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RE: Hello from Germany
March 13, 2015 at 9:28 am
(March 13, 2015 at 9:24 am)QuarkDriven Wrote: Welcome! I am new here also. Your English is better than you think, at least when it comes to writing it. Learning a new language is never easy! Keep at it! 
You may notice my user name comes from Quantum Mechanics, although I know next to nothing about the subject! LOL. I am currently reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and think its pretty cool that we know the smallest particles are quarks within the electrons...
QuarkDriven
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North NJ l USA l Earth
Milky Way l The Universe
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RE: Hello from Germany
March 13, 2015 at 10:02 am
Wilkommen. Dein Englisch ist besser als mein Deutch.
I hope I just welcomed you and told you your English was better than my German but I could have just had a "Ich bin ein Berliner" moment.
I'm probably one of few Americans who even realizes that President Kennedy went to Berlin and announced "I am a jelly-filled doughnut" in their language. The Germans are so polite. They just smiled and nodded because they knew what he was trying to say. Having visited Austria and southern Germany, they seem to appreciate the effort if you try to speak their language.
We don't start early enough in America in our half-hearted attempts to teach foreign languages. We don't begin until high school (unser Gymnasium) and by then it's really too late. I struggled with it for four years under a native speaking teacher (when she was a child, her family escaped Berlin before the wall was built and came to America). I wouldn't say I was completely fluent but I did achieve that point where you can effectively think in the other language.
When you first start learning another language, there's the cumbersome thought process of hearing the other person, translating, thinking of your response and finally translating that. By the fourth year, we were reading German literature and conducting our discussions entirely in German. I remember one day when I exited the classroom and a friend of mine came up to me in the hall and spoke to me, and how just for a split-second I did a double-take, as in "Wie? Ach ja, mine natiev Sprache". ("What? Oh yes, my native language").
But that was 25 years ago and I've forgotten nearly everything. I suppose if I worked at it, I could regain that level of skill in speaking the language.
I can only imagine our spelling rules drove you insane? Or what did you think was the biggest challenge in learning our language?
For me, the biggest challenge in learning yours was the masculine-feminine-neuter rules for nouns, the most confusing of which was how male chest was feminine (die Brust) and the female chest was masculine (der Bosen). Memorization and repetition were the only way I could learn each noun.
Anyway, welcome from Jesusland America, the last developed nation on earth that stubbornly clings to this iron-age religion.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
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RE: Hello from Germany
March 13, 2015 at 10:03 am
What is pole? Polish?
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
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RE: Hello from Germany
March 13, 2015 at 10:05 am
(March 13, 2015 at 10:02 am)Norman Humann Wrote: I'm still the only Pole here, so hang on to your cars, gentlemen.
Speaking of "Ich bin ein Berlinner" moments, I had heard one of our former presidents, Jimmy Carter, came to Poland once and attempted to say "I love the Polish people" in Polish but wound up saying something a little embarrassingly obscene. Do you happen to know if this story is true?
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
