Grammatical complexity of German and Romance languages
<<English and German (like mos Germanic laguages) don't have any future tense verbs, whereas the Romance languages do. English uses "will+verb" and German uses "werden+infinitve".
>>
Romance languages do not really have a future tense for verbs either: they express their future by using the infinitive of the verb (or some modified version of it) + the conjugated form of their verb 'to have' (or some form of it, as in the case of Spanish).
For instance, in French:
manger = [to] eat
je mange = I eat
je mangerai = I will eat, where
'mangerai' is formed from the infinitive 'manger' + the conjugated first person singular of 'avoir', 'ai' to form 'mangerai', 'I will eat' [lit. 'I [to] eat have', 'I have to eat', 'I will eat'].
Spanish:
Como = I eat
Comeré = I will eat, same concept
The Latin verb used the particle -ab-, added to the verb to express a true future tense, which vulgar Latin gave up in exchange for the modal use of 'habere'
Noooo ! In French it's :
je mangerai / j'ai (ok)
tu mangeras / tu as (ok)
il mangera / il a (ok)
nous mangerons / nous avons (no...)
vous mangerez / vous avez (no...)
ils mangeront / il ont (ok)
<<<Why does German have the reputation of being much more complicated than the Romance languages? >>>
1) synthetic languages like German or Greek are more complex than analytical ones like the modern languages Romance or English
2) inflexions are complicated, it is simpler to use consequently prepositions and strict word order
3) it seems very difficult for e. g. Romance pupils to learn German. Everyone in France knows the sentence: "deutshe sprache schwehre sprache!" Since Frenchmen's difficulties in acquiring some basic knowledge of German probably cannot be attributed to a deficient intelligence of the French pupils or teachers, this phenomenon must be attributed to German really being much more complicated than the Romance languages.
Sam II : « synthetic languages like German or Greek are more complex than analytical ones like the modern languages Romance or English ».
Faux. Sur quelles bases ton *jugement* est-il fondé ?
Sam II : « inflexions are complicated, it is simpler to use consequently prepositions and strict word order ».
Faux, encore. L'existence de déclinaisons ne dispense pas de l'emploi de prépositions (en allemand du moins).
Sam II : « Everyone in France knows the sentence: "deutshe sprache schwehre sprache! ».
Faux, toujours. Aucun de ceux qui n'ont jamais appris l'allemand ne connaît cette expression ! Je connais l'allemand, mais je n'ai jamais entendu cette formule en France... Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu'elle n'est pas employée.
Sam II : « (...) this phenomenon must be attributed to German really being much more complicated than the Romance languages. ».
Faux, pour finir. C'est ce qu'on appelle un superbe sophisme.
<<3) it seems very difficult for e. g. Romance pupils to learn German. Everyone in France knows the sentence: "deutshe sprache schwehre sprache!" Since Frenchmen's difficulties in acquiring some basic knowledge of German probably cannot be attributed to a deficient intelligence of the French pupils or teachers, this phenomenon must be attributed to German really being much more complicated than the Romance languages. >>
I think it depends on what your original language is. I've heard of Dutch folks who easily learned German (despite all the complications), and English (because of its extreme simplicity). However, some of them have complained about the difficulties in learning French.
@Sam II
>> 3) it seems very difficult for e. g. Romance pupils to learn German. Everyone in France knows the sentence: "deutshe sprache schwehre sprache!" Since Frenchmen's difficulties in acquiring some basic knowledge of German probably cannot be attributed to a deficient intelligence of the French pupils or teachers, this phenomenon must be attributed to German really being much more complicated than the Romance languages.
you are talking about the German language but you are not able to write this simple sentence correct ...
« Everyone in France knows the sentence: "deutshe sprache schwehre sprache! ».
J'ai étudié l'allemand en France, je n'y ai jamais entendu cette expression.
C'est en Allemagne qu'elle est proverbiale...
<<J'ai étudié l'allemand en France...>>
OïL, was it difficult to learn German compared to learning English? How long did it take and which level did you reach? What were the most difficult hurdles?
<<Noooo ! In French it's :
je mangerai / j'ai (ok)
tu mangeras / tu as (ok)
il mangera / il a (ok)
nous mangerons / nous avons (no...)
vous mangerez / vous avez (no...)
ils mangeront / il ont (ok) >>
correct Clovis, yes, nous and vous forms diverge and use just the indicative endings from 'avoir' to conserve syllables...
"deutshe sprache schwehre sprache! ».
I agree with greg and others on this. I never heard this in France. The spelling is weird. Did you do it on purpose that way? In Alsace, you'll find a greater number of people who understand German, but I never heard that there either.
Some people learn German, but I felt there was still anti-German sentiment in France. The last time I was there was over two years ago, though.
<<<Some people learn German, but I felt there was still anti-German sentiment in France. The last time I was there was over two years ago, though. >>>
The main reason for this is that a lot of French still believe in Asterix, Hansi's Alsatian pictures and other more or less amiable but dangerous nationalistic fakes. They construct an artificial ethnic conflict between Germans in Germany and Celts in France. Let's hope this will get better some time in the self-professed land of enlightenment.
One theory is that the still existing anti-German sentiment in France (and otherwhere) is the reason that German langage has the bad reputation of being difficult to learn and unpleasant to hear. But I think this is not the case, it is really so that German, compared to French, is difficult to learn and sounds somewhat rough and archaic.
Nobody believes "in" Asterix.
Josh Lalonde
"What does Astérix have to do with it? Wouldn't that cause anti-Roman sentiment or anti-Italian, rather than anti-German?"
Asterix comics perpetuate in a humorous way the nationalistic 19th century myth that the ancestors of the French people are the Gaulois (nos ancetres les gaulois) and that peoples in Europe can be regarded as tribes of different ethnicities.
"If you're looking for the source of anti-German sentiment in France, try the Franco-Prussian War, the First World War, and the Second World War. "
These wars were to a great part the product and not the source of the above mentioned myth that consists of the vision of France and Germany being two ethnologically different people fighting against each other since the beginning of history. The peak of anti-German sentiment in France is to be located between 1789 and 1870.
You're saying that world wars were the product of Asterix comic books. This is nonsense no.1.
You're saying that Asterix and Obelix are fighting the Germans. This is nonsense no.2.
I suggest you to actually read Asterix sometime.
I know them by hard and I'm a big fan