course, certain prepositions just take certain cases, and you just have to learn which (of course some can take more than one, depending on the movement/location rule as mentioned above). But many only ever take one, for example 'mit', 'bei' 'fuer', 'durch' 'zu' and 'von',and so there's no need to get one's knickers in a twist over it.
Interestingly enough, although 'wegen' was never going to take the accusative, because of some convoluted idea about the rain falling, it does now often take the dative instead of the genitive, especially in colloquial speech. So it would be quite common to hear 'wegen DEM Regen'. But yes, looking again at the following part of what he wrote, the fact that he is talking about the subject being thrown into any case whatsoever, shows how far off he was.
>>Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences -- and that therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."<<
The subject is never thrown into another case, if it is the part of the sentence 'doing' the finite verb, then it is always the subject and so always nominative.
In fact, he should have thought a bit more about the English pronoun cases. he might have seen then it would be ridiculous to say
'Me is falling'
But anyway, part of me suspects he wrote this for effect. He was obviously a highly intelligent man, so I find it hard to believe he would have got in such a muddle over something as relatively straightforward as the German case system. But if it was a bit of a joke, he did the German language a huge disservice by presenting it as something far more complex and daunting than it it is.
>>I say to myself, "Regen (rain) is masculine -- or maybe it is feminine -- or possibly neuter -- it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine. Very well -- then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion -- Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something -- that is, resting (which is one of the German grammar's ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively, -- it is falling -- to interfere with the bird, likely -- and this indicates movement, which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem Regen into den Regen." Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) den Regen." Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences -- and that therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."<<
What on earth was he going on about here? If he was indeed serious, he had definitely contorted everything out of all perspective. 'Der Regen' in every one of the above examples (except after 'wegen') is simply the subject, so nominative, regardless of whether it is just being mentioned, falling, or 'even lying'.
'Das ist der Regen' (That is the rain)
'Der Regen faellt' (The rain's falling)
'Der Regen liegt herum' (The rain's lying around, doesn't make sense obviously, but for argument's sake to demonstrate the grammar)
ALL NOMINATIVE!
He was obvously thinking about the movement (takes accustaive)/location (takes dative) rule, but getting confused thinking it somehow affects the subject of the sentence, whereas it in fact affects the case used with objects in the sentence.
So, if you wanted to say 'The rain's falling onto the street' and 'The rain is lying on the street', you would say respectively:
'Der Regen faellt auf DIE Strasse'
'Der Regen liegt auf DER Strasse'
'Auf die' translates here into the English 'onto the' and a 'auf der' into the English 'on the'. But the point is, it is the case used with 'Strasse' which changes and not 'Regen'.
As for which case to use after 'wegen', well of course, certain prepositions just take certain cases, and you just have to learn which (of course some can take more than one, depending on the movement/location rule as mentioned above). But many only ever take one, for example 'mit', 'bei' 'fuer', 'durch' 'zu' and 'von',and so there's no need to get one's knickers in a twist over it.
Interestingly enough, although 'wegen' was never going to take the accusative, because of some convoluted idea about the rain falling, it does now often take the dative instead of the genitive, especially in colloquial speech. So it would be quite common to hear 'wegen DEM Regen'. But yes, looking again at the following part of what he wrote, the fact that he is talking about the subject being thrown into any case whatsoever, shows how far off he was.
>>Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences -- and that therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."<<
The subject is never thrown into another case, if it is the part of the sentence 'doing' the finite verb, then it is always the subject and so always nominative.
In fact, he should have thought a bit more about the English pronoun cases. he might have seen then it would be ridiculous to say
'Me is falling'
But anyway, part of me suspects he wrote this for effect. He was obviously a highly intelligent man, so I find it hard to believe he would have got in such a muddle over something as relatively straightforward as the German case system. But if it was a bit of a joke, he did the German language a huge disservice by presenting it as something far more complex and daunting than it it is.
Modern civilization was born with germanic settlement in Europe. Without it, europe would still be a poor agricultural area. We have spread economy, architecture, military power, language (english), technics, medecine... all over the world. The entire world would want to be germanic. Why don't the other cultures want to recognize it ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples