Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter: Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape — but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it. ( Log Out /  See how it looks in print — I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books: To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female — tomcats included, of course; a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it — for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else. Ehrgeiz vielleicht noch, ja sogar Neid. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. He also wrote the amusingly literal translation that you see below. But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look and sound between words which have no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the foreigner. Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Also the reparenthesis, the re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-inclosing king-parenthesis. 3. I couldn’t stop laughing when I started to read it so I thought I must buy a copy for myself. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake the name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of time trying to dig a meaning out of it. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. Repetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse. One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Now here is a sentence from a popular and excellent German novel — which a slight parenthesis in it. The Dative case is but an ornamental folly — it is better to discard it. Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not — which is unfortunate. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. This is why we present the ebook compilations in this website. The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the right one. I wish to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration: “In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno’clock Night, the inthistownstandingtavern called `The Wagoner’ was downburnt. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine. Armed just with these two, and the word also, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish? He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said… A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to the book. There’s a problem loading this menu at the moment. One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them. You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range — you only cripple it. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! The various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious and harassing business. Das englische Original wurde zuerst in der Anthologie A Tramp Abroad als Annex D veröffentlicht. Amazon Restaurants Food delivery from local restaurants. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English: “The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself,PARTED.”. I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion. But far before this virtue stands another — that of spelling a word according to the sound of it. — In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient — a North German from near Hamburg; but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. A writer’s ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counselor’s wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching people and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the woman’s dress. It will very squander the time. I have worked at it hard for three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase — `Zwei Glas‘” (two glasses of beer). Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos out of that picture — indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. The Awful German Language. Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a Schlacht? To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. “Verdammt,” and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the sounds are so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. “Freundschaftsbezeigungen” seems to be “Friendship demonstrations,” which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying “demonstrations of friendship.” “Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen” seems to be “Independencedeclarations,” which is no improvement upon “Declarations of Independence,” so far as I can see. Was ist für Sie das Schwierigste am Deutschlernen. This item is dated away back yonder months ago. As of this writing, Library Genesis indexes close to 3 million ebooks and 60 million articles. Discover Prime Book Box for Kids. Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade his tongue to refer to things as “he” and “she,” and “him” and “her,” which it has been always accustomed to refer to it as “it.” When he even frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the right places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it is no use — the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and all those labored males and females come out as “its.” And even when he is reading German to himself, he always calls those things “it,” where as he ought to read in this way: 2. Gott!” “Mein Gott!” “Gott in Himmel!” “Herr Gott” “Der Herr Jesus!” etc. This is an extremely easy means to … and this will give him a moment’s chance to think of the needful word. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. The Awful German Language A little learning makes the whole world kin.— Proverbs xxxii, 7.I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a man’s signature — not necessary, but pretty. Ungeordnet und unsystematisch sei sie, schlüpfrig, ganz und gar unfassbar - jene schreckliche deutsche Sprache, über die der große Mark Twain sich in seinem gleichnamigen Essay auf ebenso spitzfindige wie treffsichere Weise ereifert. Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does not mean — when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet. I have heard of an American student who was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered promptly: “I am not getting along at all. A German speaks of an Englishman as the Engländer; to change the sex, he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman — Engländerinn. There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state. Ich selbst liebe die schreckliche deutsche Sprache sehr. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest itself caught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-stork into the Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread.”. Ich wusste nicht, dass Mark Twain versuchte, Deutsch zu lernen. Every time a German opens his mouth an also falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to get out. Credit offered by NewDay Ltd, over 18s only, subject to status. A brilliantly insightful essay by our own Samuel Clemens on the inner workings of the German language. The capitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. I would require every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Therefore, it is either der(the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. It’s amazing, just how much he got right! [1]. Our descriptive words of this character have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. A favorite one is reiste ab — which means departed. Buy Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache the a by Twain, Mark (ISBN: 8601416185408) from Amazon's Book Store. In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. “The Awful German Language” is an essay by Mark Twain published as Appendix D in A On October 31, , Twain delivered a lecture titled “Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache” (“The Horrors of the German Language” in English). We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel. Yeah, every day someone create a new compound and you can never look them up in the dictionary but theiy’re so typisch Deutsch. We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may see cases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the mark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas with the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen and of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog which stands for clearness among these people. — I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was an “exception” which permits one to say “wegen den Regen” in certain peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not extended to anything but rain. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize the first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable. The sad event has cast a gloom over the whole community. One cannot overestimate the usefulness of Schlag and Zug. “Also!” If I had not shown that the German is a difficult language, I have at least intended to do so. But these little instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal German system of piling jumbled compounds together. So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye. Er schlug seine ganz eigene Reform der Sprache vor und läßt diejenigen, die diese Sprache lieben, aber ihre Fallstricke kennen, mehrfach laut auflachen. This was the word Damit. [4], 4. I begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife’s Foot — she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck — he goes; now its Chin — it goes; now its Nose — she goes.