SaySomethingin German

Other Languages
#41

It’s nice and interesting from you to say that. :slight_smile:

[note: sorry in advance, native speakers and German language lovers]
I wish I could perceive it the same way as you do!
German to me sounds a bit too harsh and I haven’t been able to appreciate it fully so far, unfortunately. :grimacing:

Hopefully my perception will change for better, by the end of this course. :wink:

p.s. not sure why the system automatically edited my comment by deleting my quote of the previous post. :woman_shrugging: Anyway I guess it’s clear what it refers too!

#42

Back to the practical questions, and fellow learners tell me if I remember it wrong!

When it presented the verb “to speak” it had “sprechen” as translation.

Now it presented “to learn” an the translation is “zu lernen”

I’m pretty sure that “zu” is very similar to English “to” before verbs.

But is infinite with or without it?

And is “lernen” different for some reason or it’s accidental because of the building blocks, maybe?

(It then proceeds to build “Weil ich versuche zu lernen” - although the female voice was doing pretty weird sounds and didn’t seem to say “versuche”)

#43

This problem is pretty much analogous to the “i or not i”-problem in Welsh, where the presence or absence of the preposition has more to do with the verb before it. The infinitive is always without “zu”: sprechen, lernen, versuchen.
Compare these two sentences:
Ich möchte Deutsch sprechen / lernen. (No “zu”)
Ich versuche, Deutsch zu sprechen / zu lernen.

So it doesn’t matter if it is sprechen or lernen, but what matters is what comes before.

1 Like
#44

Thanks, comparing it to Welsh makes it instantly easy to understand and remember (to those who’ve learnt Welsh before, of course). :slight_smile:

However, speaking of the course in general, I wonder if translation should be consistent for infinite then (without “zu”), and then just add prepositions when they’re presented in a sentence where it is needed…
Edit: after having “lernen” presented as “zu lernen”, when the English says “not to learn” I was going to translate it as “nicht zu lernen”

Also: is there such thing as “present continuous” in German?
Or is it also like Welsh?

#45

German has no present continuous, but there are certain idiomatic ways to express that. I have found this link with further information:

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#46

FWIW, I had a very similar struggle in the Italian course with the infinitive with and without “di”, but (touch wood) it all seems to have worked itself out in my mind. I’m sure it will be the same with this for you. Just bear in mind that the way the app builds up sentences, it sometimes gives incorrect forms in the build-up phase (I had a lot of “voglio di”, for example); but it soon comes back to the right ones and it hasn’t caused me too much confusion so far.

2 Likes
#47

Thanks, I’ll carry on and see how it goes!

However being these all Beta courses, sharing all of our doubts, besides technical glitches and obvious mistakes we might encounter might be useful to improve them. Or at least I guess so!

3 Likes
#48

Okay, I’m going to blast through this and see how far your beta courses get me, because I really want to try some of the other languages, but German is the only one of your beta courses I can practice with a friend. I’ll be back and let you know how it goes!

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#49

Hi @Kai ! I’d love to help with testing for the German course if you need some help. I’ve got a bit of German (somewhere!) :sweat_smile:

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#50

Have you already installed the new “SaySomethingin” app? In there you can simply choose German as the target language from the drop-down menu.
Alternatively you can access all the new languages in the web-based mirror of the new app at the link

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#51

Thanks Hendrik! I’ve got the app on my phone from when I helped with Welsh but its only got Welsh - North and South, or Spanish. Maybe I’ll uninstall and reinstall the app on the phone to see if that refreshes the list… ? But yes, that link you’ve provided works just fine - vielen dank! :heart_eyes:

#52

It sounds like you have the older instance of the app. Reinstalling the same app won’t help, it’s a completely new app, and the icon looks like this:
Screenshot_20250117_181458_One UI Home

2 Likes
#53

Great! Got it, thank you! :heart_eyes:

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#54

Whats the best way to submit any feedback on the German app? Here on the forum?

#55

Yes, right here in this thread.

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#56

Thanks Hendrik! I think when the word können is first introduced that the male voice might be a bit clipped, but I can’t seem to go back to check. :thinking:

#57

And sometimes the phrase 'I would like to be able to speak German" includes gerne but sometimes doesn’t.

#58

The word order is a bit random - this one was said and appeared with “mit dir” at the end of the sentence.
image
(And I think you already know about the other word order inconsistencies in the sections before this).

#59

The “problem” here is that expressions of wanting are usually “toned down” by default in German (especially in the first person), so instead of “I want” you usually wouldn’t say “ich will”, but the more reserved “ich möchte” (which literally translates to “I would like”).
So if in turn you’d want to express “I would like” you’d usually say “Ich möchte gerne”.

It’s one of those things that don’t really make a difference, so either way of saying it is completely fine. (And while some people perceive “ich will” as too demanding and pushy, I personally would never fault a new speaker for using it instead of the more polite forms.)

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#60

I’ve been using the app to revise my almost fifty year old A level German. I’ve forgotten almost all the vocabulary but the grammar is still there.

I’m a aural learner so don’t look at the text but there are a number of occurrences of Deutsch sprechen können mit dir at the end of a clause, which really grate on my ears even after so long.