How Many Languages Can You Speak?

[Tigerman]

According to my papers, 3 but realisticly only 2, unless you count Swedish and Danish as languages for me as well, being Norwegian...
My english is rather fluent, my Norwegian would be my native tongue and danish and swedish is quite similar to Norwegian and I have worked and work with lots of danish and swedish people..
According to my papers I can speak german, but I find myself replying in english in lack of vocabulary, despite understanding the german most of the times..

 

[Blox]

Lynne-- the thing about German is, it doesn't give you any leeway as far as word order. Say it wrong, and you sound like Yoda to a German...

Marek,

I'm afraid that that is incorrect.

There aren't many languages in this world (that I know of), that permit you to rearrange the parts of your sentences (and still maintain sentences that make sense) in such a multitude of ways as German does. This is one of the reasons why it is apparently dreaded by Translators, who are supposed to translate it on the fly during sessions at international organizations, because contrary to e.g. English, which basically follows a subject-predicate-object construction, German permits you to put the verb to the very end of the sentence, so that you have to wait for the very last word, before you can start translating the sentence.

 

[Marek K]

German permits you to put the verb to the very end of the sentence, so that you have to wait for the very last word, before you can start translating the sentence.

I know what you mean. Drives me crazy. But that doesn't show word-order flexibility. That's only when you have a past or present participle verb (sorry if I'm lingustically imprecise, but I'm not a linguist) that it goes at the very end, with the "helper verb" as the second element in the sentence. No other way to do it. Ich bin in die Schule gegangen. Ich bin nach dem Mittagessen mit meiner Mutter in die Schule gegangen. I think that's the correct word order for the elements... but my point is all the subordinate clause elements (When? With whom? Where to?) can't be put into any other relative order in the sentence. Any other order sounds weird... like "Ich bin in die Schule mit meiner Mutter gegangen".

Oder?

I did exaggerate a bit, though. German does allow some word-order flexibility, but much less than English or Slavic languages. Like, a present-tense verb has to be the second element in a sentence clause. "Ich sehe den Mann". Or, "Den Mann sehe ich". Never "Den Mann ich sehe". While in English you could say, "The man I see." Stilted, but correct.

Disclaimer: While I do have a lofty Mittelstufe 3 certificate from the Goethe Institut, I'm not a native speaker of German.

 

[Kim]

It depends how drunk I am!

I can handle simple conversation in English, Dutch, German, French, Japanese, Afrikaans (ok....that's cheating...it's more or less Dutch)

I can handle polite greetings, counting etc in Greek, Hindi, Spanish and Italian....

 

[Kim]

While in English you could say, "The man I see." Stilted, but correct.

You what????????

You might be able to say something like - "The man I see before me now is a shadow of what he was.." or something similar. I'm afraid: "The man I see", strikes me as almost unintelligible!

What does it mean?

 

[kilo_fox]

Or, "Den Mann sehe ich".

When you say that there needs something more to come, like "Den Mann sehe ich. Den Hai aber nicht." (The man I see. But not the shark.) I think German is indeed not very flexible regarding the order of words.
I have hesitated quite a while to post because I do know how to speak German but I can hardly explain it, as, I think, it is often the problem for the native speakers (unless you went to university and studied your mother tongue to become a teacher or so)....

 

[Marek K]

You what????????

You might be able to say something like - "The man I see before me now is a shadow of what he was.." or something similar. I'm afraid: "The man I see", strikes me as almost unintelligible!

What does it mean?

"Sam I am." In the words of Dr. Seuss.

Which, if you're a Serbo-Croatian speaker, is kind of redundant.

 

[Kim]

"Sam I am." In the words of Dr. Seuss.

Which, if you're a Serbo-Croatian speaker, is kind of redundant.

What does Siam have to do with anything?????

Dr Seuss? Who is he? A Yank? We're talking about NATIVE English here ya know!

 

[Marek K]

When you say that there needs something more to come, like "Den Mann sehe ich. Den Hai aber nicht."

Yes... or it stresses the "Mann" part. Q: "Siehst du den Mann und den Hai?" A: "Den Mann sehe ich." My point was, the verb has to be the second element in the sentence, no matter how you arrange the subject (ich) or the object (den Mann).

Yeah, native speakers can't ever explain their own grammar, even when they can speak perfectly.

 

[Marek K]

What does Siam have to do with anything?????

Dr Seuss? Who is he? A Yank? We're talking about NATIVE English here ya know!

*sigh* I don't suppose green eggs and ham mean anything to you? No weirder than baked beans for breakfast...