Posted on 04/02/2024 10:05:48 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
You just can not trust anything they say.
das Geburtstagsgeschenk (Geburt + Tag + Geschenk)
birthday present (birth + day + present)
Kind of a dumb, sensationalist way to say that English has a lot of French loan words. We already knew that.
One of the reasons I found French so easy to learn was that we share so much vocabulary. Often, it’s only necessary to learn the French pronunciation of a word to know it in French.
reasons = raisons
vocabulary = vocabulaire
pronunciation = prononciation
Etc.
I gave up on trying to learn any more European languages since they just aren’t a challenge. I’ve decided to try Korean, instead. It turned out harder than I anticipated, not just because its vocabulary is drastically different, but because of the alphabet. And the grammar is different than its European counterparts.
You seem to be on to something. YouTube videos should market themselves this way.
Perhaps I should have said: if you were a peasant tending an animal, you tended to use a Germanic (or German-derived) word, but if you were a higher-class person eating an animal, you tended to use a French (or French-derived) word...
The truth is that French does not exist. It’s just badly pronounced Latin.
Is it?
Wee.
The reverse actually, since German predates English.
A Germanic base, with lots and lots of French and Latin-based loan words.
There’s a scene in Ivanhoe (set during the Norman conquest) that makes light of this. The common Germanic words were still used for animals when they were alive (cow, pig, deer, chicken), but once the animals died they were elevated to noble Norman/Latin titles (boeuf, porc, venison, poultry).
I believe that's true for all the Romance languages.
No. It’s poorly spelled Latin.
After taking two six-week immersion courses at Spangdahlem AB, I was sent TDY to Todendorf, a German AA range on the North Sea. We were the only Americans for 200 miles. Although I was assigned an interpreter, the German Base Commander told me , “LT, you can ditch your interpreter, your German is just fine.”
I lived in Trarben-Trarbach for 4 years. I spoke mostly German off base. My best friend was living with his future wife, and we all spoke German in her presence. When I visited them in Virginia last summer, I heard her speak English for the very first time. It had been 40+ years since our days in Germany.
The English spoken by people from India is almost incomprehensible.
Was but has been dropped
The longest German word that is not created artificially as a longest-word record seems to be Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz at 63 letters. The word means “law delegating beef label monitoring” but as of 2013, it was removed from the books because European Union regulations have changed and that particular law became obsolete, leading to news reports that Germany “had lost its longest word”.
In 1940, Churchill called an emergency wartime meeting in France with the government as German troops were breaking through and France was in a panic. As the meeting opened around a conference table, Churchill, as a sign of sincerity and respect, directly addressed the leaders of France.
After a moment of puzzled looks, a French minister whispered to the British ambassador, "What language is Monsieur Churchill speaking?" The British ambassador replied, "I am sure that the Prime Minister believes that he is speaking French. I get your point."
The British Ambassador then interrupted Churchill and suggested that each side use their own language and let it be translated so that a complete record could be made by the note takers in both languages for the sake of history. Churchill grumbled that was fine by him and proceeded after that in English -- to the relief of all.
Meh - my English predates my German...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.