I’ve decided I’m bipolar. (No comments from the peanut gallery here.) The battle with my two languages is pulling me in completely opposite directions, and giving me a Kopfschmerz (headache.) On the one side, I’m ever on a quest to try to expand my knowledge of the English language and how people use it in interesting and creative ways. On the other, in German, I’m just fighting for sheer survival. Thus, the pendulum is ever swinging.
Side One: English. I have long been fascinated with the bending, adapting and molding of our language to not only communicate, but to do so with style. For example-I just lost 10 minutes of the day trying to figure out (to no avail) where the phrase “on the fritz” came from. (Just so you know it’s not from WWII as many think, but was used as early as 1900s. Unfortunately, didn’t find any good info on what the heck it actually means.) I find that I’m definitely drawn to people that have great dominance with vocabulary and unusual sentence structure. We have a couple of friends who speak with such style. I could hang out with them all day just to see the world for a little while through their eyes. To me, it’s as fascinating as listening to someone with a beautiful accent.
On the other end of the spectrum: German. Trying to learn a new language from the ground up. I mean there is no attempt to be flowery or descriptive at this point. Just get the basic information across so that you can get food, shelter, maybe a Wheat beer if you’re lucky. In fact, the more desciptive and interesting they get with language, the less I understand! This bipolarity concept came to me as I was learning the Passive tense last week in class. (Think inactive verbs with no subject, like “The house was built” or “The apple cake was eaten …by Heather.”) I remember my English professors in college would absolutely tear us to shreds when we wrote in the passive tense. After all, there is usually a more creative way to paint what you're trying to say using an active verb instead. But here, I am spending hours learning this specific grammatical structure and damn proud of myself, I have to say, when I do it well!
Speaking of German grammatical structure, I am absolutely entertained (okay, occastionally frustrated) by the formation of some sentences. Without getting into too much detail, often times the active verb of the sentence gets tacked on the end. So you may not any idea where the sentence until about three minutes down the line after many many twists and turns is going have. Or perhaps, need I German flashcards after blogging and piddling away most of my day on silly things have you lost the focus yet of this sentence to make. Also must I my mother soon to call. (I have got to talk to Claudia soon to compare notes on what was crazy for her to learn as she conquered English.)
That's enough Language Training for the day. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!
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4 comments:
You wrote:
often times the active verb of the sentence gets tacked on the end.
Knowing under what circumstances that happens — and especially when not to do that — is what helps you come across as a confident speaker.
Sitchiation #1: main-clause (≠Klaus!) constructions containing modal verbs such as
können, sollen, wollen, dürfen, mögen and the pseudo-modal werden to describe future action. Master these! The conjugated form occupies field #2 and the infinitive moves to the last field, as in:
1 2 3 n (n+1)
"I want to drive the tractor!"
"Ich will den Traktor fahren!
Mastery of this is what moves you away from sounding like a 3-year-old (to yourself at least). Well, maybe not, but it's a start.
Sitchiation #2: subordinate clauses.
It's almost the same thing, but that tricky field #2, perhaps out of sympathy for the infinitive it otherwise would have replaced, hunkers down next to its ole buddy at the end of the subordinate clause, as in:
1 3 n (n+1) 2
The trick is really to know which conjugates dominate that puny clause and make it subordinate (hint: we always hurt the ones we love, because they're our relatives — as in relative clauses, which are also subordinate). The subordinating conjunctions are so powerful that they make even the modal verbs cower in fear at the end of the clause with the infinitives.
Example:
"I don't understand why you want that."
"Ich verstehe nicht, warum du das willst."
And then you can get freaky, doing modal verbs in subordinate clauses:
"I know that you can't understand me, but how do I get to the bus stop?"
"Ich weiß, dass Du mich nicht verstehen kannst, aber wie komme ich zur Bushaltestelle?"
"Dass" is a subordinating conjunction and makes the conjugated verb (the modal "kannst") go hide at the end next to the main verb (verstehen), which IT scared away.
It gets really tricky when you use complex tenses and have to apply more helping verbs. The rules change a bit then.
"Do you know, how I should have come to the bus stop?"
"Weißt du, wie ich zur Bushaltestelle hätte besser kommen sollen?"
I think it's harder to talk about parts of speech with English examples; it always seems like the Germans don't mind showing the world which of theirs are playing which roles. On the other hands, it's these aspects of German that make it so entertaining to observe for those who don't have to use it.
Cliff--
That makes my brain hurt.
Seriously...gonna have to print that one off as my cheat sheet.
I'm with you for, how you say, Sitchiations 1 and 2. After that...little murky.
Yeah, my brain was kind of bleeding after he let me read it, too. So I feel you there.
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