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My life would be better if I could speak German fluently
Poast new message in this thread
Date: April 5th, 2024 11:12 PM Author: Cocky dull garrison I’ve never even been to Deutschland (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559198) |
Date: April 5th, 2024 11:33 PM Author: Ultramarine supple spot Go in the summer - it's cloudy and gray 8 months of the year. Worst thing about the place by far. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559236) |
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Date: April 5th, 2024 11:45 PM Author: motley cream forum brethren it's hard to practice german in the cities. most people aren't going to let you stumble and flail about when they all speak much better english ime. maybe the heimat is better. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559253) |
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Date: April 5th, 2024 11:53 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone This is preposterous. There are literally tens of millions of people in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria who speak close to zero English. You can easily find people ANYWHERE you can talk to in German. I guess if you are in like a Hilton in Berlin or something and you try to talk to the desk clerk in horrible broken German they might have one or two people with decent conversational English who will ignore you but it's absurd to think there aren't dyed in the wool monoglot German speakers everywhere around you all the time. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559264) |
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Date: April 5th, 2024 11:57 PM Author: motley cream forum brethren good luck testing your hypothesis in munich or zurich, let us know how it goes. i suggested DF could go to the countryside, but i doubt he has any particular reason to choose any given part of it. it'd be a weird arbitrary jaunt to a probably random end, like him and the irish rocks all over again. and no, he still wouldn't learn german. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559271) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:03 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Have you ever been to Munich or Zurich? I've been to both. You're crazy. You really think these are globalist hubs where everyone speaks English well? You're out of your mind. I wish I could take you there right now to prove a point. I would take you right now to Marienplatz and using any conceivable metric of your choice prove to you under no uncertain terms that virtually EVERYONE will speak German with you. I will physically march you right down Bahnhofstrasse and prove this to you. You're insane! This is the craziest take I have ever heard in my entire time reading this website. This is the single most outré hot take I have ever seen. You are genuinely madder than NSAM if you think people won't talk to you in German in these cities. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559281) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:07 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren i have indeed been to both. my german is admittedly terrible, but no worse than any american who pretends to have picked a little bit up tee hee but couldn't pass an A1 test. germans politely responding in english (or even asking you, in english, if there's another language you'd prefer) is not an uncommon experience. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559291) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:10 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone It's literally never happened to me outside of an airport or an official acting in the capacity of their office where the employee or official has been mandated by a superior to do so but ljl if a regular Joe is talking to you in English you Jesus Christ you must be TERRIBLE like only know 5 words terrible. I can't even conceive of this ever happening to me given 1000 plus 1 lifetimes. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559297) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:11 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren csb (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559300) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:19 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone I apologize for sperging out. Know that I don't hold any of this against you personally. But I'm going to go into a minor internal tailspin over this probably for a couple of hours. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559316) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 8:58 AM Author: exhilarant meetinghouse They looked at you and thought you were some fat fuck orc. Why would they assume you speak English? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559666) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:25 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Lolwat (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559914) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:26 AM Author: exhilarant meetinghouse that was for disco fries (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559915) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:26 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Ty (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559918) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 3:19 AM Author: Frum house gaming laptop Most people you encounter in either of these cities are likely to switch to English pretty quickly in a full conversation if it’s obvious you are struggling. But sure you can speak German to your waiter or service industry types. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579073) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:04 AM Author: Ultramarine supple spot Older Germans, maybe. Like 8 years of English is taught in German high schools, and it's a mandatory course. So any German reasonably close to high school age should speak decent English. A lot of them make no effort to maintain it, though so you do meet adults who can't speak it well at all. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559284) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:08 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone A lot of the young people are genuinely ass at English. It's totally overblown how good they are. They're nearly as bad as the French and Italians. But nowhere near the Dutch and the Scandinavians. The smaller countries drill it way harder. Most Germans barely retain any of it. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559292) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:15 AM Author: Ultramarine supple spot I was at a university so everyone was smart and had passed the Abitur, which includes an English test. You may be correct about the population as a whole. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559304) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:17 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Ofs
I used to hang out with this film crew that shot some gay reality show for Heidi Klum on some obscure channel. It was like ProSieben or something. Only one of these dudes spoke English the rest were trash. To be fair most of them were Hungarian immigrants. |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:00 AM Author: Impertinent clear nursing home puppy genau (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559275) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:18 AM Author: Ultramarine supple spot Woah, this guy Germans. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559312) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 8:43 AM Author: Cocky dull garrison Gibt mir dein Geld (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559649) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 8:46 AM Author: honey-headed ungodly tanning salon mad-dog skullcap Hatp is totally retarded itt. An average midwit 65 yo German speaks better English than OP will speak German. and given how annoying he is, they will switch to English immediately to hurry the encounter (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559655) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 8:59 AM Author: exhilarant meetinghouse disco fries is a fat orc. Why would a german think he speaks English? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559667) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:24 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone This is completely false. Yes you *could* run into someone who spoke really good English. I bet in a room of any 5 Germans 1 does. But there are 2 who suck/fumble through it and two who speak none. The whole argument I'm against is that in major metros *everyone* speaks English. This just isn't true. Everyone literally, literally speaks German all day every day. And some people do speaking English. But it is not nearly as common as in Scandinavia + Netherlands where everyone speaks English because they live in a micro nation and have no ability to communicate with the outside world. Germans are nowhere near that level of average proficiency. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559913) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 2:48 PM Author: honey-headed ungodly tanning salon mad-dog skullcap Absolutely everyone in a metropolis speaks English dude. I don't even know where you're coming from. It's very difficult to learn German as an American because once they hear that accent they are inclined to switch immediately, as either a polite gesture or a selfish opportunity to practice (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560342) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 3:24 PM Author: Flushed up-to-no-good school partner This has 100% been my experience in Berlin and only slightly less so in Munich. Been to each around 10x for work. Only exceptions are some really local restaurants/bars I stumbled into, but there would be someone working there who knew enough to help.
Have regrettably never been to either as a tourist but plan on it when by youngest is old enough to appreciate it. |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 4:07 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Explain how this has literally never happened to me? I can't relate even a tiny bit unless you are going up to people with a cartoonish American accent and you only know a handful of words. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560503) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 5:24 PM Author: honey-headed ungodly tanning salon mad-dog skullcap You are totally full of shit if your experience is that no German has switched to English. Legit lol full of shit.
You even talk about Zurich up above lmao. For them whatever German you know is as foreign as English and they can do both better than your garbage. |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 7:57 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Erhmagerd, no one in Switzerland speaks Hochdeutsch! You can't even find a mothafucka on the streets of Zurich who speaks German! Practically none of them do! (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560931) |
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Date: April 12th, 2024 7:58 PM Author: free-loading faggotry parlour (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578486) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 8:50 AM Author: Elite Harsh Lay German is the most architectural of languages. It's worth the effort to at least have a reading level, which is often a requirement in PhD programs. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559659) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:36 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren it's much, much easier to recognize a language than to produce it, and much easier to do so in writing than speaking. hence some level of german reading is attainable for even shambling idiot PhD students that need to pass a language test, but fewer can write, fewer still can understand someone speaking to them orally, and almost none excluding people who have lived there for years, ime, can actually speak it themselves. this is worse for PhDs in a sense because you learn very specialized vocabularies for whatever you're studying but end up knowing absolutely no everyday diction (nor, for that matter, do you ever encounter less formal registers). german being a puzzle language helps with reading it, where you have the time and leisure to logically analyze the syntax of longer sentences, but lol at an american who "knows" german at a sub-A1 level correctly parsing different uses of werden in a normally paced conversation. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559933) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:45 AM Author: Translucent vigorous principal's office death wish lol german isn’t that hard bro (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559943) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:47 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren if your aim is to speak at with any fluency beyond everyday polite conversations, you are dead wrong. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559949) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:49 AM Author: Translucent vigorous principal's office death wish it doesn’t take “years” of living in a German speaking country to speak it fluently. just stop (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559951) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:51 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren it takes years of living in france or italy to speak french or italian fluently too, and those are easier languages for english-speakers. we may just have different standards of fluency. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559957) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:51 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Lolno (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559959) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 1:10 PM Author: Translucent vigorous principal's office death wish you have no idea what you’re taking about (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560048) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:13 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone I've never studied Italian a day in my life nor been to Italy but ljl at Italian being hard. Once you get past the fact that calcio means soccer and regazza means chick you're flying. I have literally, literally had conversations in Italian in my life having no prior knowledge of the language. It's that easy. To wit Thomas Jefferson claimed he learned Spanish once in 30 days on a boat to Europe. Italian can't be that much harder. If I applied myself in Italian study I would be the Prime Minister by the end of the month. Don't tell me Italian is hard lmfao. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578950) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:24 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren try impressing women with some "chiow raegnassiae" phrases you google on the flight there and let us know how it goes. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578965) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:33 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone It would be my absolute pleasure! (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578983) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:51 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone I can't imagine ever in my life being blown out by TDNW and yet here we are. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559958) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:51 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone This is all, again, entirely, not even partially, but wholly wrong. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559956) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:53 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren how long did it take you to get to C1? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559965) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:14 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone I think I took it recently and got like a 60%. There were grammar questions I knew I knew the answer too but had forgotten. I felt like I needed a month of practice to ace it. But you don't even need to be that good to talk to people. Germanpumo can confirm I understand it p good from the vids he poasts. You really don't have to be completely fluent to have a conversation with people. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559985) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:46 PM Author: motley cream forum brethren i've taken questions in german at conferences and responded in english. felt like i was hot shit every time for being able to do it. still can't speak german for the life of me, especially in a real setting that isn't just small talk bullshit. as said above, it's much, much easier to recognize language than it is to produce it. it would be an extremely odd coincidence that you just happened to be taking the C1 exam in particular, but it takes people years of constant exposure to pass. finally, OP's point in this thread is "fluency," not just passing conversational ability. my point above was that he was not going to even have the practice to get to a passing conversational ability. given that, he will *certainly* not become fluent without major, major time investment and effort. words have meaning. |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 1:11 PM Author: Translucent vigorous principal's office death wish seems like you just haven’t put in the work and are projecting (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560052) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 2:27 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Just get some practice bro. Really not that crazy hard. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560286) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 2:40 PM Author: Ultramarine supple spot I also got C1 on the Goethe exam, got 88% a few years ago, but am certain I've improved since then. Am not rushing to C2- more of a long-term project since C1 to C2 is the hardest step. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560325) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 2:45 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone It's really not hard if you practice a bunch. I'm in a sort of hibernation where it would come back very easily but I'm too preoccupied to deal with it right now. Really not impossible just get practice. You know I understand all those videos easily. Just don't have everything detail mastered. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560337) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 2:58 PM Author: motley cream forum brethren nice! that's what i've heard about C1 -> C2 too. i flamed out on another euro language and don't get the "just study a bit, bro" trolling ITT. the whole thing should be a longer project. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560368) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 9:11 AM Author: Cocky dull garrison If I had the money to retire I would devote myself to working out and learning Deutsch. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559671) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 9:13 AM Author: Cocky dull garrison Wer zwei Hasen auf einmal jagt bekommt keinen. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47559672) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 3:01 PM Author: kink-friendly slippery mexican corn cake I wish I had taken that to heart 60 years ago. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560377) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 3:09 PM Author: Cocky dull garrison <3 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560395) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 11:31 AM Author: Translucent vigorous principal's office death wish *tells everyone he meets how he’s a miserable moping son of a bitch in german*
fuck you |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 12:48 PM Author: Soul-stirring sinister community account sound barrier arabic more useful there now (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560007) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 3:24 PM Author: Flushed up-to-no-good school partner Half of Berlin is north Istanbul at this point. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560423) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 4:37 PM Author: Ultramarine supple spot Berlin is worst of all, but you pretty much need to avoid the big metropolises to find the real Germany today. Of course, the entire West will eventually die barring radical changes, but the good thing about Germany is that its institutions seem strong for now at least. And there is historical precedent for Germans taking radical actions to keep the country working well. So I'm not prepared to give up on them yet. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560566) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 2:52 PM Author: kink-friendly slippery mexican corn cake In Schaffhausen I asked a young woman on a bicycle for directions. First she gave me a lecture in rapid fire German of the Swiss variety on my shitty German. Then she gave me exquisitely detailed and accurate directions. Most Germans were happy when you tried to speak with them in German, but not this Swissette.
My German teacher in college, who was of the right age to have been in the Hitler youth, marked me down from an A to a B because of what she perceived to be my Yiddish accent, though once she said I sounded Dutch. OTOH, Spanish speakers think I am a native.
Fortunately on xo we have our own lingua franca. |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 3:15 PM Author: Cocky dull garrison 180 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560412) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 3:25 PM Author: Flushed up-to-no-good school partner Yes but the 2k hours you have to spend (and that’s if you’re focused; not just commute podcast dalliances) can almost certainly be spent on something that would bring you more joy. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560426) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 4:23 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone The German is Hard crew coming out in full force. I am so irate by this thread I'm going to up my fluency just to prove a point. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560535) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 4:36 PM Author: exhilarant meetinghouse People who think German is hard are also the ones who painstakingly agonize over commas. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560564) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 4:46 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Here's a freebie for all the débutants ITT. In German a comma is like how we use a decimal for numbers. Take note, scholars! (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560584) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 6:03 PM Author: kink-friendly slippery mexican corn cake €180,00 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560747) |
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Date: April 6th, 2024 7:54 PM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Teuros, brüder. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47560928) |
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Date: April 12th, 2024 7:59 PM Author: free-loading faggotry parlour You just have an extremely low bar for "fluency" (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578491) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:07 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Are you fucking kidding me? Are you insane? Fluency =! having the ability to read Faust in the original text in one go without having to use a dictionary. That's beyond fluency. Fluency is when you could live somewhere and do all your normal life things in that language without breaking a sweat even if you don't know every obscure word or occasionally make a grammatical error.
I for one speak French better than you speak *any* language including English and I speak German better than you speak Jap or Chink or whatever and I still would not call myself completely fluent in German although it appears I'm much further along than the German is Impossible to Learn Crew and you need to be Einstein to have a basic conversation. |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:22 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren i'm guessing you don't even know how to conjugate verbs in german, far less how to use or even recognize the konjunktiv. (it's harder than the english subjunctive, so if that's a new term, good luck, man.) there's a middle point between being able to read a complicated specialist text in English and being able to pick up and effortlessly read a newspaper (sidenote: if you can't read Milton without looking up words more than once in a blue moon, you aren't fluent in English. the same goes for Goethe and German). you're talking about a level of german *speaking*, which is substantially harder than reading, even below the level of reading a newspaper. you need a good deal of grammar to hold a conversation in german without sounding like a total dumbass. even that would be far from fluency. what you're describing sounds more like ordering a kebab from a foreigner whose german isn't great either. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578962) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:31 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Bro you're completely stuck in this tunnel vision way of thinking that's so pedantic and impractical that it holds no relevance. First of all you're making two completely separate arguments, one about literary mastery and one about holding a conversation. I can't even keep track of where you're going with the former so I will stick to the latter.
Holding a basic conversation in German with a German person is not nearly as impossible as you think it is (even without having mastered every conceivable verb tense). I know how to conjugate verbs in the present tense (really NOT hard) and can even throw in some past and future. I doubt that the konjunktiv comes up in every day conversation but even if for some reason it did, I'm POSITIVE you can get by without it.
To your point about there being a spectrum, there's a middle ground between talking about kebab with a Turk on the corner and delivering an academic speech at the University of Heidelberg. I guarantee you beyond any shadow of a doubt that I could strike up a random conversation with any German person on the street and have a normal conversation with them even if I botch a few noun cases and screw up a few verb endings. I still promise you by ANY metric of your choice I will prove this to you and prove that conversational German is not in fact impossible and does not require decades of high level study to have a functional, working use of the language. I don't know what I need to do to prove myself right here. I will call a random number in the German phone book and explain this situation to the fellow on the other end of the line. Whatever I need to do to prove my case I will do it. |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:36 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren you don't even know enough to know how little you know. this argument is embarrassing for everyone involved, myself included, at this point. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578988) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:37 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Bro I don't know enough German to know how little I know about German but which one of us has had at least 1000 conversations in their life with real German people and can read and write it and watch the news and understand it? But I don't know anything about German? You're completely off base. I actually speak German relatively well in real life and you seem to be mad about this and your main argument is that German is so esoteric and mysterious that I'll never understand it? But I do. You're disproven par excellence. Your entire line of reasoning falls apart by the simple fact of me actually speaking German lol. You must concede from a logical standpoint that if I did speak German well enough to hold a substantive conversation with a local it would in fact undermine your argument. Surely you can agree. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578989) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:48 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren while we're appealing to personal experience and authority, i've lived in europe for over a year. most of it was in a middle class neighborhood, not an ex-pat community. i have a pretty good idea of the difference between polite passing conversations and ones that requires some degree of real fluency. there is a hard limit you can reach even with weeks of intensive classes and daily exposure, and at that point, almost everyone will still speak your language better than you do theirs. i wish i were more fluent in that language, but it's a long and difficult endeavor that requires you to put yourself out there daily in awkward situations where you will sound like an idiot more than occasionally because you're still learning. i did not get there, and i probably never will back in america, but something like second language speaking wouldn't be very interesting if it were easy, now would it? you really have no idea what you're talking about and i can only guess at the heroic patience germans have shown in humoring your raving delusions. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578999) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:55 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone You're putting all your chips on this incredible projection you have that everyone else speaks German as poorly as you. Again I appeal to the facts. What if it could be proven that I speak German really well, would you not concede that your argument was wrong and that other people can be good at German and for whatever reason, you're not? I don't know what compels you to apply your meta-analysis to everyone. You have a subjective experience and you feel compelled to apply it to everyone else. I ask you again, what could I possibly do to prove to you that I speak German fairly well, that I don't need training wheels, and that I can fend for myself and no one thinks I'm a bozo? Will you please delineate your metric of choice so I can blow right passed it with ease? What is your standard here? Do you want me to call a +49 number and record it? Tell me what you want me to do because your chips are in the middle that you think, without evidence, that I'm bad at German. I want to prove you wrong with hard evidence. What's the metric and the wager because you have done nothing but double down that you think I'm a terrible German speaker. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579006) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 1:00 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren i don't care whether you're a good german speaker or not. i care what qualifies as fluency. you made this about your own abilities by constantly appealing to nebulous personal experience (i.e. trying to shamelessly brag). if you want to stick to that as the goalpost, do whatever gay test you want. the underlying disagreement remains unaltered regardless, as far as i'm concern. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579012) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 1:06 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone You're moving the goalposts to the point where I have no win condition. If I speak German well, you're still right? And you don't care either way? There's no way for me to win this one. You have created a scenario where you cannot be disproven #unscientific (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579021) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 1:09 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren i was playing chess above with the definition of general fluency. you barged in trying to move the pawn like a checker piece by making it about yourself. this is my fault somehow. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579027) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 1:17 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone No you started this argument. You began pontificating about your personal experience and then universalizing it to the point where you have asserted that based on your knowledge and authority and experience that everyone else ought to be just like you. The only thing I have done ITT is tell you that you're wrong. But apparently there is no conceivable metric by which I could even potentially disprove your argument. You are so sure of yourself that you have created a condition that cannot be disproven. You just have your subjective experience, and then you make bold assertions that you then applied to everyone else, and you're unwilling to look at any data that may corroborate a counter argument. You're free to make any number of erroneous and easily disproven claims on this website. I cannot stop you from that. But calling out error, I will. If you have no interest in setting up a hypothesis, testing it, and recording the data I can't help you. I guess you are just content to run around pontificating error that suits you emotionally for whatever reason. Carry on, I guess. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579034) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 1:26 AM Author: motley cream forum brethren my first argument was "it's much, much easier to recognize a language than to produce it,". this is an a priori claim based on general principles. my other claims early on were similarly grounded in general principles about language acquisition, with some specific applications to german sprinkled in. you appealed to personal experience at great length, though with little clarity, throughout the thread. i am still not sure what the experience you're appealing to is, but you can tell more stories about chadding it up in german while i huddle afraid in my humiliating chains of <><><>NO DEUTSCH<><><>, if you'd like. when i appealed at length to personal experience later, it was a response in kind clearly signaled with the phrase "while we're appealing to personal experience and authority,". i give this qualifier because it was not initial my intention to appeal to personal experience and authority. i find it tacky and try to avoid these sorts of claims, especially on anonymous forums where arguments should stand or fall on their own regardless of the speaker. luckily every step of this argument is verifiable by checking upthread. i'm glad we could resolve this meta-debate. thank. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579041) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 1:34 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Just to be clear, if I obtain concrete proof of me speaking German *really* well, there's not even a shred of possibility that you will admit you were wrong and give me my dues for having achieved an impressive level of proficiency? I can't come away here with the brass ring by right of conquest? You won't flip from your beliefs under any circumstances? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579042) |
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Date: April 7th, 2024 11:46 AM Author: Arrogant Emerald Library Ja (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47562177) |
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Date: April 7th, 2024 11:46 AM Author: Cocky dull garrison Ehrlich (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47562180) |
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Date: April 7th, 2024 11:48 AM Author: Stimulating halford Ich bin ein Berliner, baby. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47562184) |
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Date: April 7th, 2024 11:52 AM Author: Yellow soggy son of senegal this is something you can easily change (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47562194) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:10 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone According to lex tp and fulano you have to be a genius to learn German and spend decades of research to get to the point where someone on the street will talk to you about the weather. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578943) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 3:27 AM Author: Frum house gaming laptop It’s actually the opposite. It’s the cab drivers that are fluent in months. It’s the white collar ex pats that struggle for years or never learn it. If you’re a blue collar worker there’s a huge incentive to learn quickly because youll double or triple your salary. If you are an ex pat you probably gain very little from it professionally and the people you hangout with personally will know English fluently. So you have to go out of your way for the fun of it vs any real self centered reason (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579075) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 9:25 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone This is obviously true. And it flies in the face of the German Impossible crew. They are academics who approach it like a dead language and think you have to have a literary understanding of it before you can bullshit with someone. It's the opposite. You're going to be able to shoot the shit before you reading Nietzsche. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579283) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 9:56 AM Author: Frum house gaming laptop Right, it’s not an academic exercise at all, that’s what makes language totally different. my gf’s family mostly only speaks it and dinner at her parents is where I end up getting comfortable the most with it. By hour 5 (and after several drinks) I’m far better than the first hour even though substantively I havent actually learned much. It just always takes a while to get into the groove of saying stuff in full sentences in another language (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579333) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 10:04 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone Yes and the hardest part of "producing" German, the highest and most impossible part of it according to lex, isn't all the obscure cases or getting all your noun cases 100% correct, but learning to put verbs at the end of sentences (intuitively) over and over and over again is a tremendous reflex to adapt to and takes the most practice. What German is Hard crew don't realize is you have to practice a lot in conversation to get good, and you do so by taking risks which apparently scares the shit out of them. It's this risk averse, I'm just going to learn it by reading a book attitude that holds them back. Oh no, some person talked to me in English! It's over! Stfu and keep talking in German. Plenty of people will play along (except in Zurich where TIL absolutely NO ONE speaks Hochdeutsch not a single soul.) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579338) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 10:44 AM Author: Frum house gaming laptop Totally agree. The noun declension actually comes fairly naturally because it exists in English to some extent. It just always takes me a while to get into the mode of thinking in German so I’m not just trying to translate one for one English to German which never works given the modal verbs etc. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579382) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 10:48 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone You gotta get into dat rhythm. Forcing yourself to speak it is the only way to learn. That's why these academics haven't made any progress because they haven't put themselves out there. It's so obvious. Imagine studying something academically for years with no practicum and then you come here and tell everyone it's impossible. They think of it like it's Ancient Greek. No, you can actually go up to people who speak it every day and have a conversation. The haters are just mad they have approach anxiety. That's all this is about. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579388) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 10:51 AM Author: Frum house gaming laptop Right, language is a basic everyday life tool. It should be obvious that it isn’t some academic exercise until much later once you already are fluent (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579392) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 11:15 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579413) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 8:05 AM Author: honey-headed ungodly tanning salon mad-dog skullcap This is such a painfully stupid take on our position.
Your comment above about Zurich was so ignorant and off base that I've just ignored this thread.
The question was never whether you could get one German speaker to have a conversation with you on a topic of your choice. Congrats bro you're fluent. Halts maul |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 9:26 AM Author: marvelous flesh telephone If not in Zurich where else in Switzerland do they speak Hochdeutsch?
Also I'm not fluent I'm just not terrible. Hth |
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Date: April 12th, 2024 7:54 PM Author: Sapphire Underhanded Station (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578474) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 12:11 AM Author: Big Maize Famous Landscape Painting Watching Babylon Berlin has helped, too bad Netflix yanked it. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47578945) |
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Date: April 13th, 2024 10:59 AM Author: free-loading faggotry parlour Alternate title: "hatp blown out by 161 LSAT Chad" (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5514049&forum_id=2Reputation#47579404) |