General Chat

nudge for Lucia

Lucia - would you like me to put you in touch with a charming German lad appropriately named Lukas - he is a student who speaks excellent English, and he was here in Norwich at U.EA. last year - he rented a room in a house I look after and was a really nice lad. I am still in touch with him and now he is studying in Germany again. Let me have your direct email and I will ask him if he will help you. I am positive he will say yes. Liz

Not something I expected to see on here. I'm teaching English as a second language in China at the moment and I thank god I don't have to cover Grammar. English Grammar is hard enough. Mind you I was in Poland for 6 months and trying to learn that was terrible. Still keep at it.

Lucia, Just be thankful you're not learning Russian - a whole different alphabet, and even letters we use pronounced differently. That really IS difficult! CB >|<

Thank you Annie :-))

My son-in-law is german.He cant help you out as i dont talk to him.Dont like his attitude.Saying that,he dont like me either.My grandchildren speak german,english and as they lived in the Lanzarote for a few years they speak spanish as well.Good Luck with your German. Annie

Len that's interesting...you're very knowledgable..learn something new every day! :-)

that's an interesting thought Nell. I never noticed that lol :-)

All languages (it is estimated there are 8,000) come from a common source. The similarities of Western European tongues are fairly obvious if you look closely. Words may have similar spelling but sound different or vice-versa. Language changes at a rate of about 20% every century so, over 500 years it is completely different. If we could hear Shakespeare, it is doubtful we could comprehend. He would regard us as foreigners. Len

Actually I was thinking the other day about words we use from other languages and all the ones borrowed from German are for nasty things: weltschmerz zeitgeist mittelschmerz schadenfreude blitz (from blitzkreig) angst whereas the French ones are for pleasurable/naughty things: petit fours meringue charades cafe tete a tete menage a trois

Len and Maz, lol I volunteered for this! Hopefully I'll do OK on Monday...hmm maybe I'll have figured out that horrible grammar. :-)

oooh yuck Lucia I HATED German - so confusing. Italian is sooooo much easier! I just couldn't get the hang of the 'case' thing and having 3 genders grrrrrrrrr you have my sympathy hun! Maz. XX

Poor Lucia I know how you feel. I struggled with Latin, German & French. Its all gone now but the pain lingers on. len

Bitte schoen, Christine! We were taught that about the umlaut and 'e' at school. It's helped a lot with trying to pronounce German words and names typed on keyboards without umlauts. I've worked in international companies, where correspondence in other languages were frequently seen, but it was always difficult to reply in the same language without the accents on typewriters or standard English/American fonts in use on in-house WP systems. I can remember what lots of French and German words mean, but it's the grammar I find hard to recall. Latin was a pain to learn, but it's helped a lot with spellings and meanings of words in English, French, Spanish and, of course, Italian. I'm really glad I learnt it. CB >|< X

Es ist - 'Ich habe nicht verstanden' und 'Ich spreche kein Deutsch' nicht wahr? You're lucky, Lucia, I was forced to do Latin, German and French! Thank heavens, Classical Greek was optional! LOL CB >|<

Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch..Grammatik mit Panik! lol :-)

une, deux, trois etc etc Deux cafe s'il vous plait

CB, I was actually trying to learn latin but gave up cos it was too complicated! lol :-)

:-s Ich habe nicht verstande! lol :-)

Lucia, It's easier than Latin! CB >|<