In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus

[emjay]

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.

Lol, tell me it sounds like that after listening to this:





I think her voice is beautiful, and it's a nice inspiring song. There's just some real subtleties in the pronunciation, that I think this song really brings out... it just flows so nicely.

[John 6IX Breezy]

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

I had family living in Germany for a few years, and I spent about a month there. The impression I got when learning German was that it was very similar to English, especially once you learned a few patterns. For example:

Mensch (man) ärgere (angry) dich (thee) nicht (not)

[Thumpalumpacus]

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

Lol, tell me it sounds like that after listening to this:





I think her voice is beautiful, and it's a nice inspiring song. There's just some real subtleties in the pronunciation, that I think this song really brings out... it just flows so nicely.

She has a beautiful voice ... but the German still sounds German, angular and glottal.

[Deesse23]

Lol, tell me it sounds like that after listening to this:


I think her voice is beautiful, and it's a nice inspiring song. There's just some real subtleties in the pronunciation, that I think this song really brings out... it just flows so nicely.

She has a beautiful voice ... but the German still sounds German, angular and glottal.

But what this vid shows too is (imho) that, of course, singers (and other poets) will "soften" up the language to make it appeal more. The "hard consonants" you mentioned ...she has softened them substantially, right?

@emjay
Abundance of rules of the german languages: If you ask a german schoolkid, any german schoolkid, they will tell you that all those rules arent the problem. Its the effing number of exceptions from those rules that drive em mad.

Board games:
Mühle (Cowboy checkers)
Halma, actually invented by an American
Mikado

@John 6IX Breezy
German end English being similar: Of course they are. They share the same branch on the language tree, both being germanic languages.  If you go to northern Germany (coast), geographically closer to England, you will figure that it sounds even more like english.

As promised some saxon dialect. Flirting in german saxon. I just cant stop laughing at this. Whats you guys impression?

 @Thumpalumpacus as you may notice, all the hard "k"s have become soft "g"s  . "G"s even become "sh"s. Tiger -> "Deesher". Guttural "ch" become soft "sch". Nicht --> "neesh". Isnt it actually very "soft" overall? To me (and most if not all other Germans") its hilarious.

[emjay]

She has a beautiful voice ... but the German still sounds German, angular and glottal.

But what this vid shows too is (imho) that, of course, singers (and other poets) will "soften" up the language to make it appeal more. The "hard consonants" you mentioned ...she has softened them substantially, right?

@emjay
Abundance of rules of the german languages: If you ask a german schoolkid, any german schoolkid, they will tell you that all those rules arent the problem. Its the effing number of exceptions from those rules that drive em mad.

Board games:
Mühle (Cowboy checkers)
Halma, actually invented by an American
Mikado

Ah, I can definitely relate to that as well... the theory, that is the grammar and structure as you learn from the textbooks, basically represents the ideal, but it's never that simple is it? but to be fair it's pretty similar in English... lot of exceptions... for instance in England there are many place names that aren't pronounced anything like you'd expect from how they are spelt, like Leicester - pronounced Lester - and Worcester - pronounced kind of like 'wusster', as well many different sounds for a given ?diphthong in English like 'bough', 'bought', 'through' etc, . I don't really remember struggling learning these but it was a long time ago and I probably did at the time. So how do they teach things like verbs and their valencies in German schools, just by rote as lists, or just introduced gradually as they are needed?

As to the games, cool, thank you... this set... diese Spielesammlung... contains two of those games, Mühle and Mikado, so I'm looking forward to giving them a go... ich freue mich darauf, sie beide zu spielen

@John 6IX Breezy
German end English being similar: Of course they are. They share the same branch on the language tree, both being germanic languages.  If you go to northern Germany (coast), geographically closer to England, you will figure that it sounds even more like english.

As promised some saxon dialect. Flirting in german saxon. I just cant stop laughing at this. Whats you guys impression?

 @Thumpalumpacus as you may notice, all the hard "k"s have become soft "g"s  . "G"s even become "sh"s. Tiger -> "Deesher". Guttural "ch" become soft "sch". Nicht --> "neesh". Isnt it actually very "soft" overall? To me (and most if not all other Germans") its hilarious.

Well, she does seem a bit like a crazed stalker, lol, but apart from that, I'm all for softening some of those 'ch's... the ch sound, the 'ich-laut' is very hard for me to get right, as well as the ach-laut, though I think I'm getting better, and trying to be much more mindful about it rather than falling back into the easy but bad habit of basically pronouncing it 'sch' like you're saying she does. Both sounds have the mouth in completely different positions, so I'm just trying to be mindful of that, if nothing else. Basically it's going to be important to get it right if I want to be able to properly distinguish between eine Kirche, a church, and eine Kirsche, a cherry

[emjay]

Lol, tell me it sounds like that after listening to this:





I think her voice is beautiful, and it's a nice inspiring song. There's just some real subtleties in the pronunciation, that I think this song really brings out... it just flows so nicely.

She has a beautiful voice ... but the German still sounds German, angular and glottal.

Fair enough... like Deeese said, I guess songs will always make a language sound softer.

[Deesse23]

Well, she does seem a bit like a crazed stalker, lol, but apart from that, I'm all for softening some of those 'ch's... the ch sound, the 'ich-laut' is very hard for me to get right, as well as the ach-laut, though I think I'm getting better, and trying to be much more mindful about it rather than falling back into the easy but bad habit of basically pronouncing it 'sch' like you're saying she does. Both sounds have the mouth in completely different positions, so I'm just trying to be mindful of that, if nothing else. Basically it's going to be important to get it right if I want to be able to properly distinguish between eine Kirche, a church, and eine Kirsche, a cherry

Thats why in all dialects we avoid the "ach" or "ich" as well, and morph them into sch/sh, or sometimes just leave out the "ch" part/have it very, very silent.

Its hard to speak high german fluently, even for germans. High german is the native language of no german. High german has never been spoken by a german native, but dialects have. And dialects, unlike high german, can be spoken very smoothly and efficently, like in every other language.

Idk, maybe its an error in non-germans thinking that germans speak high german, are able to speak it fluently. They dont. Basically only TV-news people (or actors) can do this, and they are admired in Germany for being able to do so!!!! We all speak dialects instead. Very distinct ones, that mutually cant be determined to be german even. We all speak, in everyday life a very much softened version (according to local dialect) of high german.

If you look at an extreme example, here is "plattdeutsch", spoken at the coast (Frisia). I (and most other germans) may only be able to decipher 20% at best. I probably have better chances with Spanish or Italian because i have learned Latin. But Platt too, sounds much softer than high german. It has to, otherwise you wouldnt be able to speak fluently with each other.

Tl;dr
Dont try to perfect your high german, unless you want a degree. Germans dont bother too 

Watch the intro with the blonde, then the old timers and compare this to the commentary from the off.



Ok, back on topic.....what was the topic again? 

[Nay_Sayer]

The topic is, at this point, Anything and everything but If I can steer it in one direction; Ostrich photos

[emjay]

Well, she does seem a bit like a crazed stalker, lol, but apart from that, I'm all for softening some of those 'ch's... the ch sound, the 'ich-laut' is very hard for me to get right, as well as the ach-laut, though I think I'm getting better, and trying to be much more mindful about it rather than falling back into the easy but bad habit of basically pronouncing it 'sch' like you're saying she does. Both sounds have the mouth in completely different positions, so I'm just trying to be mindful of that, if nothing else. Basically it's going to be important to get it right if I want to be able to properly distinguish between eine Kirche, a church, and eine Kirsche, a cherry

Thats why in all dialects we avoid the "ach" or "ich" as well, and morph them into sch/sh, or sometimes just leave out the "ch" part/have it very, very silent.

Wow, I never would've guessed that. By 'ach-laut' I understand it to mean the ch sound after just four letters... ie a (eg Nacht), u (eg Buch), o (eg Doch), and the two letters au (eg Auch) and with all other combinations ending in ch being an ich-laut... is that correct, is that what you mean? Are you saying that the majority of Germans have trouble with or avoid these sounds?

Its hard to speak high german fluently, even for germans. High german is the native language of no german. High german has never been spoken by a german native, but dialects have. And dialects, unlike high german, can be spoken very smoothly and efficently, like in every other language.

Idk, maybe its an error in non-germans thinking that germans speak high german, are able to speak it fluently. They dont. Basically only TV-news people (or actors) can do this, and they are admired in Germany for being able to do so!!!! We all speak dialects instead. Very distinct ones, that mutually cant be determined to be german even. We all speak, in everyday life a very much softened version (according to local dialect) of high german.

That sounds very much like our situation with Queen's English... everyone, mainly Americans, assume we all speak like Sophie Ellis Bexter; 'Murder on the Da-rrr-ncefloor' in England but not many people do. I certainly don't; I don't da-rrr-nce, I dance, and I don't have a barth, I have a bath. The only time I use that 'r' is for the word 'arse', but that's it's own word IMO, not just an Anglicised, or more Anglicised version of 'ass'... ie I use 'ass' as well, as a separate word. Anyway, I digress

Tbh I don't really know what I'm speaking in German; I mean I'm vaguely aware that maybe Duolingo is teaching hochdeutsch, but at the same time I watch all sorts of stuff on Youtube, not really knowing or much caring, where in German speaking countries it comes from. In other words I'm not at the sort of level where I can distinguish much between, or aspire to, different dialects. I do notice some differences between the stuff I see, but perhaps a lot less subtle than the sort of differences you might be thinking of. For instance, if I'm remembering correctly, there seems to be a difference between how the 'ig' sound at the end of words like lustig or durstig in German-German vs Austrian-German; German-German seems to be a strong 'ick' sound and Austrian seems to be more of a softer ich or isch sound. I don't know which is correct, but the Austrian ich sound feels the most comfortable to me, and seems to be the one that Duolingo uses, so that's the one I use... so I pronounce it lustich or lustisch, only changing it to the g sound if there is a declension added, eg lustiger.    

If you look at an extreme example, here is "plattdeutsch", spoken at the coast (Frisia). I (and most other germans) may only be able to decipher 20% at best. I probably have better chances with Spanish or Italian because i have learned Latin. But Platt too, sounds much softer than high german. It has to, otherwise you wouldnt be able to speak fluently with each other.

Tl;dr
Dont try to perfect your high german, unless you want a degree. Germans dont bother too 

Watch the intro with the blonde, then the old timers and compare this to the commentary from the off.



Ok, back on topic.....what was the topic again? 

Yes, as I said, you're probably noticing much more subtle differences than I'm capable of, but yes the video is interesting and I'll definitely refer back to it in the future to examine it more I can at least see one difference, meine being pronounced like 'meaner' in English, rather than the usual 'Miner', and I'll certainly look for more

[emjay]

The topic is, at this point, Anything and everything but If I can steer it in one direction; Ostrich photos

Sorry, I'll shut up soon I promise Or now, if you want.