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FAO: German speakers.

Hellooo, German speaker,

I've been teaching myself German for the past weeks (barely on Present Tense: e, en, st,t, t, en;yes yes, I'm slow), and I came across the word "weg;"

My questions is: is the word's pronunciation "vek" or "veeg" or "veek?" I know if a vowel is followed by "1" consonant, it's long; and short if it's followed by "2;" am I right about that?

BUT! I went to www.forvo.com for the pronunciation and I was given two pronunciations, both of which are the first two I mentioned. Is the word pronounced just one way, or is it interchangable?

And the same question for the verb "gehen" in the third person/second person plural, "Geht." Is it pronounced "Geet" or "Geyt."

Realllly appreciate an answer!

vek

get (with a "e" a bit longer than the English pronunciation of "get")

quote:

Originally posted by d-miurge vek get (with a "e" a bit longer than the English pronunciation of "get")

Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by d-miurge vek get (with a "e" a bit longer than the English pronunciation of "get")

quote:

Originally posted by R.j. Thanks!

As long as you don't teach yourself to understand Tokio Hotel's lyrics it's ok.

Weg has a short vowel when it means "away" and a long vowel when it means "way": that's why you were given two pronunciations.

(I may have mixed up the meanings, but you get the idea)

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Weg has a short vowel when it means "away" and a long vowel when it means "way": that's why you were given two pronunciations. (I may have mixed up the meanings, but you get the idea)

Ah! So the confusion begins. I read about this sort of thing in Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language." I kind of see his essay as a sort of primer.

quote:

Originally posted by R.j. Ah! So the confusion begins. I read about this sort of thing in Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language." I kind of see his essay as a sort of primer.

Nah, German is not that hard. I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with stress (nouns tends to have the main stress in languages such as German/English), and writing systems are far from perfect in any language.

If you can write in English, the writing (with the Latin Alphabet) of most other languages must be a piece of cake

quote:

Originally posted by R.j. Ah! So the confusion begins.

Lira is right, of course. But it's easy to tell the two apart, since "der Weg" (the way) is written with a capital W.

meine name ist Shutthefuckup. ich liebe sranz-muzik. ja ja ja

i used to study Deutsch a long time ago. then I gave up

So if you're talking about 'which way' you'd pronounce it 'veyg' instead of 'vek'..


Welcher Weg soll Ich gehen. (which way should i go)
Ich gehe weg heute. (I'm going away today)


Probably have mistakes in there. It's been 14 years since i lived in germany.

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly So if you're talking about 'which way' you'd pronounce it 'veyg' instead of 'vek'..

Correct, except for...

quote:

Welchen Weg soll ich gehen? (which way should i go) Ich gehe heute weg. (I'm going away today)

Fixed.

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly Ich gehe weg heute. (I'm going away today)

TMP
time,manner,place

order with adverbs

when i studied german in school they made us come up with stupid mnemonics to remember that

eg

Trance
Music
Pussy

I read about that TPM thing too, nefardec, but it seems native speakers don't really care if you change the order of the adverbs in German. Meat187, for example, corrected the way n3lly declined the word "which", but he didn't mind the fact that the adverbs were all scrambled... apparently. In English, I don't think a native speaker wouldn't feel the urge to correct a sentence like "I'm going today away" to "I'm going away today". Am I mistaken?

I know that I wouldn't correct a foreigner that said "Eu vou hoje embora", even though "Eu vou embora hoje" is the least marked form I can think of (i.e. the more neutral form - in "Eu vou hoje embora", it seems you're stressing that you're going away today (hoje)). As a matter of fact, I'd imagine he'd have done it on purpose, which reminds me of something else: I think I did post a thread about it last year, and we kind of came to the conclusion that the order of the adverbs was just a matter of focus in German, and all scrambled forms seemed equally acceptable (despite the different nuances in meaning).

quote:

Originally posted by Frenkieee

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec TMP time,manner,place order with adverbs when i studied german in school they made us come up with stupid mnemonics to remember that eg Trance Music Pussy

haha, i'll remember that one

quote:

Originally posted by Lira but he didn't mind the fact that the adverbs were all scrambled... apparently.

What do you mean?

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 What do you mean?

Let's suppose I asked you "Was machst du?", and you were reading a book. You could answer me in a variety of ways, including:

Ich lese ein Buch.
Lese ich ein Buch.
Ein Buch lese ich.
Ich ein Buch lese.

I'm willing to bet you'd probably reply "Ich lese ein buch", as German (in this context) is what we'd call a SVO language (much like English, Chinese, and Portuguese). The other options may turn out to be grammatically possible, but they'd be used in much more specific contexts ("Ein buch lese ich" would make more sense as a reply to "Was lest du?", for example).

Just like you've got a "more natural" word order when it comes to subject, verb, and object, languages may also distribute the additional information in a variety of ways. Let's now suppose I asked you "Wo fahrst du hin?", and you wanted to be very specific about your answer: how would you reply?

Ich fahre nach M�nchen mit dem Auto heute.
Ich fahre heute mit dem Auto nach M�nchen.
Ich fahre nach M�nchen heute mit dem Auto.
Ich fahre heute nach M�nchen mit dem Auto.

One of these sentences probably sound more natural to you than all the others. What I believe nefardec said is that it must be "Ich fahre heute mit dem Auto nach M�nchen", and that you'd probably find the other sentences clumsy (or downright unacceptable), because that's how German is taught to foreigners. First you said when (today - TIME), how (by car - MANNER), and where to (to Munich - PLACE). English tends to order this additional information backwards, when compared to German, according to this categorisation: I drive to Munich (place) by car (manner) today (time).

What do you, as a native speaker, sink about it?

It's D!

Ich fahre heute nach M�nchen mit dem Auto

I think

thats normal german:

quote:

Ich fahre heute mit dem Auto nach M�nchen.

thats also possible, but only if you want to stress that you dont go by train or whatever:

quote:

Ich fahre heute nach M�nchen mit dem Auto.

(but its quite unusual)

the other sentences are pretty much wrong, since "heute" must be placed behind "fahre", or you get typical "foreign german"

this is a normal sentence:

quote:

Ich lese ein Buch.

this would be the question "am i reading a book?"

quote:

Lese ich ein Buch?

(MUST be a question)

as you mentioned, this would be the answer to "was liest du?", and "Buch" is stressed

quote:

Ein Buch lese ich.

that is not allowed to stand alone:

quote:

Ich ein Buch lese.

correct use: du wei�t, dass ich ein buch lese (you know that i read a book)

Indeed, anything but the second version sounds strange. 4th is correct, possibly with a comma after M�nchen, but just not natural.
Never noticed the order was different in English... so maybe I've been doing it wrong all the time, lol.
Do languages have clear rules for this or is it just a matter of accentuation and "what sounds right". That's definitely the way I do it.

quote:

Originally posted by alexf thats normal german: thats also possible, but only if you want to stress that you dont go by train or whatever: (but its quite unusual) the other sentences are pretty much wrong, since "heute" must be placed behind "fahre", or you get typical "foreign german" this is a normal sentence: this would be the question "am i reading a book?" (MUST be a question) as you mentioned, this would be the answer to "was liest du?", and "Buch" is stressed that is not allowed to stand alone: correct use: du wei�t, dass ich ein buch lese (you know that i read a book)

Wow, thanks

Well, you guys are a lot more sensitive to this than I thought you were (because of my previous thread). But, yeah, you confirmed what linguistic typology said (which is what nefardec was talking about).

As for your question, Meat, there are rules to pretty much everything in language... and the most fascinating thing is that languages agree with one another about these rules a lot more frequently then you may think, no matter how distant they are

So wait!

In the case of "Ich gehe jetzt nicht nach Hause," (i think that's correct anyway), what "exact" rules dictate that "jetzt" comes first, rather than "nicht".

Would I be correct in saying that the adverbs (jetzt) always proceed the verb, and that it's just a matter of TMP that obliges the speaker to place the adverbs in the order that TMP entails?

But in the case of:

"Jetzt habt ihr Chemie." (Now you have Chemistry), why does the verb and person become inverted, as they would in a question? I mean, what rule is the sentence following? Or is the sentence gibberish?

quote:

Originally posted by R.j. In the case of "Ich gehe jetzt nicht nach Hause," (i think that's correct anyway), what "exact" rules dictate that "jetzt" comes first, rather than "nicht".

"ich gehe jetzt nicht nach hause" is the normal sentence, meaning "i am not going home now"

"ich gehe nicht jetzt nach hause" is also possible, it stresses the "nicht jetzt", meaning that the person will definitely go later, but not now... its a matter of stressing and the feeling whats right and whats not... pretty hard to tell if the sentence is only written.

similar "Jetzt habt ihr Chemie.", it stresses the "jetzt". the normal sentence would be "ihr habt jetzt chemie". why the word order is different, i dont know... both sentences are totally correct in their context. not gibberish

edit: i see, my post is not very helpful since i cant specify any rules... sorry about that. it's really a mixture of what is grammatically possible and what you are used to hear

edit2: ...and the context. one example: if you talk about what was happening yesterday: "na, was hast du gestern gemacht?" "gestern war ich betrunken..." or more generally "na wie gehts dir?" "nicht gut, ich war gestern betrunken..."

quote:

Originally posted by alexf edit: i see, my post is not very helpful since i cant specify any rules... sorry about that. it's really a mixture of what is grammatically possible and what you are used to hear

That's okay! I ask because the website I'm going to for the rules is really vague. But that's okay, because I plan to get formal teaching in year or so. For now, I just want learn as much as possible.

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