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On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch
- TurkishPoptart 4y ago>Rather more disturbing — particularly here in Neukölln, a neighbourhood copiously populated by leftie Americans and families from the Middle East — is the Arabic-German barber shop called WHITE BOSS. Not sure why that's disturbing. I imagine if it were a different color, the author would have no issue with it.
- CRConrad 4y agoYes, but it isn't a different colour, and that's what the author finds disturbing. Not sure what's to be not sure about.
- anthk 4y agoAt least both languages are Germanic. Spanglish from low cultured Hispanics in the US makes my eyes hurt.
- rzzzt 4y agoWhat was the issue with "spontaneously"? (Maybe I'm secretly a Berliner.)
- G3rn0ti 4y agoIt’s a false friend for a German. The German adverb „spontan“ does not mean „spontaneously“. The former means „at short notice“ while the latter „without direction“.
- kanbara 4y agoeventuell and aktuell are two great ones ask any tech worker shat eventual consistency is in german and then get very frazzled
- actionfromafar 4y agoHaha lovely!
- brazzy 4y agoWhoa, that's indeed a good one. I think the best option would be to turn it into an adjective: irgendwannkonsistent.
- boffinAudio 4y ago"Sometime" consistent and "eventually" consistent, not the same things and still confusing. Maybe better: "letzendlichkonsistent" (Disclaimer: expat English native speaker, living in Austria, enjoying this thread immensely..)
- AdamN 4y agoMy Austrian co-worker hates talking tech in German - it just doesn't roll of the tongue and he's more comfortable in English with that domain.
- boffinAudio 4y agoSame. I live in Vienna, and converse with my technical colleagues in English most of the time - although they do expect me to keep up with their crazy dialects over the coffee machine, an activity I find often quite fun, oida...
- rzzzt 4y agoIf you like comics, "Asterix speaks Viennese" might help: https://www.diepresse.com/5450586/asterix-auf-wienerisch-wappla-koffa-leachalschas https://www.diepresse.com/5450586/asterix-auf-wienerisch-wap...
- boffinAudio 4y ago
- mgraupner 4y agohttps://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/spontaneously https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/spon... "spontaneously" translates to "spontan".
- flohofwoe 4y agoYeah weird, the description "in a way that is natural, often sudden, and not planned or forced" is exactly the meaning in German too. Maybe "spontaneous" has different semantics between US and UK English?
- G3rn0ti 4y agoYou are overthinking this. Words usually have multiple meanings, common ones and less common ones. "False friend" words usually swapped their common and rare semantics when entering a different language. In this case, the common meaning for "spontaneously" is "without direction" but not "on short notice". But it's the other way around in German. There actually is the German term "spontane Ordnung" ("order from chaos") using the English connotation in this case.
- flohofwoe 4y agoFWIW I usually use "spontan" like "ungeplant" (unplanned). Maybe there's even differences for native speakers in different parts of Germany (wouldn't surprise me, especially between East and West).
- mgraupner 4y agoMay I ask if you're a native German or English speaker? There is an example in another thread here which has the following example: We spontaneously decided to get married. I would translate that into: Wir haben uns spontan (dazu) entschieden zu heiraten. What is the difference in these two? Same words, same meaning to me as a native German speaker. As I see it, spontaneously can have a subtle other meaning than spontan, but can also be the same.
- 4y ago
- iNic 4y agoSpontaneously means for something to happen surprisingly or without an apparent cause.
- garvield 4y agoSwedish "simplified" this problem by having the same word (spontan) mean both 1) Happens without apparent cause 2) Happens at short notice Context is your only clue to which meaning is intended...
- actionfromafar 4y agoDoes it really tho? Can't come up with an example of the second meaning right now.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Vogtinator 4y ago"spontaneously" is "plötzlich".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jamil7 4y agoI always felt plözlich was more urgent, like "suddenly"?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kanbara 4y agogood article, reminiscent of my own time in berlin never heard of berlinglisch, but lived through a lot of denglish i still find myself writing sentences like “that should do it, or?” and saying “alsoooo” and “na ja” way too much. never lived in neukölln so i missed out on the more hipster bits, and actually had to learn proper german eventually
- G3rn0ti 4y agoAs a native Urberliner I am both flattered and confused by the fact so many young Americans choose to live in my home town. I always wondered what makes it so attractive to you. I mean, winters are miserable, the city is ugly compared to many others in Germany, the people are rather not friendly to each other, the German language is difficult to learn, our history is troublesome, German immigration laws still difficult to surmount and Berlin is becoming very expensive to live in these days compared to 20 years ago. Edit: Perhaps I‘ve got the typical love/hate relationship with my home town and don’t see the forest for the trees we keep saying around here ;).
- drBonkers 4y agoI hear it has the best night life, second to Seoul.
- randomluck040 4y agoDepends on what you prefer I guess. Also I’m not sure if I’d relocate just for nightlife alone.
- bobthepanda 4y agoI think one major plus compared to US is how easy it is to get around. The trains still run (at least weekend nights), and if you’re partying on a day they do not they start up fairly early, so partying til first train is alright. The Uber rides in a city in America at night can get more expensive than the total drink bill I remember spending out in Berlin.
- et-al 4y agoI have an acquaintance that moved there for the electronic music scene, DJ’d regularly at Berghain, and has an Essential Mix. She probably would not have been that successful had she stayed in SF.
- zamnos 4y agoStaying out from Thursday or Friday evening until Monday morning is not for everybody, but Berlin's a city where that's eminently possible.
- MandieD 4y agoObservation of Berlin from the weekend I spent there last month: literally the only place I was better off speaking German rather than English was a Turkish cafe. Everywhere else? Too many people understood English far better than they did German, especially anywhere to do with tech. Some of the tech people I talked to were running into being otherwise eligible for a permanent residence permit, but not being able to manage the moderate language requirements. Contrast with Nuremberg and Erlangen, two relatively international cities in northern Bavaria: you can get around ok in English for anything tourist-related, but you really need to learn some German for day to day life. The B1 level that a permanent residence permit requires is about the right minimum level around here.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jillesvangurp 4y agoOne thing that is specific to Berlin is that increasingly bars and cafes are staffed by foreigners. This is a quirk of the German employment system, a scarcity of staff, and the wide availability of expats in need of gigs. Instead of hiring permanent staff and paying them a salary, it's less risky to have temporary workers. However, you can't do that endlessly with the same people in the German system. You would have to employ them after a while. However, there's a never ending stream of students and other expats flowing through Berlin willing to do that kind of job. So, lots of bars and cafes employ those instead. Also, there are a fair amount of expats that stay in Berlin that open their own businesses.
- Lacerda69 4y agoThat is only correct for a very small number of hip cafes and restaurants in certain districts tbh. You can employ germans indefinitely without "proper" contract as well through something called "Minijob" and the majority of cafes and restaurant skirt the law and let you work without paying taxes "illegally". Most of the ppl working there are students or in between careers. Only a fraction of the staff will be employed permanently with "real" contracts. source: worked in the industry there for 6+ years
- b800h 4y agoWe have a number of Indian-language radio stations in the UK, which are good to listen to because the music is often great. Part of the fun is spotting the odd anglicism creep in: <something in Hindi><something in Hindi>"that's not cricket!"<something in Hindi><something in Hindi>
- avh02 4y agoi remember something similar in Dubai, while riding in a taxi hearing the driver listening to the commentary on a cricket game: very fast/excitedly: <something in Hindi><something in Hindi>"OUT OF THIS FIELD!!"<something in Hindi><something in Hindi> I think code switching is often a really cool/cute thing but also cringey sometimes.
- bhangrrathwy 4y ago"Jargon" terms tend to not often have translations in other languages I think.
- downut 4y agoI always enjoyed listening to Navajo Radio driving across the Res: <beautiful but impenetrable language> BASEBALL! <beautiful but impenetrable language> Hay bale auction on Sunday! <...>
- wink 4y agoBeen a while since I watched it but there was an interesting difference between tennis broadcasts on German TV and Austrian TV. The Germans were using German game-specific terms - e.g. "Aus" for out of field and the Austrians were using English terms.
- bhangrrathwy 4y agoIs the music Hindi or Punjabi? (Or both, there is a spectrum of sorts between Hindi/urdu with Punjabi influence to "pure" Punjabi)
- b800h 4y ago
- FredPret 4y agoThe great strength of English is its uncanny ability to create new words and vacuum up material from other languages... and make it sound good. Other languages are left with the problem of Anglicisms where handy English words and phrases are imported but never sounds like natural parts of the language.
- microtheo 4y agoThat is a bit of an exaggeration. We use English word in German and French and barely notice anymore. Maybe the difference is that everybody speaks English, so we are more aware, that they are imported words…
- AdamN 4y agoEnglish is full of loanwords from French in particular. 'particular' being from Old French of course.
- schroeding 4y agoThe ultimate champions in "new word creation" are languages which allow the creation of new compound words, though, like e.g. German. That's the way you get those hyper-specific words in "the <name> language has a special word for the concept of <something very specific>" articles most of the time. :P "Neologismuskreierungsmeister" (new word creation champion)
- mhh__ 4y agoI'm not sure if compounds count, it's almost a spelling convention as much as it is truly new language
- schroeding 4y agoI would say so, compound words are a defining feature of the German language, especially with the ability to make up words on the spot if required ("Gelegenheitsbildung"). Many of the words in the article are also compound words (e.g. "Spätkauf", "Rundfunk"). It's not possible to say the same thing without using compound words without heavily modifying the sentence structure. It would be in English, if you translate it directly, but it isn't in German: "Sie sind die Neologismusbildungsmeister" vs "Sie sind die Meister im Bilden von Neologismen" If those compound words are only a spelling convention, the question would be, where do we draw the line. Does "Firefighter" count, or do only the words it is made of, "Fire" and "Fighter"? "Railroad"? "Notebook"? :D
- hoseja 4y ago[flagged]
- brazzy 4y agoachberlin.txt
- dang 4y agoI appreciate a good rant in certain contexts, but this is not the place for it. That's not an ethical point, btw—it's about the dynamics of different genres (or if you like, the McLuhan point about the medium dominating the message). The format of the large, flat internet forum is not able to sustain comments like what you posted here. Even if 99.99% of the audience has no problem with the rant, the other 0.01% is enough to completely destroy the thread if triggered—and believe me, someone is going to get triggered. The downside of trying to operate a forum like HN, along the principles outlined in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, is that we're all subject to a certain blandness.
- btilly 4y agoBorrowed words and phrases can lead to weird things that we don't even notice. For example the author of the essay casually calls English the lingua franca without pausing to realize that he's using an Italian phrase for "French language", and means English by it! This borrowing, adapting and linguistic evolution has been going on for a very long time.
- henrikschroder 4y agoWell, English is the lingua franca du jour, after all!
- jamiek88 4y agoThat’s because the English are very industrious, not like the French who don’t even have a word for entrepreneur!
- lesquivemeau 4y ago/s i suppose
- feintruled 4y agoReminds me of the gag, "English is the best language as it always has a mot juste for everything"
- ElfinTrousers 4y agoEnglish has lots and lots and lots of vocabulary. Of course, a lot of that vocabulary still has tags on it saying "PROPERTY OF SPANISH" or "IF FOUND, RETURN TO FRANCE".
- CRConrad 4y agoKind of like the English, while in many senses having lost their marbles, still have a lot of marbles with "Return to..." labels on them.
- camillomiller 4y agoVery nice overview of our Berlin patois. As an Italian living in Berlin, my favorite (which makes my Aussie partner roll her eyes) is saying something like “you are invited” when you pay for someone else’s coffee or meal. It’s a literal translation of “du bist eingeladen”. My partner taught me “I shout you”, but I also have the feeling that’s pretty Aussie or Brit. Any non-native friend understands “I invite you”, but would probably never get “I shout you”.
- gattilorenz 4y ago“I’m treating you” should he a proper translation of “offro io”
- jaclaz 4y agoI always used (maybe wrongly) "it's on me" for "offro io".
- dkdbejwi383 4y ago“My shout” is typically how I would use it - something like “should we split the bill, oder?” “Nah, my shout”
- boffinAudio 4y agoAs an Aussie living in a German-speaking country, this just makes me hard cringe. Aussie vernacular (or even, Brit) simply shouldn't be propagated beyond the pubs. Lade deinen Freunden ein - nicht auf Sie Schreien, oida!
- TulliusCicero 4y ago> My partner taught me “I shout you” Yeah, as an American, I learned this from reading an Aussie web serial. In the states you'd say...uhh, "my treat" or "I'll cover you" maybe?
- Biologist123 4y agoThis is undoubtedly the best-written essay I’ve read this year. Fascinating too. Thanks to the poster and writer.
- tragomaskhalos 4y agoThe part about feeling a certain tristesse that your native language is a shared commodity rather than a cosy secret was very resonant. And a native English speaker who tries to speak the local language in, I would say, most any sizable European city will typically find that their attempt is politely shut down by their interlocutor in favour of English, because they will speak it vastly better than you speak their language.
- jamil7 4y agoThis is a very real barrier, it takes some time to build enough confidence to push through and continue in the target language.
- robin_reala 4y agoFor me, with my newly acquired Swedish, it was a pretty specific barrier of four months’ learning. After that, people would continue in Swedish whereas before they’d seemingly relish the chance to practise their English.
- boffinAudio 4y agoI can attest to this. I've lived in German-speaking countries for twenty years and English is still my daily language. Germans just love speaking English, especially since they speak English better than most English-native speakers can operate in German. I speak German when I'm out and about and nobody knows me, and I don't mind if the frustrated stranger laughs at my weird and obnoxious dialect. Among friends though, they don't have the patience and just plow through the conversation in their excellent English. It can be very frustrating, but it helps to unleash the German with strangers. You will very definitely see a strata to the folks who will and will not, willingly, put up with your Deunglish...
- detaro 4y ago> Among friends though, they don't have the patience and just plow through the conversation in their excellent English. That's kinda sad. I totally get the impulse to do so, and once I've started speaking English I might not even notice I'm doing it, but if I know someone is learning it is IMHO the decent thing to do to try let them practice if it doesn't matter to get to the point quickly.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoI grew up in a bilingual home. I sometimes refer to what I speak and write as Germish. I routinely have to look up "Is that one word or two?" because German runs words together so much more often than English and I capitalize too many things because German capitalizes all nouns and English only capitalizes proper nouns. A friend of mine once described my capitalization choices as "raising my voice," a place between "speaking normally" and the internet "yelling" of writing in all caps.
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago>”I capitalize too many things because German capitalizes all nouns and English only capitalizes proper nouns.” I’ve gotten into a particularly bad habit of capitalizing nouns haphazardly and I don't speak any German. I think it’s from programming becuase it happens very often in my Code Comments.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoOn Twitter, phrases for hashtags should use capitalization of all words for reasons of accessibility. Screen readers can parse it that way and can't if you don't and it's easier for human eyes too, so it helps visually-impaired people who aren't yet actually blind.
- kergonath 4y ago> On Twitter, phrases for hashtags should use capitalization of all words for reasons of accessibility Ah, the classic #susanalbumparty
- DoreenMichele 4y ago0_o
- orthoxerox 4y agoTell your friend you are emulating 18th century English: > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- marban 4y agoI honestly can't be friends with people who use beamer and public viewing in one sentence.
- G3rn0ti 4y agoThe term „beamer“ is an interesting one. Elder east Germans use the specific GDR term „polylux“ instead to name an projector. Since Berlin was divided not long ago. You will find both terms still circulating.
- looperhacks 4y agoNote that "beamer" is usually used for a video projector. A polylux (which, for me, is "obviously" the better term, even though I was born after the unification :D) is only for overhead projectors that display slides. So beamer and polylux are two different things
- CRConrad 4y ago> overhead projectors that display slides Which is it, an overhead projector or a slide projector? They're different things.
- hulitu 4y agoBeamer is used in almost all Europe.
- netsharc 4y agoOne of my favorite anecdotes: A German was going to show the football game at his place, but had to cancel because his beamer broke, so he sent an email to the people he invited. An American who got the email wondered why they couldn't watch the game because the German's BMW broke down...
- larodi 4y ago(joke warning) The omnipresent English in Europe is the Mohammad English, a very simplified and useful version - spoken by most middle-eastern emigrant, and some Balkan residents. Next to it is the very distinct (by its accent) French-English.
- boffinAudio 4y agoNot funny. Prejudiced. The trope of "Mohammad in Germany" is sinister and should not be propagated in that realm.
- kergonath 4y agoThis more or less matches my experience in Paris. I would add loud Americans, uneasy Brits, and charming Aussies, but they are not as prominent on the streets or in cafés. It is also very common to hear English with an Indian or Pakistani accent in Paris. And of course the broken and horrible Frenglish some people seem to be so proud of for some reason.
- larodi 4y agoWhy is it prejudiced? This name is very common so if you actually have some levant friends there is very good chance they have this name. And with the influx of people from Pakistan and Levant this is a fact - they didn’t study English to know it well, but to survive in a hurry. Is sad and practical… should you want to label it. Like it or not. Perhaps you should also call prejudice that Ivan and Marsha is associated with slavic (if not Russian)…
- boffinAudio 4y agoIts prejudiced because not all folks originally from middle-Eastern cultures now living in Germany are uneducated and poorly-spoken, as the OP implies .. Its a racist trope.
- trallnag 4y agoNext time he will send you a trigger warning beforehand.
- ivanche 4y agoWhy would anyone use "downloaden" when there already is "herunterladen" is beyond me.
- layer8 4y agoTwo syllables less.
- G3rn0ti 4y ago„Downloaden“ is still common because of its web context. But it is used interchangeably with „runterladen“, especially if you use it as a separable verb.
- looperhacks 4y agoThe worst thing is someone trying to put it in past tense: For "herunterladen" it's easy: "herunter-ge-laden". For "download", the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"
- TulliusCicero 4y agoDowngeloaded is hilarious!
- allendoerfer 4y ago> the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded" You are using an English word in a German sentence, while they are (almost correctly, downgeloadet) applying the rules for words lended from foreign languages. So unless you are doing it for some particular effect, their sentence sounds funny, but is grammatically correct, yours only shows, that you know how to correctly speak English. Best examples of the same thing are the plurals of nouns ending in y: In a German sentence, the correct plural of Story (capital S) is actually Storys. This looks wrong to most Germans, too. So now you basically have to guess, whether you can impress your reader more with your advanced and wrong-looking German grammar knowledge, or whether you should play it safe and not risk to look like your English is rusty. Another great one are Deppenleerzeichen in English or English-German compounds, which basically no one gets right, even though the rule has no exceptions. Author of the article slipped one of those in, too.
- vanderZwan 4y ago> The other day my friend S., an American Berliner, said that he had noticed his English-language social circle starting to use the word « spontaneously » wrong. When Germans say they’ll organise a social event spontan, they mean they’ll work out the details at short notice. To socialise spontaneously, in English, means something rather different. But S. and I and our Neukölln friends have started using it in the sense of spontan. « OK cool text me Sunday and we’ll choose a place spontaneously. » This error is becoming part of our little language, our ultra-local dialect, just among us. On behalf of the entire Netherlands also using this wrong in the same way: what does the Anglosphere consider correct usage of spontaneously then?
- tarkin2 4y agoThe Germans even plan being spontaneous ;)
- iamsaitam 4y agoThis is the crux of the matter!
- yorwba 4y agoActually, as a native Berliner I'd never use spontan when making plans. I guess this usage might be the result of talking about the future the way you'd like to reminisce about it once it's become the past. "We spontaneously decided to sit down at a café to have some jelly doughnuts." sounds more interesting than "We couldn't be arsed to decide beforehand where to eat", IDK? But it's still understandable, same as when people call jelly doughnuts something other than Pfannkuchen, so no big deal.
- wrp 4y agoAbout 30 years ago, I met a vivacious German-Brazilian woman at a party who complained at length about how miserable it was visiting her relatives in Germany. This precise issue was her main complaint.
- lasfter 4y agoWithout any prior forethought. Immediately, on a whim. E.g., "We were in Vegas and saw an Elvis chapel, so we spontaneously decided to get married!" They were in Vegas without any plans of marriage, saw a venue, and decided immediately to marry.
- fmeyer 4y agoThe author would be amused to learn that are dedicated dictionaries specific for "fremdwörter": defining the word, indicating plura and informing gramatical gender so you can have the proper declensions and therefore correct gramatic for these borrowed words.
- thaliaarchi 4y agoDo you have a favorite dictionary for Fremdwörter?
- vintermann 4y ago"All the lyrics of the stupidest possible songs" - I feel that one. When a store blares some incredibly vapid English pop lyrics I hardly even notice it, but when they do it in Norwegian, I flee the store to escape the vicarious embarrassment.
- Anthony1321 4y agoEnglish is widely spoken and understood, even in tech-related environments, and that speaking German may not necessarily be an advantage in all situations.a moderate level of German proficiency is required for obtaining a permanent residence permit in Germany.
- AdamN 4y agoThere are 360MM people who aren't German, but are EU citizens and have the right to work in Germany without a permanent residence permit.
- Anthony1321 4y agoEnglish is widely spoken and understood, even in tech-related environments, and that speaking German may not necessarily be an advantage in all situations. A moderate level of German proficiency is required for obtaining a permanent residence permit in Germany.
- Anthony1321 4y ago[dead]
- nologic01 4y agoGlobal English is both a blessing and a curse. Never before could so many people communicate across linguistic divides (even if imperfectly). But the price is that never before was the rich collective cultural heritage under such threat. The two facets are deeply related. Like any lingua franca before, global English was invented to facilitate trade (economic exchange). The fact that it is English and not Basque or Suahili reflects the dominant economic power of the 20th century. But the peculiarity of the Anglo-saxon world that insists on financializing and commercializing everything (David Bowie securities anyone?) means that culture too became a tradeable cash crop. Pop culture became an exportable mass market product against which local traditions stood no chance. Thankfully it seems that the relative shallowness of commercially distributed culture (required if it is to reach global markets) limits its scope. Once local culture stops being seeing as an anachronistic relic but rather a source of wealth people embrace it again. So it may be possible to both have our cake and eat it. The story has not fully played out yet.
- derriz 4y agoThis is perhaps nitpicking but I wish non-native English speakers would not use the term “Anglo-Saxon” to describe anglophone or (better) English speaking countries. The term refers to the original north Germanic invaders of England and so has tribal (racial) connotations and is typically used in English to distinguish people on that basis. Many/most Americans (e.g. black or Native American) so not consider themselves “Anglo-Saxon” nor would most Irish people nor many non-white Australians, for example. Heck - lots of British passport holders would not identify as Anglo-Saxon. If you don’t identify as Anglo-Saxon in an English speaking country, it’s jarring to hear your native home country being referred to as “Anglo-Saxon”. Just use “English speaking” which has no racial overtones and is both easier to understand and more precise.
- type0 4y ago> Just use “English speaking” which has no racial overtones A lot of countries are English speaking. It's not racial, it's cultural overtones, but I agree that it sounds segregating to other.
- 4y ago
- atoav 4y agoNice typography on the blog. I checked and the font family in question costs 820 CHW 9seems to be a swiss foundry)
- sneak 4y agoAs an American living in Berlin since 2008, this weird hybrid language is now my brain's default mode, and I have to explicitly code switch to pure English or pure German whenever speaking to someone not bilingual in both. My non-german-speaking partners now all have learned a few dozen german words and expressions as a result.
- CalRobert 4y agoAs a native English speaker this is somewhat comforting since it means I can get around easily, but my family is planning to move to the Netherlands this summer and one thing that strikes me is how hard it will be to learn Dutch when virtually everyone seems to speak excellent English. I was looking for a summer camp for my daughter and was a little dismayed to realize they were an English-only summer camp - to help Dutch kids learn English. Hopefully she'll become fluent anyway (she's only 5).
- AdamN 4y agoI met a Dutch woman expat and she didn't even teach her son Dutch - just totally migrated to English. The husband is British and they live in Germany.
- ricardobayes 4y agoOne example I vividly remember was somewhere in very rural Germany in the early 2000s. A new burger chain called McDonalds recently opened and they had the most bizarre slogans and scripts written, in English, but in German phonetic transcription, like in the parking lot it said "Häppi Börzdäi" or something like that.
- DeathArrow 4y agoProbably every country has its own English.
- jacooper 4y ago> intensiv means « intense » not « intensive » Huh, Leo.org doesn't seem to agree, I have seen it multiple times used like intensively. https://dict.leo.org/german-english/intensiv https://dict.leo.org/german-english/intensiv > a photo shoot is, rather alarmingly, a Shooting. That's hilarious lol > an online German 32-year-old and I will both, for better or worse, understand what is meant by « emu lesbian finally milkshake ducked » I am international native and I'm not sure I want google that.
- ElevenLathe 4y agoIt's not just German. Language groups around the world are struggling to fit English vocabularly into their language. My favorite English borrowing into Polish is probably kolesław (pronounced something like COAL-eh-suave) for coleslaw, but there are so many that it's hard to choose. Poles in Chicago decline "Milwaukee" (the street) as if it were a Polish plural ("na Milwaukach"). I'm fairly OK in Polish but still find it impossible to pronounce "cheeseburger" the way they do in Poland.
- EdSchouten 4y agoWhich is funny, because coleslaw itself is borrowed from Dutch (koolsla).
- mietek 4y agoThe funniest thing about „kolesław” is that the suffix makes it sound like a traditional Slavic first name: Bogusław, Jarosław, Mirosław, Stanisław, Władysław… https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imiona_słowiańskie#Imiona_złożone_(dwuczłonowe) https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imiona_słowiańskie#Imiona_złoż...
- droopyEyelids 4y agoI wonder why the author couldn't have used Fußgänger with enough English context to explain the word, feels like the kind of thing I'd appreciate were I an expat reading the English language paper- "The Fußgänger commuting on foot, to work or shop or visit friends" something like that.