Schandfleck deutscher Sprache
Der Plural des wohl bald aussterbenden Wortes Kleinod lautet übrigens Kleinodien. Diese völlig untypische Pluralbildung ist “latinisierend”, weiß wiktionary. Auffällig ist auch die verschobene Betonung im Plural: [klaɪ̯nˈʔoːdi̯ən]. Wahrscheinlich wird daher lieber der Singular verwendet, auf den e-Plural zurückgegriffen, oder gleich Schmuckstück gesagt.
The 5000 most used German words and memrise, a website for remembering almost anything
I would like to write a little bit about a new website that has been brought to my attention in the past week or so. The website is called memrise (www.memrise.com) and the purpose is to help you learn, or remember anything. I have spent perhaps 10 hours on this website trying to improve my German vocabulary. It has many free courses (more being added all the time) on a variety of topics. Language is only one of many. I have also added a course that teaches and helps you to remember all of the capital cities in the world.
It works by teaching you only a few words at a time, so perhaps it will tell you that Paris is the capital of France, then it will tell you that Berlin is the capital of Germany and that Moscow is the capital of Russia. Then it will test you on them, at first letting you choose the correct answer from multiple choice but after more time getting you to write the answer from scratch. It builds and builds up over time adding more words and eventually moves words over to a long term memory place when they have presumably been correctly recalled enough times. From then on it gets you to recall them a bit less often at this point, perhaps because they consider it to be learnt so it is more a case of memory maintenance. They use the imagery of plants and growing, harvesting and watering plants to illustrate the memory process.
It may sound a little ridiculous. But it is actually very good. I have studied memory to some extent in my academic past as part of reading Psychology. It is clear that they have designed this system based on current understanding and research of how best to remember. They introduce only a few new items at a time, so not to overwhelm the average capacity of working memory (7 plus or minus 2 items) and they use a lot of repetition to solidify the memory. Another part I like is the ‘mems’. This is that they often write a passage (that the community can vote up or down) which best helps you remember the word. Association is a very powerful tool for remembering. I learnt the word “Albern” in German which means “silly”. For a mem someone had uploaded a photo of Damon Albarn from the band Blur with something ridiculous on his head and a silly expression, and they had written “Damon AlbErn, is very silly”. A strange method perhaps, but I still remember the word.
Some mem’s leave more to be desired than others . . but still seem to help . .
For me, the best thing that I have seen on this site is 5000 words of German. This comes from research that I believe was done in Leipzig University a few years ago. They analysed a lot of newspaper articles, books etc and generated a list of the 5000 most used German words. They are thought to cover 87% of spoken German. There are a lot more than 5000 words in any language but it makes sense to be intelligent with your learning and to focus on the most used words. <.p>
Are Germans rude? Killing the stereotypes after living in Berlin
Rather than learning languages for academic or professional reasons, I do it to vastly improve my travel experience by allowing me to socialise almost entirely with residents of the country I am visiting.
Even though all the studying I did in for my exam in Berlin prevented me from socialising as much as I would have liked, after spending four months there I can say that I have a better understanding of German (and in particular Berlin) culture and I am ready to challenge the silly stereotypes that too many people have of the Germans and the German language.
German sounds horrible!
It might be true that more typical languages that English learners tend to go for like French and Spanish can sound pleasant to listen to even if you don’t understand them, but it’s better to think outside of those limitations. Comparing German to Italian, for example, is like comparing ice cream to pizza. The most enjoyable food doesn’t have to be “hot” and certain aspects of communicating in German can be more pleasant than in other languages.
English and German are in the same language family (Germanic), so a lot of what makes German sound “different” can actually be its similarities that we don’t notice in English and may not expect to encounter in other languages. Listen to this video of what English sounds like to non-natives (from an Italian perspective) and you’ll get a better idea of how strange it can be!
Note from me: when I was younger and knew only a few words in English, I heard the song and did not notice that it was not really English. You should listen to, if only because the song makes a good mood and Adriano Celentano is grandiose.
About the Song: “Prisencolinensinainciusol” is a song composed by Adriano Celentano, and performed by Celentano and his wife Claudia Mori. A very popular performance of the song, broadcasted by RAI, shows Celentano with showgirl Raffaella Carrà, who is dancing and lip-synching to Mori’s vocals. It was first released as a single on November 3, 1972, and later on his album Nostalrock. The song is deliberately meant to sound like English spoken with an American accent, but the lyrics are actually pure gibberish, with the exception of the words “all right.”.
English also has weird strings of consonants that can cause problems to non-natives but seem totally normal to us. Words like catchphrase and thousandths have several consecutive consonants together that German doesn’t outdo much (definitely not as much as a language like Czech).
The tone and musicality of German is actually something that makes it much easier to understand and leaves less room for misinterpretation, as is the case in other languages. The clear separation of words vastly helps you to understand them (compared to French for example where words are merged together when spoken). I find the discussion of whether this is “pretty” or not to be totally irrelevant myself. We may as well argue about which colour is the “best”.
This superficial argument is like saying you understand what the elephants are thinking as you see them through binoculars on safari. Without the right context and understanding of how German works, any conclusions you might make may amount to nothing remotely close to the truth. The clear way that Germans speak is something that…..
Read a lot more about the topic on: fluentin3months.com
Deutsche Worte fuehlen sich meist so fremd an in meinem Mund, die Sprache selbst ist irgendwie beklemmend, begrenzt und viel zu kalt und kompliziert.
So geht es mir nicht nur, seit dem ich in England lebe, wahrscheinlich ein Grund, warum ich mich schon immer fuer andere Sprachen interessiert habe.
Deutsch war noch nie Heimat fuer mich, ausser vielleicht wenn ich Rilke oder andere Deutsche Dichtungen lese, dann scheint es, als ob ein Teil von mir erwacht und mit den Worten einer neuen Welt entgegenblickt.
Sprache des Steuerungsfeld ändern
Google Apps bietet die Möglichkeit für jeden Administrator bzw. Nutzer der Administrationsoberfläche die Sprache selbst auszuwählen. Die Sprache ist dabei an das Google Apps Konto gebunden. Ist dort zum Beispiel Englisch eingestellt wird die Administration auch in Englisch angezeigt.
Wie ihr die Sprache des Google Apps Steuerungsfeld ändern könnt lest ihr auf dieser Hilfeseite.
“Ausgraben und Erinnern Die Sprache hat es unmißverständlich bedeutet, daß das Gedächtnis nicht ein Instrument für die Erkundung des Vergangenen ist, vielmehr das Medium. Es ist das Medium des Erlebten wie das Erdreich das Medium ist, in dem die alten Städte verschüttet liegen. Wer sich der eignen verschütteten Vergangenheit zu nähern trachtet, muß sich verhalten wie ein Mann, der gräbt. Vor allem darf er sich nicht scheuen, immer wieder auf einen und denselben Sachverhalt zurückzukommen - ihn ausstreuen wie man Erde ausstreut, ihn umzuwühlen, wie man Erdreich umwühlt. Denn ‘Sachverhalte’ sind nicht mehr als Schichten, die erst der sorgsamsten Durchforschung das ausliefern, um dessentwillen sich die Grabung lohnt. Die Bilder nämlich, welche, losgebrochen aus allen früheren Zusammenhängen, als Kostbarkeiten in den nüchternen Gemächern unserer späten Einsicht - wie Torsi der Galerie des Sammlers - stehen. Und gewiß ist’s nützlich, bei Grabungen nach Plänen vorzugehen. Doch ist unerläßlich der behutsame, tastende Spatenstich in’s dunkle Erdreich. Und der betrügt sich selber um das Beste, der nur das Inventar der Funde macht und nicht im heutigen Boden Ort und Stelle bezeichnen kann, an denen er das Alte aufbewahrt. So müssen wahrhafte Erinnerungen viel weniger berichtend verfahren als genau den Ort bezeichnen, an dem der Forscher ihrer habhaft wurde. Im strengen Sinne episch und rhapsodisch muß daher wirkliche Erinnerung ein Bild zugleich von dem der sich erinnert geben, wie ein guter archäologischer Bericht nicht nur die Schichten angeben muß, aus denen seine Fundobjekte stammen, sondern jene andern vor allem, welche vorher zu durchstoßen waren.”
—Walter Benjamin: Berliner Chronik. In: Gesammelte Schriften. Bd. VI: Fragmente, Autobiographische Schriften. Frankfurt am Main 1984. S. 486.
Sprache als Code
- Kodiersystem = Zeichen + Grammatik
- Grammatik = Regeln der Kombination von Zeichen
- The most common is one’s spoken language, but the term can also be used to refer to any narrative form: consider the color scheme of an image (e.g. red for danger), or the rules of a board game (e.g. the military signifiers in chess).
- Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) emphasised that signs only acquire meaning and value when they are interpreted in relation to each other. He believed that the relationship between the signifier and the signified was arbitrary. Hence, interpreting signs requires familiarity with the sets of conventions or codes currently in use to communicate meaning.
- Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) elaborated the idea that the production and interpretation of texts depends on the existence of codes or conventions for communication. Since the meaning of a sign depends on the code within which it is situated, codes provide a framework within which signs make sense (see Semiosis).
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_(semiotics)
“We would reflect on language itself, and on language only. Language itself is—language and nothing else besides. Language itself is language…Merely to say the same thing twice—how is that supposed to get us anywhere? But we do not want to get anywhere. We would like, only, for once, to get just where we already are. ”
—Martin Heidegger, In LanguagePPP
EKD-Cheftheologe: Protestantismus braucht mehr Präsenz mit Profil
Düsseldorf (epd).
Defizite kirchlichen Marketings sieht der Vizepräsident der EKD-Zentrale in der Zielorientierung, in der Entwicklung von Strategien und im Setzen von Prioritäten: “Wir müssen unsere Botschaften profiliert verkünden, um Relevanzverlust zu vermeiden.”
via epd.de
Schon wieder Thies Gundlach. Recht hat er ja, aber das Vokabular: Relevanzverlust, Präsenz, Profilierung, Prioritäten… Lauter Plastikwörter.
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