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Past couple weeks I have been using apps like Duolingo and listening to Michel Thomas intro to German. It's been going pretty good Learning the words isn't very difficult and many of them are close if not the exact same as English.
My problems have been use of articles and where some of the words go in a sentence verbs a kind of tricky. For any English speakers who have learned German do you have any tricks or hints that could help me with the Articles or when to use certain forms of you and stuff like that?
I really like learning German so far, I love the app Duo lingo and have been trying to watch more stuff in German and just building my vocab.
Danke!
Auf Wiedersehen
A question I have would be
Ich bin Hunger
Ich habe Hunger
don't these both mean I am hungry but which is the proper one to use?
 
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Ich habe Hunger
oder
Ich bin hungrig
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Ich bin = I am
Ich habe = I have
"Hunger" in German is a noun (the adjective is "hungrig sein" = to be hungry), in English you're not using the noun if you're talking about wanting food so you can't translate those literally. Keeping this in mind the proper one to use is "Ich habe Hunger" which literally translated would mean "I have hunger" while "Ich bin hungrig" would be "I am hungry". Since the former one isn't used in English you can use either German expression to express the English one.
e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans.
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On May 28 2014 11:29 r.Evo wrote:
Ich bin = I am
Ich habe = I have
"Hunger" in German is a noun (the adjective is "hungrig sein" = to be hungry), in English you're not using the noun if you're talking about wanting food so you can't translate those literally. Keeping this in mind the proper one to use is "Ich habe Hunger" which literally translated would mean "I have hunger" while "Ich bin hungrig" would be "I am hungry". Since the former one isn't used in English you can use either German expression to express the English one.
e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans.
Thank you,
I figured that was the case, I have really enjoyed learning it, I am still incredibly Chobo. Thank you for the explanation, now to just buckle down and get it done 
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There was this crazy guy at the language school I went to in Dresden who kept talking about Sprachmelodie and getting a Gefühl.
I didn't understand this until I became fluent.... your brain changes dude and it's a very unconscious process
That doesn't mean you don't need to make conscious effort to get an unconscious change
You just learn, there are no shortcuts... but in my opinion emotionally connecting to a language is super important.
I think I learned so quickly because I fell in love with someone while there...
I didn't start learning Turkish well until I listened to the song Haberin yok ölüyorum
Hard to believe now, but you truly get a feeling for the articles and they're not completely arbitrary, but, although it sounds contradictory, there is no rule.
Listen to music, the first song I listen to in German and understood completely was this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jngOXijPLqk
Which resonated with me at the time (emotional motif)
Watch movies/tv
I watched every available episode of Futurama and How I Met Your Mother in German... Germany has a really well developed dubbing industry with great actors... sometimes imo better than the original actors (see Johnny Depp)
Also, the only reason I'm on this site is because I started watching German casts of Starcraft 2.... homer J circa fall of 2010... then later TakeTV (much better)
TakeTV is still super active (super professional) and there is plenty to watch, plus they use all the same english SC2 terms, just German everything else, so you will always more or less know what they're talking about
Finally, true secret to real fluency is reading.
I was fluent after I read JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye in German... read something you love and know already for same reasons as watching SC2 in German
My flatmate always said you're fluent after you reach 1000 words... native is like 12,000–17,000
As with everything, you will always fall short, but try and try again.
Ars longa, vita brevis
Viel Spass beim Lernen
P.S.
Although both are correct, you 9.9/10 times hear: ich habe hunger... maybe the other one is old, veraltet, like hör mal zu instead of horche mal... both are correct but I've only heard one 93 year old ex patriot tell me horche mal.
Hopefully this is coherent
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On May 28 2014 14:48 cesmin wrote:There was this crazy guy at the language school I went to in Dresden who kept talking about Sprachmelodie and getting a Gefühl. I didn't understand this until I became fluent.... your brain changes dude and it's a very unconscious process That doesn't mean you don't need to make conscious effort to get an unconscious change You just learn, there are no shortcuts... but in my opinion emotionally connecting to a language is super important. I think I learned so quickly because I fell in love with someone while there... I didn't start learning Turkish well until I listened to the song Haberin yok ölüyorum Hard to believe now, but you truly get a feeling for the articles and they're not completely arbitrary, but, although it sounds contradictory, there is no rule. Listen to music, the first song I listen to in German and understood completely was this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jngOXijPLqk Which resonated with me at the time (emotional motif) Watch movies/tv I watched every available episode of Futurama and How I Met Your Mother in German... Germany has a really well developed dubbing industry with great actors... sometimes imo better than the original actors (see Johnny Depp) Also, the only reason I'm on this site is because I started watching German casts of Starcraft 2.... homer J circa fall of 2010... then later TakeTV (much better) TakeTV is still super active (super professional) and there is plenty to watch, plus they use all the same english SC2 terms, just German everything else, so you will always more or less know what they're talking about Finally, true secret to real fluency is reading. I was fluent after I read JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye in German... read something you love and know already for same reasons as watching SC2 in German My flatmate always said you're fluent after you reach 1000 words... native is like 12,000–17,000 As with everything, you will always fall short, but try and try again. Ars longa, vita brevis Viel Spass beim Lernen P.S. Although both are correct, you 9.9/10 times hear: ich habe hunger... maybe the other one is old, veraltet, like hör mal zu instead of horche mal... both are correct but I've only heard one 93 year old ex patriot tell me horche mal. Hopefully this is coherent
Very Coherent thank you, Loved this post It is very inspiring
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On May 28 2014 14:48 cesmin wrote:P.S. Although both are correct, you 9.9/10 times hear: ich habe hunger... maybe the other one is old, veraltet, like hör mal zu instead of horche mal... both are correct but I've only heard one 93 year old ex patriot tell me horche mal. Hopefully this is coherent
You should be careful with statements like the one I just quoted. Phrases, words and the use of grammar varies in different parts of Germany, even the TV/Theater German pronounciation (-> Bühnendeutsch) is slightly different from the every day German (more obvious if you are native and speak a dialect). Ich bin hungrig is used rather frequently around here (Southern Germany), even though you're right - in other parts Ich habe Hunger is the more common one. Today's German is nothing but one of the many dialects (Hannover one iirc); Even though I'm from Bavaria, I have hard times understanding a traditional citizen of Munich if he doesn't care, the same way he wouldn't understand me if I'd use the Nuremberg dialect. Wonderful world, really. Anyhow, keep it up, German prolly isn't the easiest language to learn, but I still like it.
Edit:
Fun thing though, while we use Ich bin hungrig mostly, we use Ich habe Durst instead of ich bin durstig. I don't think we make much sense.
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e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans.[/QUOTE]
I'm not language student, so forgive me for errors.
I think most major languages outside Indo-European group don't have articles
Japanese, Hindi and Russian, Turkish for sure do not
Although my bro is dating a Chinese girl, I don't know for sure, but I don't think so either.... so we're actually a linguistic minority internationally.
Within minority, German and French are difficult (sagen wir anspruchsvoller) versions... as compared to English.
Not shit out of luck, but every language has its difficulties.... and don't feel bad about making mistakes, even native speakers screw up...
TL community so awesome!
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Show nested quote +On May 28 2014 17:14 cesmin wrote:
e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans. I'm not language student, so forgive me for errors. I think most major languages outside Indo-European group don't have articles Japanese, Hindi and Russian, Turkish for sure do not Although my bro is dating a Chinese girl, I don't know for sure, but I don't think so either.... so we're actually a linguistic minority internationally. Within minority, German and French are difficult (sagen wir anspruchsvoller) versions... as compared to English. Not shit out of luck, but every language has its difficulties.... and don't feel bad about making mistakes, even native speakers screw up... TL community so awesome!
The Indo-European and Semitic languages aren't exactly a minority internationally. =P
Most languages in both those families (+Polynesian languages) have articles with the vast majority having gender specific ones. English is on one side of the extreme (having just one article), so is Arabic. The other extremes are German and Italian if I remember correctly. Germans go specifically nuts when it comes to possession articles (a/an = ein/eine/einer/eines/einem/einen) and Italians are insane when it comes to talking about a specific mass (where it's "Would you like some wine?" they have like 5-6 different versions of "some" depending on gender).
On May 28 2014 16:01 GeckoXp wrote:
Fun thing though, while we use Ich bin hungrig mostly, we use Ich habe Durst instead of ich bin durstig. I don't think we make much sense.
God, that reminds me of us going nuts 10 years ago because we had a word for "not hungry" (satt) but no word for "not thirsty". There ended up being a contest (yes, really) which resulted in the word "sitt". No one ended up using it and I don't think it's in any official dictionary nowadays. I'm pretty sure there should be some references about this out there, enough to prank some poor German teacher at least.
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On May 28 2014 18:50 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2014 17:14 cesmin wrote:
e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans. I'm not language student, so forgive me for errors. I think most major languages outside Indo-European group don't have articles Japanese, Hindi and Russian, Turkish for sure do not Although my bro is dating a Chinese girl, I don't know for sure, but I don't think so either.... so we're actually a linguistic minority internationally. Within minority, German and French are difficult (sagen wir anspruchsvoller) versions... as compared to English. Not shit out of luck, but every language has its difficulties.... and don't feel bad about making mistakes, even native speakers screw up... TL community so awesome! The Indo-European and Semitic languages aren't exactly a minority internationally. =P Most languages in both those families (+Polynesian languages) have articles with the vast majority having gender specific ones. English is on one side of the extreme (having just one article), so is Arabic. The other extremes are German and Italian if I remember correctly. Germans go specifically nuts when it comes to possession articles (a/an = ein/eine/einer/eines/einem/einen) and Italians are insane when it comes to talking about a specific mass (where it's "Would you like some wine?" they have like 5-6 different versions of "some" depending on gender). Show nested quote +On May 28 2014 16:01 GeckoXp wrote:
Fun thing though, while we use Ich bin hungrig mostly, we use Ich habe Durst instead of ich bin durstig. I don't think we make much sense. God, that reminds me of us going nuts 10 years ago because we had a word for "not hungry" (satt) but no word for "not thirsty". There ended up being a contest (yes, really) which resulted in the word "sitt". No one ended up using it and I don't think it's in any official dictionary nowadays. I'm pretty sure there should be some references about this out there, enough to prank some poor German teacher at least.
To me that episode was/is a brilliant example of scientists (linguists) cooking something up in their lab and completely forgetting about real life. Language is a living process. It's not the rules that make the language, the language makes the rules.
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On May 28 2014 20:25 Monsen wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2014 18:50 r.Evo wrote:On May 28 2014 17:14 cesmin wrote:
e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans. I'm not language student, so forgive me for errors. I think most major languages outside Indo-European group don't have articles Japanese, Hindi and Russian, Turkish for sure do not Although my bro is dating a Chinese girl, I don't know for sure, but I don't think so either.... so we're actually a linguistic minority internationally. Within minority, German and French are difficult (sagen wir anspruchsvoller) versions... as compared to English. Not shit out of luck, but every language has its difficulties.... and don't feel bad about making mistakes, even native speakers screw up... TL community so awesome! The Indo-European and Semitic languages aren't exactly a minority internationally. =P Most languages in both those families (+Polynesian languages) have articles with the vast majority having gender specific ones. English is on one side of the extreme (having just one article), so is Arabic. The other extremes are German and Italian if I remember correctly. Germans go specifically nuts when it comes to possession articles (a/an = ein/eine/einer/eines/einem/einen) and Italians are insane when it comes to talking about a specific mass (where it's "Would you like some wine?" they have like 5-6 different versions of "some" depending on gender). On May 28 2014 16:01 GeckoXp wrote:
Fun thing though, while we use Ich bin hungrig mostly, we use Ich habe Durst instead of ich bin durstig. I don't think we make much sense. God, that reminds me of us going nuts 10 years ago because we had a word for "not hungry" (satt) but no word for "not thirsty". There ended up being a contest (yes, really) which resulted in the word "sitt". No one ended up using it and I don't think it's in any official dictionary nowadays. I'm pretty sure there should be some references about this out there, enough to prank some poor German teacher at least. To me that episode was/is a brilliant example of scientists (linguists) cooking something up in their lab and completely forgetting about real life. Language is a living process. It's not the rules that make the language, the language makes the rules.
It wasn't scientists who came up with it, but Lipton. It was more of a marketing gag than anything, so it's not that surprising nobody remembers.
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On May 28 2014 10:44 SigmaoctanusIV wrote:
My problems have been use of articles and where some of the words go in a sentence verbs a kind of tricky. For any English speakers who have learned German do you have any tricks or hints that could help me with the Articles or when to use certain forms of you and stuff like that?
German grammar is different from modern English grammar. Learn about the different cases. They're the most difficult part of German, initially at least.
To tell the gender of a word, you have to learn it by heart most of the time. However, sometimes there are some rules that can help you. For example many endings of words always have the same gender. For example: words ending in -ität are always female, Die Universität, Die Rarität, Die Spezialität etc.. ; words with -chen are always neutral, like Das Mädchen, Das Männchen and there are many more endings like that.
German also has an interesting sentence structure which you will have to learn. It's not always SVO sentence structure. Subclauses usually have their verbs at the end of the sentence etc.. If you only use DuoLingo or if you're trying to "absorb the language like a baby" I can almost guarantee you that it isn't going to work out or that it is easier for an adult to just learn the rules.
On the bright side, spoken German is quite simple if you manage to wrap your mind around the different cases. We pretty much only use 2 tenses in spoken language. Perfekt (haben+ge-(verb)) for everything in the past, and present for everything present (no progressive in German) and also for the future. So Germans say things like "I eat right now" "I eat every day" and also "I eat tomorrow".
Anyway, good luck. If you put in the hours, you'll learn it. It's not easy though.
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On May 28 2014 20:48 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2014 20:25 Monsen wrote:On May 28 2014 18:50 r.Evo wrote:On May 28 2014 17:14 cesmin wrote:
e: For articles, you're shit out of luck and I don't think there's any shortcut besides just learning words with the specific article. It doesn't get easier with other languages either. For Frenchies for example the sun is male and the moon is female while it's the other way around for Germans. I'm not language student, so forgive me for errors. I think most major languages outside Indo-European group don't have articles Japanese, Hindi and Russian, Turkish for sure do not Although my bro is dating a Chinese girl, I don't know for sure, but I don't think so either.... so we're actually a linguistic minority internationally. Within minority, German and French are difficult (sagen wir anspruchsvoller) versions... as compared to English. Not shit out of luck, but every language has its difficulties.... and don't feel bad about making mistakes, even native speakers screw up... TL community so awesome! The Indo-European and Semitic languages aren't exactly a minority internationally. =P Most languages in both those families (+Polynesian languages) have articles with the vast majority having gender specific ones. English is on one side of the extreme (having just one article), so is Arabic. The other extremes are German and Italian if I remember correctly. Germans go specifically nuts when it comes to possession articles (a/an = ein/eine/einer/eines/einem/einen) and Italians are insane when it comes to talking about a specific mass (where it's "Would you like some wine?" they have like 5-6 different versions of "some" depending on gender). On May 28 2014 16:01 GeckoXp wrote:
Fun thing though, while we use Ich bin hungrig mostly, we use Ich habe Durst instead of ich bin durstig. I don't think we make much sense. God, that reminds me of us going nuts 10 years ago because we had a word for "not hungry" (satt) but no word for "not thirsty". There ended up being a contest (yes, really) which resulted in the word "sitt". No one ended up using it and I don't think it's in any official dictionary nowadays. I'm pretty sure there should be some references about this out there, enough to prank some poor German teacher at least. To me that episode was/is a brilliant example of scientists (linguists) cooking something up in their lab and completely forgetting about real life. Language is a living process. It's not the rules that make the language, the language makes the rules. It wasn't scientists who came up with it, but Lipton. It was more of a marketing gag than anything, so it's not that surprising nobody remembers.
Nope. It was the editors of the official German language rule book (Duden) that held the contest (in collaboration with Lipton, but that seems to be just a sponsorship kind of deal for exposure). So while the term "scientist" is more commonly used for the natural sciences I'm pretty confident that those people are highly educated with degrees in German language studies. Wikipedia (german)
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Articles:
German is head-final ("rechtsköpfig")
Thus in compound words the article is always depending on the right-most word in the construct.
Der Hausschuh (slippers): Das Haus, Der Schuh
Die Kaffeetasse (coffee cup): Der Kaffee, Die Tasse
Das Fußballspiel (football game): Der Fuß, Der Ball, Das Spiel
Der Rotwein (red wine): rot (adjective), Der Wein
There is one exception:
Prefix "Ge-" and a substantivised verb. Geschrei (schreien), Gejammer (jammern), Geschwätz (schwätzen) ...
In those cases it's Neutrum (das)
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I'm American and have lived in Germany with my German wife since 2005 and speak near-native German. The one mistake I still make regularly is getting the gender of the occasional noun wrong. Noun genders are the first concept you encounter when you start learning German, and they're the last one you'll master. There's really no trick that works every time, though there are lots of rules of thumb (like those mentioned by Dyme) that will help.
The two things I found most helpful in learning German were spending time around Germans (marrying a German woman whose family doesn't speak much English is very helpful here) and reading German books. I was fairly proficient in Japanese before I started learning German, and one of the things I was really happy about with German is that from day one you can just sit down and read a book or newspaper, since looking up words in a dictionary is really easy and fast. (Learning to look up Japanese in a dictionary, on the other hand, is itself a skill you have to learn, but that's another story.)
So read a lot and see if you can find some German speakers in your community. I organised a regular Stammtisch at the university I attended in America for the first year I was learning German before moving here, and that was very helpful. With regard to picking a book to read, my advice would be to find something that you *really really* enjoy reading rather than forcing yourself to read what you think will be easy enough for your level. For example, my wife's family gave me all kinds of kids books when I started, and I really didn't enjoy reading them much because kids books are boring. Then one day at my wife's place I got bored and started reading Das Parfüm, which is actually a fairly challenging novel but is such a brilliant story that I lay on the floor of her apartment for an entire weekend unable to put it down, and incidentally learned a metric Jesus load of German in the process.
I'd give you one more tip that a lot of people have found helpful: How to pronounce ö and ü.
Ö - Make a German "eeeeee" sound (like eh in English), then, without changing the position of your jaw or tongue at all, move your lips as if you were making an "oooooo" (oh) sound. That combination produces Ö.
Ü - Make a German "iiiii" sound (like eee in English), then, without changing the position of your jaw or tongue at all, move your lips as if you were making an "uuuui" (ooh) sound. That combination produces Ü.
Hope that helps some, and good luck!
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rewatch a tv series you enjoyed in german with english subtitles!
if u can stand the german voiceacting that is
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Oh, that's a great idea, too. I forgot about that, but I watched all of House in German during my first year here. I highly recommend that series, the guy who does Hugh Laurie's voice is really good, I actually got to prefer his vocal performance over the original.
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On May 29 2014 01:20 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
Oh, that's a great idea, too. I forgot about that, but I watched all of House in German during my first year here. I highly recommend that series, the guy who does Hugh Laurie's voice is really good, I actually got to prefer his vocal performance over the original.
Obviously a matter of taste, but as a German I couldn't disagree more. Houses cynicism doesn't come across nearly as well in the German version. Also some kind of jokes/puns don't translate too well. Your advice is very good though. It's one of the first thing I recommend to people trying to learn/improve at English.
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I'll direct you to the language learner's thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/448468-language-learners-thread
and my post there!
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/448468-language-learners-thread?page=2#32
On April 21 2014 10:28 hp.Shell wrote:I have been using memory palaces to store vocabulary and their definition as mnemonic imagery. Actually I haven't started the actual storing part yet, but I have begun to make large memory palaces so I can easily learn any language quickly when I decide to start. For more palaces, I highly recommend using the homes you can buy in Skyrim, fully furnished. It's easy to memorize each piece of furniture, and once you have a rule for each type of furniture (e.g. "each shelf will have three images or loci: one on the left, one in the middle and one on the right side of the shelf") it's easy to go through the stations and keep them ready for new vocab. I like to count them so I know how many loci I have in that palace, so if it's full of words and you're walking through recalling all the images/definitions, you don't miss any. Another thing I recommend is this guy's youtube channel. His passion in life is languages, and his major method is intense study beginning with memorizing conversational phrases in a beginner's book. He then goes to a public place and looks for people who he thinks might know the language he wants to practice. E.g. if he's learning Russian he goes to a Russian corner store and talks to the workers there, etc. For this reason, he also will learn a few questions and answers to get him into those first few conversations. Stuff like "How are you learning the language? I'm teaching myself. Why are you learning it? I like [insert language here] and I think it's fun to talk to native speakers." etc. I think those two methods are probably the best for rapid language learning. It's easy to recall words you've learned using the palaces. Conversational fluency builds by talking to strangers. Combine that with reading in the target language and chatting on voice chat or text chatrooms in the target language via the internet, and you've really got something.
Edit: I remember from my high school German days that "Ich habe Hunger" is the correct one.
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EPT
