Imagining if English was spoken like German

Of course, but I wasn’t writing a clinical study here. This is an info sharing place and opinions are the thing we share!

It’s not like I’m the only one to mention that.

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And again, saying a language is more harsh sounding than another (made like a statement of fact) is not the same thing as saying YOU personally find it harsher than others (more obviously sharing your opinion). There’s a difference in what you said and perhaps what you meant. Clearly, what you find harsh sounding is an opinion, not a statement of fact, as there are people here who do not find German to be particularly harsh sounding. :woman_shrugging:

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I don’t find German that harsh, but I do find it fascinating.
I can’t remember the name of the bod who compared it to meccano - just bolt words together until they make sense. He was right in a limited number of cases.
It’s for that very reason that I like the language. Rather than saying “the son of the man who owns the bakery down the road”, they may actually have one word for that*. It’s brilliant.

  • They may not, but you get the gist. (not an expert)
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There is no limit to the word length.

BTW, I think “Meccano” is much more pleasant sounding than “Erector Set”

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Das Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

If for no other reason, I love that you can just slam words together to make new words in German…

Happy Beer GIF by German Kraft

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I think it was the same person (whose name I have forgotten) who said that you could start a German word at one side of the Atlantic and finish it when you reached the beach on the other side.
Is there a more fun language?

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I like that word. Most of those extremely long words were intentionally created as novelties, but that one occurred naturally and saw real-world use.

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It gets sorta silly and cumbersome at a point. But things like handschuh are adorable.

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And has sadly been dispensed with. I had to google it, because of course.
Something to do with (cut and pasted) “law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling”.
Gorgeous.

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Nachbarsbäckerson

neighbour-baker’s-son

We don’t have a word for it in the dictionary but that doesn’t mean you can’t make one up in such a way that it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in conversation.

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Kenan Thompson Awww GIF by Saturday Night Live

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But inaccurate! I mean, a handschuh (glove) should be hard and stiff like a shoe. It should be handsocke to be more accurate as to its flexibility.

Although I agree with you about the adorability. Although sometimes the adorable words make you think a bit how words are constructed in English. Like Fernseher (television) – literally far-seer. How cute! Except when you stop and think what television literally means…

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Bloody beautiful.
Well done for that.

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I made up a new word in German.

“Essenenttäuschung”. It translates literally to “food disappointment”.

It is that feeling you get when you are snacking while not paying attention, and you are sure you have another bite or two left, but it turns out you ate it all.

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One of the Greek/Latin English language collisions meaning far sight

True. Weird that the mixture was used. Why not “telethea” if they wanted to go all Greek or “proculvision” to go all Latin? At least “telephone” was consistently Greek.

Yeah. And if common usage had listened to linguistic scholars of the time about things like that, we could all be driving autokineticons. That’d be pretty cool. At least they’re not ipsosmobiles.

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confusing-and-terrifying

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That made me wonder if a glove is more akin to sock, maybe a gauntlet would be more like a shoe.

And one word for gauntlet is panzerhandschuh or armored hand shoe.

Mitten can be Fausthandschuh or fist hand shoe.

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One article on Yoda speak complained his grammar wasn’t very consistent. So maybe in some sentences but not in others.