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What was the issue with "spontaneously"? (Maybe I'm secretly a Berliner.)

• G3rn0ti 4y ago
  It’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 ago
    eventuell and aktuell are two great ones ask any tech worker shat eventual consistency is in german and then get very frazzled
    • actionfromafar 4y ago
      Haha lovely!
    • brazzy 4y ago
      Whoa, 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 ago
          My 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 ago
            Same. 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 ago
              If 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
                Thanks for that, its brilliant. Me and my kids salute you!
                • CRConrad 3y ago
                  I've seen Asterix in printed form in Schwäbisch, Swabian. Also in, uh, can't recall if it was Karjalaa or Savvoo, the Carelian or Savonian dialect of Finnish. Maybe both.
  • mgraupner 4y ago
    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/spontaneously https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/spon... "spontaneously" translates to "spontan".
    • flohofwoe 4y ago
      Yeah 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 ago
        You 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 ago
          FWIW 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 ago
          May 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 ago
  Spontaneously means for something to happen surprisingly or without an apparent cause.
  • garvield 4y ago
    Swedish "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 ago
      Does it really tho? Can't come up with an example of the second meaning right now.
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• Vogtinator 4y ago
  "spontaneously" is "plötzlich".
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  • jamil7 4y ago
    I always felt plözlich was more urgent, like "suddenly"?
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