Reply to: maybe der vaderland isn't so perfect

[NotAllThere]

WGAFF?

229 Million German speakers can't all be wrong. (But probably more wrong than the 510 million English speakers).

[BR14]

WGAFF?

[darmstadt]

Fair play, it's been 35 years since I did any German (CSE Grade 1, and no, I have no idea how that happened, except for an administrative error). The teacher, who was about as German as Scooty, described everything as 'German vocab'.
I thought Swiss-German was grammatically distinct from 'real' German?

German is in fact English spoken backwards, or vice versa.

The Awful German Language

[NotAllThere]

Correct, forgot the 'n' in the first post and then the dangers of cut and paste... 'Bete zu NAT'...

In fact, imperative in the formal would be #betensiefürbr14.

Fair play, it's been 35 years since I did any German (CSE Grade 1, and no, I have no idea how that happened, except for an administrative error). The teacher, who was about as German as Scooty, described everything as 'German vocab'.
I thought Swiss-German was grammatically distinct from 'real' German?

There's German high German and Swiss high German. They're very similar and have the same grammar - the differences are largely preferred word usage. Swiss high German doesn't have the ß; they use ss. And some words are different - in German they use the verb parken, in Switzerland parkieren.

But Swiss German is a dialect, with different grammar rules (e.g. you don't say "I went" or "I ate lunch", you say "I have been" and "I have eaten lunch") and vocabulary (like gallereti* for a wrist watch - from the French "Quelle heure est-il?"), with different vocabulary in practically every village. In some ways, Swiss German is closer to English grammar than high German. Swiss German dialects are similar to the dialects spoken in Germany, but are spoken far more widely outside of formal settings.


* This happens the other way around. The French word for a skylight is "un vasistas" - straight from German "Was ist das?" = "What is that?".

[Old Greg]

Fair play, it's been 35 years since I did any German (CSE Grade 1, and no, I have no idea how that happened, except for an administrative error). The teacher, who was about as German as Scooty, described everything as 'German vocab'.
I thought Swiss-German was grammatically distinct from 'real' German?

And vocab distinct.

My one trip to Switzerland, we found a place o eat where nobody spoke English. Mrs OG couldn't understand the conversation when she tried her real German. My French didn't work but we got by with my Italian. It all felt very smug metropolitan elite, before we even knew we were such a thing.

[Mordac]

Grammar lesson, not vocab. It's Das because Vaterland is in the neutral gender (which is because Land is also neutral). Of course that's only in the nominative and accusative cases, in dative it's Dem and in genitive it's Des - but noboday uses the genitive case much nowadays.

#betenfürbr14 (or if we're all per du, then #betetfürbr14).

Fair play, it's been 35 years since I did any German (CSE Grade 1, and no, I have no idea how that happened, except for an administrative error). The teacher, who was about as German as Scooty, described everything as 'German vocab'.
I thought Swiss-German was grammatically distinct from 'real' German?

[darmstadt]

#betenfürbr14 (or if we're all per du, then #betetfürbr14).

Correct, forgot the 'n' in the first post and then the dangers of cut and paste... 'Bete zu NAT'...

[NotAllThere]

Just what we need, a vocab lesson from an arse. Now, conjugate the verb to 'fook right off'...

Grammar lesson, not vocab. It's Das because Vaterland is in the neutral gender (which is because Land is also neutral). Of course that's only in the nominative and accusative cases, in dative it's Dem and in genitive it's Des - but noboday uses the genitive case much nowadays.

#betefürbr14

#betenfürbr14 (or if we're all per du, then #betetfürbr14).

[Mordac]

The ***** pretends he can write German, he writes two words and makes two mistakes, but hey he is your typical brexiteer and was deported from The Netherlands because of his abnormal behaviour

So when are you due to be deported then...?

[Zigenare]

Just what we need, a vocab lesson from an arse. Now, conjugate the verb to 'fook right off'...

Will this do?

[darmstadt]

#betefürbr14

[BR14]

#betefürbr14

[darmstadt]

#betefürbr14

[Old Greg]

The ***** pretends he can write German, he writes two words and makes two mistakes, but hey he is your typical brexiteer and was deported from The Netherlands because of his abnormal behaviour

It's not abnormal behaviour for an angry little man. They should have made reasonable adjustments to accommodate his impairments.

[BR14]

The ***** pretends he can write German, he writes two words and makes two mistakes, but hey he is your typical brexiteer and was deported from The Netherlands because of his abnormal behaviour

As usual, Harry, you couldn't be more wrong.
bawbag.