Close but false friends

[feuervogel]

There are a lot of similarities between German and English, enough that it can lull you into a false sense of security. It leads to things like Berlin finally becoming a world-class airport (bekommen=receive) and ich bin sensibel (sensibel=sensitive).

There's a list of false cognates here, if you're curious.

I'm studying/reviewing for a language test right now, and one of the things I know always screws me up is verbs with fixed prepositions, so I'm spending some time with that. (There's a helpful list in Dreyer & Schmitt.)

So, German prepositions aren't always 1-to-1 translateable for English ones. I'd say most are, but not all. Über, for example, means over or above, but also about, as in talking about something. Nach means after, but also toward (ich reise nach Athen) or in accordance with (gebraut nach dem Reinheitsgebot).

Which means you get set phrases like

jdn. danken für
jdn. ärgern mit
herrschen über

which are easy to remember because they're just like the English thank someone for, anger someone with, rule over.

But then you get

fragen nach

which means literally ask after, which is technically sensical English, but it's not the first thing I choose (ask about). It may be more common in British English, I'm not sure.

Then there's the ones that are like English in that they use a different preposition depending on context:

kämpfen mit den Freunden
kämpfen gegen die Feinde
kämpfen für den Freund
kämpfen um die Freiheit

English collapses the last two into "fight for," and German may have the same ambiguity of fighting with (ie alongside vs against) (native speakers, help me out).

And I'm only on p 100 out of 300. -_-

Comments

[ratcreature]

I actually don't think that "kämpfen um die Freiheit" is totally equivalent to "fighting for freedom". I use "für" in that place if it means fighting for a value. "Um" in that place has a slightly different connotation. Like "kämpfen für Gerechtigkeit" to me implies a fight for the abstract value, like in an ideology. You could also say "kämpfen um Gerechtigkeit" but to me that feels more concrete, like if you fight a specific injustice. Or sometimes that it's more a contested thing, like fighting over the meaning of something, though that becomes clearer when you put in "streiten" where "streiten über" and "streiten um" overlap, but "streiten um" and "streiten für" can also overlap. But it is just a vague language feeling and you could probably use it interchageably, I'm not sure. I probably just confused you more. :/

But yes, the "kämpfen mit" has the same possible ambiguity as in English.

[feuervogel]

In English, we use "fight for" to mean both for something concrete (fighting for freedom from jail) and abstract (fighting for a cause).

I think in the textbook (where I took the examples from) kämpfen um die Freiheit could mean a specific freedom, like "Free Mumia" or something. They just have this table with verb-preposition-object (and whether it takes a daß or zu clause after) without much further explanation. Deutsch für Fortgeschrittene!

Though I finally got to the most useful thing EVER, which is an explanation of every preposition and how it's used and whether it takes dative or accusative (or genitive). It's chapters 58-61, pages 264-283. Like, I've developed a kind of sense for which preposition to use, but sometimes I guess completely wrong. This is useful.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, brute force memorization is probably the only way for these things. There might be regional variations too. At least there are fewer than the irregular plural forms poor German learners have to memorize with words. Some with multiple possibilites even because German can't seem to settle on whether it wants to say Balkons or Balkone (some apparently even say Balkön though that sounds horrible to me) and it goes the same with so many. It must be quite the shock for people used to the neat plurals in English that has so few irregular ones.

I've been doing that Atlas der Alltagssprache survey a couple of rounds now, and several times I remember going "people say what?", "omg, that construction sounds so wrong" and "I have never heard half of these words for this thing" because other regional variants sound so different. And they had examples with prepositions too, and answering I've become aware of nuances that I hadn't realized.

[feuervogel]

Die Joghurt, yeah? My high school German teacher, who came from Berlin, said pomm fritt and was shocked when we took a trip to the Pfalz (we had a sister city thing with Schifferstadt) and the kids all said pomm-es frit-es. She was probably in her 50s back then. (Then she tried to explain the idiom man gönnt sich ja sonst nichts, which was on a poster in one of our tour buses. I still don't know how to translate it.)

The extreme variability in German dialects is SO fascinating. I love how there's this pocket of "wat" up around Berlin, while the majority is over by Köln. If I go back to grad school, I don't know if I want to focus on a more sociological topic (integration in football), a more traditional topic (translation or portrayal of the Other), or something linguistical like that. Though I have 0 experience in linguistics.

[ratcreature]

I still remember my surprise when I first realized that not everyone said "der Feudel" for a floor cloth. Of course I knew also the word "Bodenwischtuch" but thought that was the written, technical term, like what you put on products, but surely in spoken language it would be "Feudel" everywhere. Yeah, not so much...

BTW, if I had to translate the phrase "man gönnt sich ja sonst nichts", I'd probably go with "(but) I'm going to treat myself this once."

[annathepiper]

I am going to have all kinds of fun with prepositions in German when I start those in SuperMemo, I can tell! Sympathies!

[feuervogel]

German prepositions are fun! Just remember that bei doesn't mean by for passive voice; that's durch or von. If you can manage a German-language textbook, Dreyer & Schmitt is really useful. There are copies on Amazon.

[annathepiper]

I'll see how ambitious I get after doing the lessons in SuperMemo and eventually finishing up my Tri-lingual Hobbit Re-read! I've scarfed a couple other novels in German as well.

[feuervogel]

It's basically a grammar text, like Warriner's or something. With tables and conjugations and declinations, and lists of paired words (achten auf, Bescheid geben). My copy is from a 1991 printing, but there's a revised edition with the current spelling reform.

(Man, this is the exact book we used in my high school.)

[annathepiper]

I've got a couple of German dictionaries, but also a German verb book. What I don't have is more involved grammar!

It'll be amusing to see what German lessons SuperMemo has available. A lot of it is straight up vocab but there are grammar exercises it can do as well.

[feuervogel]

Ooh, do you have 501 German Verbs, too? I found a copy in a used book store, and I bought it.

The fun thing about teaching Ben German is his outraged reactions to cases and "recycling" the der-words.

[annathepiper]

I don't have that one--I have the French equivalent--but I do have a different verb book. I'll get you the title when I get home tonight!