Website review: "The Awful German Language" by Mark...
pjd discovered this in Linguistics
•15 reviews since Jan 27, 2005
linguistics, german, language
•crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html
People who like this website
- Froggmaiden
Los Angeles
- saundejm
California
- quantumcrypto
Capitola
- happyacres
El Dorado County
- cosmocurio
Phoenix
- mdmkid3
Asheville
- chillami
Eagle Mountain
- Kip
Moscow
- tanglisha
Seattle
- brian1957
Denver
StumbleUpon is the best way to discover great web sites, videos, photos, blogs and more - based on your interests.
Everything is submitted and rated by the community. Discover, share and review the best of the web!
Reviews of this website
SketchSepahi rated 10 months ago- This is precisely why I will never bother myself with learning German.
- Sitarih rated 11 months ago
- Amysing. But, I guess, mostly for people who do speak German: Most of the German in this essay is very old (and has been reformed a lot ;)) So, Mark Twain's reformation's death: Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. Reines Auflehnen ;) gehabt haben wollen sein müssen dürfen.
- vekron rated 15 months ago
- From the page: "(I don't know what "wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte" means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German sentence -- merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)"
- avre rated 16 months ago
- (...) he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions". He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it."
- faxenkaetzchen rated 17 months ago
- come to think of it, he is totally right! just to amuse you a little more, I will give you some other examples of our curious language: "Sie bedachten aber nicht, daß beide, ohne daß man ihre Wirklichkeit als Vorstellungen bestreiten darf, gleichwohl nur zur Erscheinung gehören, welche jederzeit zwei Seiten hat, die eine, da das Objekt an sich selbst betrachtet wird, (unangesehen der Art, dasselbe anzuschauen, dessen Beschaffenheit aber eben darum jederzeit problematisch bleibt,) die andere, da auf die Form der Anschauung dieses Gegenstandes gesehen wird, welche nicht in dem Gegenstande an sich selbst, sondern im Subjekte, dem derselbe erscheint, gesucht werden muß, gleichwohl aber der Erscheinung dieses Gegenstandes wirklich und notwendig zukommt." this is one sentence by Immanuel Kant (from: Kritik der reinen Vernunft- erste Auflage, 1781). This is just one example. sometimes one sentence can go over one page! even for germans, who study philosophy (like me) its really hard to understand what he is trying to say! now this is one of my favourites: there is a novel ("Die Birnen von Ribbeck") by Christian Delius, which has 79 pages and is written in just one sentence! really, one sentence!
- herdmentality rated 19 months ago
- Great Essay - I don't speak German, but I spent a little time trying to learn. Now, I'll think I'll just stick with English.
- idleCycle rated 19 months ago
- This is twice as funny if you speak German : ). The good news is that the writing style of news papers has become much more readable in the last 120 years.
- CountElmo rated 19 months ago
- I disagree, the German language is fun!
- scandly rated 19 months ago
- I happened to study german for a while and I came to the same conclusion as Twain. But maybe people think the same of italian.... Twain is the greatest humorist of all: just read!
