I have an infinitesimal, Lilliputian, teensy-weensy vocabulary and culpability is not mine. When I was littler and I was learning words, there was just too many words to learn. Because of this, I became massively confused and the rest, as they say is confined to the annals of history. Last night, I sat down with my thoughts and decided to remedy the situation. Language was the problem so I decided to learn a different language and that different language was German. Its early days yet but already, I’m liking what I’m seeing:
Could you tell me if the last example the same word for both your wife and your girlfriend/mistress? Danke!
Well I’ve only learned one word so far but I think the “?” at the end of the word is more hopeful than anything else!
Die Deutschen sind effiziente Leute.
(Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I lived in Germany for two years, so I actually learned the language!)
They certainly are but if I had of known they had more than one word in their language, I don’t think I would have taken it on so easily!
When I hear that language I always feel like I need to perform a Heimlich Manuever on the speaker.
When I was supposed to be growing up, German was known as the “business language” and we were encouraged to learn it in college. I passed on that but for some weird reason, I learned to speak to people as if I was speaking in that language. I learned that It doesn’t really matter what you’re saying and that if you can say it in an authoritative way, you’ll be okay! I promise you that that’s about as serious as you’ll ever hear from me!
The Germans think they are so cool having one word for everything! I’ve been to Austria and let me not tell you, saying Bitte doesn’t get you everywhere, but it does get you free beers in some places!
I’m not sure if you guys ever got “Fawlty Towers” over there. If not, it’s a classic sit-com from the 70s with John Cleese. There’s an episode called ‘The Germans” and it’s one of the funniest things ever.
It’s like those Germans have a word for everything
… and if they don’t have one, they just take two existing words, put them together and form a new one!
Either that, or they just import a word from another language, like French.
Now I’ve been known to make up things myself!
How cool is it to have the same word for everything?