Quick Tipp - Figuring out new words
No matter how hard you work at trying to learn a new language, there will inevitably be words that you haven’t yet happened upon that you need to use in conversation. This presents a problem for non-native speakers of English, because we create a brand new word for everything. But if German is the foreign language in question, this problem is mitigated by the fact that the German language comprises of just a few words that are squeezed together to form a specific meaning.
Maybe because of the change of weather or due to the stress of learning to live in a different culture you develop a cold sore. Instead of stopping by home to grab your German-English dictionary to look up the new term, just stop and think about what your condition is. Lip herpes. Lippenherpes. While you’re at the pharmacy you may want to pick up something for your sinuses. Don’t know the word for sinuses? That’s ok. They are kind of like caves near your nose. Nasennebenhöhlen. No problem.
Not so often in every day conversation does the word areola come up, so it is quite likely that you don’t know the German word for it. Deriving the German word is easy, though. Think about what it is. It is essentially an area on the chest where a nipple belongs, sort of a front yard for a breast wart. You got it! Brustwarzenvorhof.
For some further practice on this, here is a chart to help you master the concept of putting together basic words into specialized vocabulary:
| English word | English Combo | German Term |
|---|---|---|
| Diarrhea | Fall through | Durchfall |
| Nostrils | Nose holes | Nasenlöcher |
| Oesophagus | Food pipe | Speiseröhre |
| Trachea | Air pipe | Luftröhre |
| Jaundice | Addicted to being yellow | Gelbsucht |
| Concussion | Brain shake up | Gehirnerschütterung |
| Rabies | Awesome mad | Tollwut |
Although learning German is not recommended in order to gain a financial advantage and is therefore not a worthy pursuit, those that do undertake this endeavour will benefit from this one of the exactly two positive aspects of the German language (the Germans also spell stuff like it sounds, which is kind of handy).
December 15th, 2008 at 7:45 am
The idea of murmering sweet nothings to my loved one about the warts on her breasts has to be the biggest turn-off.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Awesome post.
Nice addition: The ads for German Broads below the post that looks just like the ads for Russian Broads on the German websites.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Wow. Addicted to being yellow. That kinda made my day ;-D
Thank you! By the way, where does that saying “The Germans have a word for it” come from?
Later
Wash Echte
http://ichwerdeeinberliner.blogspot.com
December 15th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I like the way you just analyzed howto put together words - as a German I never thought about that. Also often enough I find myself realzing that some words actually get their meaning when seperating them and put them in context. Then I feel stupid for not realizing that when I was 5 years old. =(
All your examples were related to anatomy/medicine terms which brings me to my second thought when reading your blog entry… everyone speaking in nativ-english seem to know all the latin words for disease, limbs or animals and plants which I admire greatly. Why? Because I watch all my series in english and I cannot understand anything watching House. Also a big downside of being nativ german (with no latin experience). The only thing I picked was: “make and MRT or MRI!” … *sigh* I think the german voices especially in Navy CIS (yes another series where I struggle when Ducky the medical examiner starts talking) are really really bad. All of them sound the same and they have no unique character anymore but that is drifting away now.
December 15th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Though “toll” originally meant “rabid”, which is a lot closer to “Tollwut” than “awesome” is.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Great idea to provide this list. Just proves how easy German is, isn’t it?!
December 15th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
“toll” does __not__ mean “Awesome”.
“Toll” is old German for “mad” (comp. “Tollkirschen” (cherries of madness), “Tollkühn”)
Rabies is of course not “Awesome”, even if toll can mean in slang “Awesome”.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Mucous membrane > Slime skin > Schleimhaut
December 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Magenschleimhautentzündung is my favorite ailment. Sounds so much worse than gastritis.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
@Horst
well, thats right. But the Point is that Tollwut means : “Mad and Violent”
December 15th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Let’s face it, German is NOT a sexy language.
One of my kids’ favourites - “Käseschmiere passt wunderbar zum Mutterkuchen!” Blechh.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Oooh, Christina…you’re asking for it with that comment. Can’t wait to hear all the explanatiions for why German is, in fact, the sexiest language o Earth!
December 15th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
“By the way, where does that saying “The Germans have a word for it” come from?”
Bcause we have a frickin’ word for everything
“Can’t wait to hear all the explanatiions for why German is, in fact, the sexiest language o Earth!”
No it’s not, some of the great poetic masterpieces were written in german, but still it’s not very sexy. Basically we all sound like characters from “Hogans heroes”, aren’t we. Annoyingly for many americans french sounds pretty sexy, I think it’s because they tend to think in stereotypes, for me it sounds ridiculous and gay. Italian on the other hand…..very nice language, too bad most Italians are short and hairy….even the woman
December 15th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
P.S.
http://ichwerdeeinberliner.blogspot.com
Without any irony: that blog really sucks.
December 15th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Isn’t windpipe the English term for Luftroehre? Using Latin is cheating, John! ;-P
December 15th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Germans have one BIG advantage! They do not need to learn latin to understand their doctors.
And there is another advantage: they spell (nearly) everything as it is said. They have adjusted the spelling to the spoken language, something all the english speakers have completely neglected to do.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
German is also very figurative language when it comes to some terms like gums (tooth flesh), = Zahnfleisch or scalp (head skin) = Kopfhaut. Sounds kind of babarian
December 15th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
@anonymous
no it isn’t, it’s the english term for rectum #windpipe
December 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
scrap it, try Finnish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNDh_tFIHn4
December 16th, 2008 at 1:17 am
don’t forget “blind intestine” (appendix) and “twelve finger intestine” (duodenum)
December 16th, 2008 at 2:24 am
Hand shoes!!
December 16th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Thimble > Finger hat > Fingerhut
December 16th, 2008 at 5:55 am
@Barbarossa
if English was spelled the way things are pronounced that would create lots of difficulties with homophones (words sounding alike)
night and knight for example and there are loads of those
@topic
this method of creating words by composition actually existed in English in Old English times, roughly 1000 years ago, but “died out” in Middle English times
December 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am
@Horst: Duodenum is short for duodenum digitorum, which is latin and means twelve fingers.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I still think the female reproduction organs are named nicest: Gebärmutter (Give-birth mother), Eileiter (Egg duct), Eierstock (Egg hive), …
December 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
@ Barbarossa
>they spell (nearly) everything as it is said
No, i don’t agree with that! Think about: “Weg” as way, and “weg” as away! These a pronounced different!
Or what about “Maß” and “Mass”!
Jm2p
Frank
December 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I love this site, sehr schön und lustig. I want more ….
December 16th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
hypocrytical > “seems holy” > scheinheilig
December 16th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
After all, it seems to boil down to English either having Latin vocabulary for those things or similar constructions as in German without people knowing it.
nostril => short for “nose thirl” (thirl is archaic for a “small hole”)
There you have your “nose hole” or Nasenloch.
And concerning “Mutterkuchen”: It’s similar to that “duodenum” thing. Placenta is a Latin word for cake. Again, we just translated it and added something to avoid confusion.
Just look at Martin Luther… Germans seem to have a strong longing for having things in our own language instead of ominous Latin stuff only few people can trace back to their original meanings.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Btw. sometimes you’ll find those merged words in English too, look at airport or mailman. You just don’t have the freedom to concatenate whatever words you want. My personal favorite is Güternahverkehr, still trying to find a suitable translation for that one. Oh, and being able to create almost endless words also takes hangman to a completely new level!
December 16th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
It’s no wonder Germans import English words so frequently. Can you imagine saying to a girl at Karnival: “Komm’ Zeugling, zeig’ mir deine Brustwarzenvorhoefe.”
December 16th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
SmeeAgain is right. We Germans tend to creat very long words (called Bandwurmwörter in german):
- Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän
- Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
- Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung
- Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
@kaktus:
Homophones do also exist in german, and the only difference in the spelling is either ä instead of e (Häute/heite), ai instead of ei (Saite/Seite), v instead of w or f (Verse/Ferse or Verben/werben), an additional h (wahr/war), etc.
see: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophonie_(Linguistik)#Beispiele_f.C3.BCr_Homophone_im_Deutschen
December 16th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Breakfast - Early piece - Frühstück
Lunch - Mid day meal - Mittagessen
Dinner - Evening bread - Abendbrot
You can also do this the other way around, though:
Schmetterling - Butterfliege - Butterfly
Libelle - Drachenfliege - Dragonfly
Marienkäfer - Damenvogel - Ladybird
December 16th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
An other not quiet German view on this:
http://d120.de/assets/Uploads/Fachschaft/Inforz/2008/Inforz-2008-2_Juni.pdf
just read page 46
December 17th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
@Alex: thank you, I’m aware of it. After all, I have the “Grosses Latinum”
In essence, we tend to use a german word where the english language uses latin.
You might know that the Nazis tried to substitute even the remaining words of latin origin with germanic creations, for example “Gesichtserker” instead of “Nase”.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I always felt a little “dumbed down” going to a “frauenaertz” rather than a gynocologist. Like is she going to check my “private parts”? Maybe the guy in charge of German just said f*** it, the bloody grammar is complicated enough- we surely can’t have different words for things, that would just be too difficult! (Of course if you translate this thought into German, you will end up with a pages worth of writing, or a couple of incredibly long words)
December 17th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
@christina: Wait a minute! German is the sexiest language on Earth! If you need any evidence, think on “Geschlechtsverkehr”
December 18th, 2008 at 12:50 am
The only thing i see in the list is, that German builds (combines) words out of already known words to name something, that has never named before. On the other side, English uses foreign words instead of building own. So, what is easier to understand?
@Suse: For us (Germans) Kopfhaut sounds like what it is … the skin on top of the head. On the other side, for us the word scalp sounds barbarian, because our only association of scalp is what we learned about it from US-Western-Movies.
December 18th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
@Barbarossa:
> We Germans tend to creat very long words (called Bandwurmwörter in german)
[…]
Have you ever heard about “The Awful German Language” from Mark Twain?
December 18th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
“Although learning German is not recommended in order to gain a financial advantage […]”
huh? (might be taken out of the context.)
December 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
No, i don’t agree with that! Think about: “Weg” as way, and “weg” as away! These a pronounced different! Or what about “Maß” and “Mass”!
While I agree with you on Weg and weg, the word “Mass” does not exist. This problem arises from the fact that many people in Germany think that after the Rechtschreibreform the good old “ß” has been canceled.
What they fail to recognize is the perfectly simple rule behind using “ss” and “ß” (if the “s” is stimmlos use “ss” after short vowel and “ß” after long vowel). So it’s “Maaaaß”, but (if the word existed) it would be “Mass” (whith a very short “a”, like in “Masse”).
Also, it’s “Fraaaaaaß” not “Frass”, “Fuuuußball” not “Fussball”, and so on…
Anyway, could somebody tell me why “draught” is pronounced like draaaft, but “naught” is pronouced like “noat”?
December 19th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Of course “Mass” exists. It’s what 1 liter of beer is called (leastways in Bavaria). And it’s spelled correctly as well since it’s pronounced with a short “a”.
But I agree that “Maß” and “Mass” is not a valid example. They differ in *both* spelling and pronounciation, so that’s ok.
About “Weg” and weg: Trouble is German has 5 letters for at least 10 distinct vowels (not counting diphtongs). So we could either
* invent new letters that no one else would know how to use (e.g. Umlauts),
* use a combination of standard letters to represent those extra sounds (that’s only done for long vowels I think), or
* use the same letter for distinct but at the same time quite similar sounds (as in “Weg” and weg).
Of course Spanish is al lot nicer in that respect. But then they only have to cover 5 vowels
December 19th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
@ Balu
Sorry! I messed something with “Mass” and “Maß” i meant “Masse” as weight/mass/ground or “Maße” as plural of “Maß” for e.g. dimension/quantity
Jm2p
Frank
December 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
That’s a problem for the Swiss who don’t use “ß” and always write “ss” instead. They can’t distinguish “in Maßen” (in moderation) and “in Massen” (in masses). “Ich trinke Bier in Massen” - if you know the Swiss you can guess they drink in moderation, which distinguishes them from the Bavarians (at least according to stereotypes).
December 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
German keeps it simple instead of creating words unnecessarily or using Latin words. Where is the point that it is done in English ? English is not a logical language. The “a” for instance is pronounced differently in every word. And often even differently in England and the US. So nobody knows what is right.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
“Tollwut” translates to “Awesome mad” just like “Geiler Bock” to “Awesome lust”. *g*
December 19th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
BTW, you forgot about “Halsnasenohrenarzt”. LOL
December 19th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
“This problem arises from the fact that many people in Germany think that after the Rechtschreibreform the good old “ß” has been canceled.
What they fail to recognize is the perfectly simple rule behind using “ss” and “ß” (if the “s” is stimmlos use “ss” after short vowel and “ß” after long vowel). So it’s “Maaaaß”, but (if the word existed) it would be “Mass” (whith a very short “a”, like in “Masse”).”
Könnt ich mich auch immer drüber aufregen! Is it really that hard to remember this? Come on people! While the Rechtschreibreform tends to take flak very often, this is arguably the easiest of the new rules!
” if you know the Swiss you can guess they drink in moderation, which distinguishes them from the Bavarians (at least according to stereotypes).”
According to said stereotypes, I imagine the the Swiss certainly drinking much slooooower…
December 20th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Here’s another one: I found on the web that if you want to swap the hard drive of a Playstation 3 you would need a “phillips screwdriver”. Oh no! Some special kind of screwdriver! Why would Sony use a standard of Philips!?
I looked it up in the wikipedia. Aha! They were just talking about what we call a “cross screwpuller” (Kreuzschraubenzieher) or in newspeak “cross groove screwturner” (Kreuzschlitzschraubendreher).
December 21st, 2008 at 3:33 pm
All I can say is:
German is a very unique Language. Because of Germanys history allmost 80 to 85% of its lexis has its origin in foreign languages like Latin, Gothic, Gaulish, older Slavonic languages, Russian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, English and i could keep going and going.
I love the German language, but facing that its useless to say what the German language is doing right or wrong, I think.
December 21st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
“Gesichtserker” ist viel älter als die Nazis, von denen stammt aber z.B. Bürgersteig
December 21st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Phillips und Pozi sind zwei unterschiedliche Kreuzschlitze, weil das niemand beachtet dine die meisten Kreuzschlitzschrauben auch rund gedreht. Die einen haben grade Flanken mit einer kleinen unterstützuing und die anderen leicht angeschrägte Flanken. Die Art des Kreuzschlitzschraubendreher dazu zu schreiben ist ne feine Sache.,
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 pm
@Herzi: Ja, Mensch, das ist ja genau was bei Wikipedia steht… Gut, dass das nun an dieser Stelle für den interessierten Leser nochmal zusammengefasst ist.
In meinem Beitrag ging’s mir aber eigentlich nur darum, mal die Sicht des Deutschen an einem aktuellen, praktischen Beispiel aufzuzeigen: Mir hat “phillips screwdriver” nichts gesagt (bzw. hat es mich fehlgeleitet), weil man in meiner Sprache wie im Thema des Hauptartikels die Dinge teilweise beschreibend benennt. Ich nenne das Ding halt Kreuzschraubenzieher.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
@Oderik
Dat Ding nennt sich aber Schraubendreher, weil man da mit Schrauben rein/raus schraubt und nicht zieht
It is called Screwdriver because it screws screws in/out . It doesn’t pull screws!
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Meine 6 cent:
- Was will uns Christina eigentlich mit One of my kids’ favourites - “Käseschmiere passt wunderbar zum Mutterkuchen!” Blechh. sagen? Eine Aneinanderreihung von deutschen Wörtern hört sich unter Umständen unappetitlich an? Gefällt Dir “Cream cheese goes well with placenta” etwa besser an?
- Der obige “Halsnasenohrenarzt” ist aber doch eigentlich ein Hals-, Nasen- und Ohrenarzt, auch wenn man das schonmal als ein Wort ausspricht.
- Breakfast geht auch in beide Richtungen, Frühstück = Early Piece und Breakfast = Fasten unterbrechen
December 24th, 2008 at 12:29 am
that’s a joke that does not translate well at all.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I was just laughing my ass off when I read the list of “English” words - and then laughing harder when I read Germans calling those words “Latin”.
Most of them are in fact Greek - as in “its all Greek to me”
Actually Latin are “concussion” and “rabies”, the word “jaundice” I deem to be French (coming from the French word “jaune” for yellow), and “nostril” really does seem to be English (I can sense the “nose” inside that word…).
Sorry for nitpicking - etymology is kind of like a hobby of mine…
December 24th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
…and I’m too dumb to spell my own name right. Should be “Benedicta” with a “t”. *gnarf*
December 24th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
It goes the other way also when translating German to English
Traffic Jam = Verkehrs Marmalade (German Combo) = Stau
Here are more English Combo words.
Airplane = Flying Thing = Flugzeug
Lighter - Fire Thing = Feurzeug
December 24th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
@ Benedicta: I already posted about nostril = nose thirl, genuine English, similar construction as Nasenloch.
@ Germany Bert:
Feuerzeug comes from earlier times when people carried a small pouch with a “Feuerschläger” (a piece of iron to produce sparks), some flint and something that burns easily (Zunderschwamm / tinder fungus or something similar). This way you had all the things to make fire with you, thus “Feuerzeug”.
This was used for centuries to ignite fires… When modern lighters were invented, the old name was simply kept as both were used for the same purpose.
Lighter itself seems strange at first… Erleuchter if taken literally. But Entzünder? That word could have happened in German, too, hadn’t the original Feuerzeug existed.
December 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
You forgot “Leichenschauhaus” - Dead body show room - morgue
December 26th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
@Germany Bert,
Früher hatte “Zeug” auch nicht die schlechte Bedeutung die das Wort heute hat, eher die der für eine Sache notwendigen Gerätschaften, man siehe zum Beispiel “Zaumzeug”. Somit wäre die Übersetzung fire thing oder flying thing nicht sinnentsprechend
Stefan W. hat dazu eine sehr gute Erklärung in englischer Sprache abgegeben.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I do disagree on the “weg” - “Weg” thing.
In standard german tought in Austrian schools, those two words are pronounced exactly the same way (”weg” sometimes in germany is pronounced “wech” which just sounds ugly to me and is an accent thing, I guess).
On Masse and Maße: Different words with different meanings, pronounced and spelled differently. They just look similar. The swiss have no more ß where this becomes a problem. Also with Buße - Busse
December 27th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
“weg” is a short e, “Weg” a long e… anything else is not Hochdeutsch.
In your case, it’s Austrian pronunciation, as it seems. However, wech is indeed accent / dialect (often heard in Northern Germany).
December 30th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Did anyone notice the astounding parallels between German and Chinese? They like composite words even more than us.
fei ji - fly machine - airplane
shou ji - hand machine - cellphone
huo che - fire vehicle - train
chu zu qi che - out rent steam vehicle - taxi
dian hua - electrical voice - telephone
dian nao - electrical brain - computer
And the list could go on forever… it’s so much fun, really. Still have to find out their way to say “Brustwarzenvorhof”, though.
Oh, by the way, @Dent:
> http://ichwerdeeinberliner.blogspot.com
> Without any irony: that blog really sucks.
No, it doesn’t.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Urgh, “Brain shake up” sounds like a Frankenstein-Cocktail.
Great Post, I laughed a lot.
@Ingo: Liked your “dead body show room” as well
By the way, I appreciate the also very concise Dutch language. For example their word for “match” is “lucifers”, in German “Streichholz”, in English Combo “rub wood” or something like that….
January 8th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
That makes me so fast nobody after!
I think I spider!
I think my pig whistles.
I make me me nothing you nothing out of the dust.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
When I was in China I saw so many people who were addicted to being yellow … seems to be a national disease!
January 10th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
well, if you take apart German an English words to the last bit you’ll find a similarity of some kind sometimes it’s just a Latin/Greek translation of the loan word which was adapted in its original form into English or, at least imho much more interesting, you’ll find a very closely linked word in one of the two languages with the same etymological origin:
just take “knight” as an example. The German translation would be “Ritter”. If we’d want to take the English word back to middle English we’ll have a pronunciation something like “knycht” (just too lazy to get out the IPA alphabet). Doesn’t take a genius now to link it to the German word “Knecht” (a menial) - not too far away but it gets better. If you’d want to analyze the German word “Ritter”, you can easily see that the corresponding verb is “reiten”, meaning “to ride” with the corresponding noun “rider” - and what does a knight do? He rides a horse
Latin is not going to help anyone with this one, I’m afraid… or can somebody see some connection with “equites (pl.)” I don’t? (and don’t bother to come up with equestrian, I’ve thought of this one myself :D)
January 12th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Gelbsucht ist derived from a now defunct meaning of “Sucht” meaning illness in general.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:54 am
@Frank.P.B: Schraubenzieher heißen Schraubenzieher weil man damit Schrauben festZIEHT.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
>> Gelbsucht ist derived from a now defunct meaning of “Sucht” meaning illness in general.
Indeed, “Sucht” comes from “siechen” (suffering from an illness), which has the same origin as English “sick”.
Some people misinterpret “Sucht” as coming from “suchen”, which it is not.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
> It goes the other way also when translating German to English
> Traffic Jam = Verkehrs Marmalade (German Combo) = Stau
Indeed.
Hair dryer < trocknet Haare < Fön.
Also note that English can do things with compounds German cannot.
For example you can say “traditional flight week” in English and that would probably be a week dedicated to traditional flight.
“Traditionelle Flugwoche” is something. It’s a traditional week dedicated to flight, because adjective (like traditionell) always belong to the head noun (woche in this case).
In fact the “traditional flight week” could be a traditional week dedicated to flight, as well. In English you cannot know to which part the modifier belongs from the syntax alone.
And that gets you all kinds of fun like “pretty little girls’ school”.
- Pretty little school for girls.
- Pretty school for little girls.
- School for pretty and little girls.
- School for pretty little girls.
….
January 21st, 2009 at 12:36 am
… or the most beloved sentence of linguists trying to parse English:
“Time flies like an arrow”
(… and fruit flies like a banana…)
Look here: http://www.zeitfliegen.de/timeflies.htm
February 24th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Whatever you say about Bandwurmwörter: they can be rather helpful if you want to get an awful lot of swearing done in a very short amount of time.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Germans aren’t spelling stuff like it sounds. They just think they do. When I was in Slovenia with school exchange, the Slovenian teachers told us that Slovenians are spelling stuff like it sounds. But we had to learn how to read Slovene first.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
That way you could trash any given language.
And by the way, the “english” term diarrhea is greek and means exactly “Durchfall” (dia=through, rheo=flow). It obviously was translated literally into german while in english it remained a fancy foreign term, only understood by the pundits and used as a not self-explanatory noun by everyone else. I wouldn’t call that a “better” approach per se.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Here’s wondering if the word “handy” was put with “spell stuff like it sounds” on purpose
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 am
Fabian, everything here is pure comic genius. Either carefully planned or a inspired by a burst of brilliance, everything you read is certainly on purpose.