(May 19, 2025 at 10:11 pm)Alan V Wrote: About the only constant was reading books.

None on psychology, apparently.

Quote:None on psychology, apparently.

Clearly the opposite

(May 19, 2025 at 10:20 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 19, 2025 at 10:11 pm)Alan V Wrote: About the only constant was reading books.

None on psychology, apparently.

Snappy comeback for such an educated man.

(May 19, 2025 at 6:39 pm)emjay Wrote: Nowadays my passion is learning German, not debating religion... that's where I find my peace; in the endless intricacies of this beautiful language.

My god, hearing someone speaking German is like hearing them fall down a flight of stairs.

(May 19, 2025 at 10:20 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 19, 2025 at 10:11 pm)Alan V Wrote: About the only constant was reading books.

None on psychology, apparently.

Couldn't resist taking the shot. Apparently nothing you learned in your alleged classes was applied to your own behavior.

(May 19, 2025 at 6:39 pm)emjay Wrote:

(May 19, 2025 at 4:45 pm)Alan V Wrote: We can't please everyone no matter how hard we try.

In my case, I seem to annoy people even more by trying harder.

So yes, sod it.  

I used to be passionate about all this stuff; philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, etc, and as a result, I would say, quite knowledgeable, but at some point, who knows, maybe I took a knock on the head or something, but it's just not there for me any more. So he's right, my work is indeed sloppy... it's just remnants of a bygone era, probably better off left unsaid.

Nowadays my passion is learning German, not debating religion... that's where I find my peace; in the endless intricacies of this beautiful language. I recently bought a collection of German board games, for the sake of a bit of immersion in their cultural history, and I really should take the advice of one of them, which I've just been playing tonight. It's called "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht", it's basically a slightly more involved version of the game "Ludo", and it basically translates as "Man (or dude), don't get angry!" (ie when your pieces get bumped off the board, back to the home area). I got angry, I shouldn't have, little good ever comes from it in my experience.

So yeah, sod it

What level of proficiency do you have in German?
Being a German native speaker, I would not consider it to be beautiful 😊
Mensch ärgere dich nicht: literally every.single.German knows this game!!!!

(May 20, 2025 at 1:19 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(May 19, 2025 at 6:39 pm)emjay Wrote: Nowadays my passion is learning German, not debating religion... that's where I find my peace; in the endless intricacies of this beautiful language.

My god, hearing someone speaking German is like hearing them fall down a flight of stairs.

However there are some dialects that sound rather nice. On the other hand I will not be able to ever visit the state of Saxony. I would be laughing my ass off all day just by listening to mundane conversations, and people would start starting at me before I get arrested.

Gotta link a vid to you guys, later when I am home from work.

(May 20, 2025 at 2:17 am)Deesse23 Wrote:

(May 20, 2025 at 1:19 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: My god, hearing someone speaking German is like hearing them fall down a flight of stairs.

However there are some dialects that sound rather nice. On the other hand I will not be able to ever visit the state of Saxony. I would be laughing my ass off all day just by listening to mundane conversations, and people would start starting at me before I get arrested.

Gotta link a vid to you guys, later when I am home from work.

It's all the hard consonants, the g and k sounds, which make me think of broken legs and steel mills.

(May 20, 2025 at 2:54 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(May 20, 2025 at 2:17 am)Deesse23 Wrote: However there are some dialects that sound rather nice. On the other hand I will not be able to ever visit the state of Saxony. I would be laughing my ass off all day just by listening to mundane conversations, and people would start starting at me before I get arrested.

Gotta link a vid to you guys, later when I am home from work.

It's all the hard consonants, the g and k sounds, which make me think of broken legs and steel mills.

To paraphrase Sam Gamgee, it sounds a fair jaw-cracker of a language.

Boru

(May 20, 2025 at 2:01 am)Deesse23 Wrote:

(May 19, 2025 at 6:39 pm)emjay Wrote: I used to be passionate about all this stuff; philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, etc, and as a result, I would say, quite knowledgeable, but at some point, who knows, maybe I took a knock on the head or something, but it's just not there for me any more. So he's right, my work is indeed sloppy... it's just remnants of a bygone era, probably better off left unsaid.

Nowadays my passion is learning German, not debating religion... that's where I find my peace; in the endless intricacies of this beautiful language. I recently bought a collection of German board games, for the sake of a bit of immersion in their cultural history, and I really should take the advice of one of them, which I've just been playing tonight. It's called "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht", it's basically a slightly more involved version of the game "Ludo", and it basically translates as "Man (or dude), don't get angry!" (ie when your pieces get bumped off the board, back to the home area). I got angry, I shouldn't have, little good ever comes from it in my experience.

So yeah, sod it

Heya Deeese, hope you're feeling a bit better from your Flu

Quote:What level of proficiency do you have in German?

Technically speaking I'm probably about A2 or between A1 and A2, at least in terms of vocabulary learnt, if not conversational ability. I have several books on grammar, I do Duolingo every day, my YouTube is filled with more German stuff than English, more and more of it in German rather than just about German these days; and I can follow it quite well if it's slow german with subtitles, and even sometimes without, but hardly at all if it's fast. And I'm trying to read more and more in German these days, for instance, aiming for one chapter a day of novels from an author that specialises in books for German learners, Angelika Bohn... they're very funny so far, like the Biker complaining that he has to wear all white for his job... 'Ich bin kein Schneemann' So yeah, I feel like I'm coming along, slowly but surely, long way from being conversationally fluent though, unless people were willing to talk very slowly and keep repeating themselves... but that's fine; I know it's a long road and I'm more than happy that I'm making progress reading, even if the speaking takes longer.

Quote:Being a German native speaker, I would not consider it to be beautiful 😊

I think that's probably the curse of any Muttersprache... taking it for granted; I take English for granted and certainly don't marvel at its structure, but learning German als Fremdsprache, exploring it from the outside in, I do marvel at its structure. It's such a logical language, almost like a programming language if you don't mind me saying , that really appeals to the way my mind works... a love of rigid rules and categorising and classifying things etc... and even when it's not regular it's still regular in some sense, for instance weak or strong (or mixed), you can deduce not only what type of verb it is but also its full conjugation just from a few simple pieces of information, such as its third person singular in present and simple past tense forms; I just love those sorts of patterns and that sort of regularity, that is so abundant in German.

That said, there is the flip side; there is a lot to learn that feels quite arbitrary (to an outsider, though I'm sure much less to a native speaker) such as which preposition to use with a given verb and in which case if it's a two-way preposition, but each time I manage to internalise another one of those, I feel a quiet sense of achievement... like I'm now confident using sich freuen (Akk) über (Akk) / auf (Akk)... so now I can reliably say that I'm looking forward to something or that I'm excited about something in the present.... now just have to do the same for all the other thousands of German verbs But that's the joy, there's always more to learn, and it's a delicate mix between learning structure and grammar... basically theory, and vocab... practice... you can't have one without the other. For instance Duolingo is great for vocab but hardly teaches grammar/structure at all, so I'd never rely on that alone, but with other things its a valuable tool I think.

As for the sound of the language, personally I do think it is beautiful, and I'm going to demonstrate that to you and Thump in a minute There's flow and subtlety to it that I would never of imagined... like for instance the 'en's at the end of words like verstehen, almost silent, as if the e isn't there. It just really flows nicely from word to word and I just love the sound of it. I hardly ever listen to English music any more, it's almost all German.

Quote:Mensch ärgere dich nicht: literally every.single.German knows this game!!!!

That's what I was hoping for Any other recommendations? This compendium of games comes with a few, another of which being Leiterspiel... "Ladder Game", like "Snakes and Ladders" basically, but even more infuriating if that's possible , but it would be nice to play something a bit more cerebral