Here’s one with “mit dir” at the end
The way the course introduces blocks somehow leads to odd word orders, but usually, if it shows a complete sentence (with the dot at the end, like in this case), the word order tends to be more reliable.
But all in all, the word order is kind of flexible, so there are many permutations that would still sound natural, and even the ones that wouldn’t sound natural are still understandable. (And once you listen to a few native speakers, you’ll absorb the natural sounding orders)
Understood, as long as the inconsistencies in gerne appearing/not appearing are part of the plan and not faults in the software!
My only worry is, is that because the SSIW method is so good and the patterns stick so easily in your brain that it might actually teach people incorrect/undesirable/unnatural patterns… especially at the early stages when maybe they are not exposed to native speakers.
I’m a bit worried about the same thing, considering how every single word from the Welsh course is so permanently stuck in my memory!
However for the German language, I’ve realized that word order changes at the moment - so probably a bit more confusing, but I’m just going with the flow and probably once it stops practising very short random bits everything will be clearer. Or I hope so!
Sometimes the English prompt is just weird, matching the actual correct German order - which of course is easier!
Sometimes it doesn’t, so I go with my best guess.
@Cetra when the male voice says können or lernen I can’t really hear the final “en” - but I was just assuming it may happen with real people as well, depending on one’s accent, so I just carried on!
One question:
there’s a “remember yourself” series where the written German sentence don’t always appear on my app.
I already tend to mix German with Welsh so it’s already quite hard for me to get rid of all the dych, chi and eich poppin’ up in my head right away every time!
But also I can’t really understand what’s they’re saying like what is the German for “You will remember yourself easily soon” (wahtever it may mean…):
I heard something like “du wirst dich leicht yr hunan bald” but I suppose it’s not correct!
Maybe something like “Du wirst dich bald selbst leicht daran erinnern”? I haven’t come across that sentence myself yet in my testings, but that’s probably how I would say that in German.
I can’t get back to that same sentence and don’t know if/when it will appear again so to be able to compare them.
I’d say I’m sure it was “erinnern” then!
Although I really can’t remember hearing “selbst” and “daran”, but I’ll pay attention next time - thanks!
Edit: it just appeared again and now I’m sure it was “du wirst dich leicht erinnern bald”.
In shorter bits especially, rather than longer sentences, sometimes one of the voices seems to change tone and/or say something different, or completely unintelligible (also In the French course, but I didn’t have the chance to write notes with that).
When the female voice says nicht I sometimes hear it as just “nih”, while for “you wanted” (or was it you will…sorry can’t remember and can’t rewind) the male voice says just strange noises.
For “how long”, the female voice says “wie lange” but male voice seems to say only “wie lan” folowed a sort of click sound.
And the male voice also seems to add some extra syllable, sometimes before “wolltest du nicht”
Just the one I remember. The written sentence are often off sync or missing on the app, too.
The random word order must be a bug! I’ve just come across the same thing happening in the English:
While intelligible, it just won’t do!
Is this correct? Do you speak german with yourself = sprichst du deutsch mit dir?
For the English mirroring the German structure there was Kai’s explanation, somewhere in this thread, if you scroll up about 90 comments!
When “und” is introduced for the first time, the male voice just makes an odd noise!
Thanks Gisella! May take away from that message is:
because sometimes the word order matches and sometimes it doesn’t for the same phrase. Hopefully, the next version can be consistent!
When “mit mir” is introduced for the first time the female voice is unclear.
“me” was presented and translated as “mir” up to a certain point.
Then as “mich” for a while, then “mir” again.
Maybe “mir” is after “mit”.
While “mich” maybe actually means "to me"all in one word (at least, that’s how it was used in the sentence paired with “fragen”)?
But “dich” didn’t mean “to you”, just “yourself” when paired with “Erinnerrn”, it seemed.
Maybe it will get clearer after a few more examples, but at the moment it’s as confusing as words changing place in the sentence all the time.
Well, the ugly truth is that “me” can be mir or mich, depending on the preposition or the verb.
But just as you learned mutations in Welsh simply by being exposed to different patterns, you will soon develop a “feeling” for which form is right in which context.
(If you want to go deeper, there is of course a grammatical reason at work here, but just as a wrong mutation usually doesn’t render the sentence unintelligible in Welsh, the same goes for mixing up “mir” and “mich” – or “dir” and “dich” – in German.)
Well although it certainly doesn’t seem so , I did classic German lessons, starting from grammar when I was at school.
The result is that I can’t put together even simple sentences and I can’t even remember the most basic things like these at all.
I think that quite a few people in Wales had a similar experience with Welsh.
So, alright, Hendrik, thanks for reminding me to stop trying to figure things out, and just let the system work as it did for Welsh - or at least I hope so.
I just came across a slight mistranslation that could be confusing in the long run… the english prompt was “You really wanted to speak with me” and the German given was “Du wolltest sehr mit mir sprechen”.
The problem is that “sehr” was introduced earlier as an intensifier mapping to the English “very much” (which is completely fine), so basically the German sentence here translated back would be “You wanted very much to speak with me.”
It would be more robust to translate “really” with wirklich, so the German sentence should be “Du wolltest wirklich mit mir sprechen.”
In this case the difference in meaning isn’t huge, but if you look at a sentence like for example “Do you really want to go now?”, you absolutely have to use wirklich: “Willst du jetzt wirklich gehen?”
It’s an interesting question. I hope you don’t mind if I share a different opinion (feel free to tell me to butt out). I think this is an English problem (i.e. “really” having two different meanings) rather than a translation problem. FWIW my personal experience with this kind of thing as a teacher (of English only) and as a learner is that that any confusion tends to depend on whether there is enough practice of the other meaning using “wirklich”.
We’re all intuitively aware that “really” has two different meanings in modern English (“Mary kinda likes Bob.” “No, Mary REALLY likes Bob!” versus “Mary is pretending to like Bob.” “No, Mary REALLY likes Bob.”) The context in the sentence in the course strongly favours an interpretation where “really” has that first meaning of “very much” rather than the (less common!) meaning where it means “truly” or “genuinely”, so I honestly think that iff enough practice of “wirklich” is given elsewhere, learners will figure it out. Have they introduced “wirklich” yet?
I might be wrong about this, it’s just my opinion. It’s certainly an interesting question.