Why "German" is the #1 language.

max

Legend
I speak German. It's really great and the stereotypes, perhaps Mark Twain among the earliest dissers, don't make much sense. The guy in the video is busting his kidneys trying to make it sound harsher than native speakers actually make it.

Finnish sounds pretty nasty, though. And Canadian.
 

Mr.Lob

G.O.A.T.
Most languages, other than your own, sound a bit funny. French, Italian, Japanese, other English accents etc. Aside from the funny exaggerations in the video, German is the coolest sounding language to me.
 
I speak German. It's really great and the stereotypes, perhaps Mark Twain among the earliest dissers, don't make much sense. The guy in the video is busting his kidneys trying to make it sound harsher than native speakers actually make it.

Finnish sounds pretty nasty, though. And Canadian.
Agreed on assessment of how the guy in the video is trying to portray German, but it's far from a nice sounding language and grammar is a freaking nightmare. Finnish is actually quite melodic and has some of the most interesting words (some over 50 letters). Canadian doesn't exist though, it's just English and French with their specific accents.
 
Mellifluence! That is new to me, @Genious at Work, thank you, and I really like it! I like the thread too even though I know not a lick of German.


from The Century Dictionary.
  • noun A flow of sweetness; a smooth, honeyed flow.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
  • noun A flow of sweetness, or a sweet, smooth flow.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
  • noun of a voice The quality of sounding mellifluous; that is, the quality of sounding very smooth or pleasant.
 

Sentinel

Bionic Poster
Most languages, other than your own, sound a bit funny. French, Italian, Japanese, other English accents etc. Aside from the funny exaggerations in the video, German is the coolest sounding language to me.
I once tried learning German. It was nice except for one thing ... three genders. That made it very difficult. Door could be male, window female, table neuter etc. It's okay if you've grown up with it but difficult to learn these things later.
 

Mr.Lob

G.O.A.T.
I always thought German was the language taught when training German Shepherd/K-9's/ police dogs because of the authoritative tone. Google said it was because most criminals don't understand German... as well as breeding history and tradition. Interesting.
 

Crocodile

G.O.A.T.
I like the Berlitz skit where a German guy is trying to understand English at his first day at the German Coast Gaurd.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
I once tried learning German. It was nice except for one thing ... three genders. That made it very difficult. Door could be male, window female, table neuter etc. It's okay if you've grown up with it but difficult to learn these things later.

Hindi and Sanskrit also have genders for inanimate objects, and Sanskrit was way ahead of the curve with a third gender.
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
German is nice sounding. I believe it is pronounced just as it is written? In other words it is phonetically good?
 

Sentinel

Bionic Poster
Hindi and Sanskrit also have genders for inanimate objects, and Sanskrit was way ahead of the curve with a third gender.
I know. I have pointed that out earlier. Thankfully English usually just is it, although some literary types like to call their country she.
 

Mainad

Bionic Poster
I think Hitler with his harsh, rasping, shrieking voice did much to make German sound ugly.

Spoken properly with a cultured voice it can be just as easy on the ear as other languages.
 
D

Deleted member 743561

Guest
I think Hitler with his harsh, rasping, shrieking voice did much to make German sound ugly.

Spoken properly with a cultured voice it can be just as easy on the ear as other languages.
Listen to that gorgeous centuries-old German hymn (in the even older English cathedral :eek:).

Positively spine-tingling.

Post #6.
 

WhiskeyEE

G.O.A.T.
i like german... :)





There's another song from that chick from the Netflix show Dark that is pretty catchy. Anyway, German is definitely an awesome sounding language. Sounds way cooler than the romance languages, except for perhaps Italian. I learned quite a bit, but lost interest after realizing how good of English pretty much all (younger) Germans speak these days.

 
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Biggest thing I don't like about German is the verb order. The vocabulary is pretty cool.

Glove = Hand shoe

What are you talking about? The verb order is one of the most beautiful things in the German language. It actually requires the listener to pay attention to what is being said. All of it.

smiley_emoticons_santagrin.gif
 

Mainad

Bionic Poster
Biggest thing I don't like about German is the verb order.

What are you talking about? The verb order is one of the most beautiful things in the German language. It actually requires the listener to pay attention to what is being said. All of it.

smiley_emoticons_santagrin.gif

Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Grosse) said:: "Frederick disliked the German language and literature, explaining that German authors "pile parenthesis upon parenthesis, and often you find only at the end of an entire page the verb on which depends the meaning of the whole sentence".

:cool:
 

Sir Weed

Hall of Fame
What are you talking about? The verb order is one of the most beautiful things in the German language. It actually requires the listener to pay attention to what is being said. All of it.
Ich habe noch nie von "verb order" gehört. Ist damit eigentlich von "word order" die Rede?
 
Ich habe noch nie von "verb order" gehört. Ist damit eigentlich von "word order" die Rede?

Tatsächlich, obwohl man könnte meinen, dass die trennbaren Verben mit ihren Präfixen am Ende des Satzes ihre eigene "verb order" darstellen (zumindest im Vergleich mit anderen Sprachen).

smiley_emoticons_santagrin.gif
 
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vive le beau jeu !

Talk Tennis Guru
There's another song from that chick from the Netflix show Dark that is pretty catchy. Anyway, German is definitely an awesome sounding language. Sounds way cooler than the romance languages, except for perhaps Italian. I learned quite a bit, but lost interest after realizing how good of English pretty much all (younger) Germans speak these days.

i also like this one... (nice show, by the way) :)

... and the meaning of the title somehow makes me think of a certain song of simple minds ;)
 

Tenez!

Professional
People who consider the German language to be distateful should ask themselves how heavily outside factors weigh in their judgement.
German takes a lot of flak for its supposed harshness, but well-spoken hochdetusch sounds beautiful. And yes, pronunciation is infinitely more consistent than godforsaken English.

h3p3f4g.png


(I lived in Schwabenland however, and some of the accents from the South are definitely rougher.)

Ich habe noch nie von "verb order" gehört. Ist damit eigentlich von "word order" die Rede?

"Verb order" ist ein Ausdruck für Leute, die noch nie Deutsch gelernt haben und sich wilde Dinge über die Funktionsweise der deutschen Grammatik vorstellen!
 

DSH

Talk Tennis Guru


Flieg dorthin, wo wir die Sterne finden
Nimm sie mit, lass keine Zeit verrinnen
Wir werden bei dir sein, auf der Suche nach den Dragonballs
Sorae!

Du mußt wieder von vorne beginnen
Als Kind die Dunkelheit bezwingen
Du brauchst deine ganze Kraft
Denn die zukunft der welt liegt in deiner Hand

Und du suchst in weit entfernten Galaxien
Einen Weg, das Schicksal noch zu drehen
Sei bereit, auf dieser reise werden unglaubliche Dinge geschehen

Du hast Freunde, die kommen und gehen
Und nur die Zeit wird zeigen, wer noch zu dir steht
Wenn es um alles geht, der Augenblick kommt
Der gefahr ins Auge zu sehen

Flieg dorthin, wo wir die Sterne finden
Nimm sie mit, lass keine Zeit verrinnen
Wir werden bei dir sein, auf der Suche nach den Dragonballs

Glaub daran, du wirst es wieder schaffen
Sei jetzt stark und spuer in dir die kraft
Denn sie gibt dir heuen mut, auf der Suche nach den Dragonballs
Sorae!

Du mußt wieder von vorne beginnen
Als Kind die Dunkelheit bezwingen
Du brauchst deine ganze Kraft
Denn die zukunft der welt liegt in deiner Hand

Und du suchst in weit entfernten Galaxien
Einen Weg, das Schicksal noch zu drehen
Sei bereit, auf dieser reise werden unglaubliche Dinge geschehen

Du hast Freunde, die kommen und gehen
Und nur die Zeit wird zeigen, wer noch zu dir steht
Wenn es um alles geht, der Augenblick kommt
Der gefahr ins Auge zu sehen

Flieg dorthin, wo wir die Sterne finden
Nimm sie mit, lass keine Zeit verrinnen
Wir werden bei dir sein, auf der Suche nach den Dragonballs

Glaub daran, du wirst es wieder schaffen
Sei jetzt stark und spuer in dir die kraft
Denn sie gibt dir heuen mut, auf der Suche nach den Dragonballs
Sorae!
 

max

Legend
I think Hitler with his harsh, rasping, shrieking voice did much to make German sound ugly.

Spoken properly with a cultured voice it can be just as easy on the ear as other languages.

Interestingly, I just finished a biography of a black man who grew up in Hitler's Germany during that era. He listened on the radio, admired the Fuhrer, etc., but as he grew up, he ran into racial problems as you'd expect then. BUT one thing he mentioned was that people in Hamburg ADMIRED Hitler's vocal abilities: that he could go from loud and harsh, to gentle and soft, etc.

I think many of us have heard only bits of recordings that help demonstrate Hitler's monstrosity clearly, without the nuance there that really existed, and beguiled much of a stricken nation.
 

ChaelAZ

G.O.A.T.
I speak just little German/Austrian and Polish. Just family heritage, but it kinda went away when my grandparents passed since none of us really every spoke it well.
 
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TheGhostOfAgassi

Talk Tennis Guru
Learned it for 3 years. Difficult and probably the most boring language I’ve tried to learn. Could be the teacher.
Babylon Berlin is a good TV show where they speak German in a way far away from “Hitler”.
German can sound good but it can also sound awful, specially when you have family died in the 2WW it can awaken some trauma.
 

Big_Dangerous

Talk Tennis Guru
I speak German. It's really great and the stereotypes, perhaps Mark Twain among the earliest dissers, don't make much sense. The guy in the video is busting his kidneys trying to make it sound harsher than native speakers actually make it.

Finnish sounds pretty nasty, though. And Canadian.

Canadian is not a language. They either speak French (in some parts) or English.
 

Big_Dangerous

Talk Tennis Guru
Interestingly, I just finished a biography of a black man who grew up in Hitler's Germany during that era. He listened on the radio, admired the Fuhrer, etc., but as he grew up, he ran into racial problems as you'd expect then. BUT one thing he mentioned was that people in Hamburg ADMIRED Hitler's vocal abilities: that he could go from loud and harsh, to gentle and soft, etc.

I think many of us have heard only bits of recordings that help demonstrate Hitler's monstrosity clearly, without the nuance there that really existed, and beguiled much of a stricken nation.

Didn't Hitler also author a book about his National Socialist (****) views that like nearly everyone in Germany had in the 30's and 40's? I seem to recall that critics said the book was so rife with spelling and grammatical errors that made it hard to make it beyond the first few pages. Reminds me a certain idiot that currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. :sneaky:
 
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