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The Coffee Shop

  • Thread starter The Fallen Angel
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In book 6 (I had to read that too) Aeneas meets her in the underworld and tries with typical male clumsiness and insensitivity to apologise for buggering off when Mercury told him to, but she turns away from him and goes to join her first husband, who'd at least remained faithful till he died.


What do you expect the man to do? When a god A GOD! tells you to go, you go. Most of the myths are about the horrible things the Gods did to people who ignored their orders! Remember, "Sum pius Aeneas" Anyway, Dido was a consenting adult.
 
For German ears, Eichhörnchen sounds obviously like the combination of "Eich" and "Hörnchen" with Eich being for the Eich/Eicheln (oak/acorns), and Hörnchen (literally a diminutive of Horn, like 'hornlet') well then is assumed to be a genus of rodent. Today the German language knows dozens of hörnchens but etymologically this is appears a false conclusion ... there never was a horn-like sounding old German word for a rodent.
Aha - Old English āc-weorna was a squirrel, that would be cognate with aik-wernan > Eichhorn. There was apparently a Proto-Indo-European root werwer- meaning 'squirrel' from which those would be derived, as would Latin viverra, Russian vevirca, Scottish Gaelic feorag, etc.
I cannot follow any of this wordy stuff. I did hear that Germans find it extremely difficult to say squirrel as it is pronounced in English?
 
There's something I've been wondering lately. Is it just me or that the forum has become less active for the past few months?

I joined the community earlier this year and I've developed a habit of refreshing the website frequently while I'm at work. (I work from home nowadays and spend most of the day in front of my PC, with CF permanently open in one of the tabs on my browser.)

I feel like I'm seeing new posts less frequently nowadays compared to how it was a few months ago. Is it just my perception which has changed, or the website actually became quieter for some reason?

I think posts come in waves. Like a virus.
(Oh, sorry. Too soon?)
 
I cannot follow any of this wordy stuff. I did hear that Germans find it extremely difficult to say squirrel as it is pronounced in English?
Yes, we do. I still do not know if I should speak a "German" i in squirrel or rather a "ö" like "squörrel".
(Because of the similarity for Germans comparing "Sir" and "Squirrel", so the most would say "Sör Squörrel", I think.)
But there are problems in every language for everyone.

I never heard a native English speaker correctly pronouncing the Bavarian city of "Garmisch-Partenkirchen" at first trial and Bavarian is not easy for the most Germans, not even to identify the words, e.g. "Oachkatzlschwoaf" is the bushy tail = "Schweif" of a Bavarian spoken squirrel = "Eichkatze"!

And there once was a Bavarian movie with the "funny" title "Rama dama" which meant "(auf)räumen tun wir" = "Cleaning up doing we are" concerning the time after WW II.
The correct sentence in "high German" would be: "Wir räumen auf." So, this sounded even for Germans like a Yoda sentence from "Star Wars", but it really was a Bavarian saying.
 
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I still do not know if I should speak a "German" i in squirrel or rather a "ö" like "squörrel"
If there is anything German in it, it's probably wrong...

... but I'm not going to get in, umm ... a quarrel about how to say squirrel ;)

(Eichhörnchen is not exactly easy on our anglophone friends either)

I think posts come in waves. Like a virus.
(Oh, sorry. Too soon?)
I've already written something called 'It comes in waves' about a virus that infects body and mind and nobody complained, so certainly not too soon!
 
Concerning virus-waves:

Since yesterday, there is a new German smartphone app for controlling the spread of the virus ready to download for Android- and Apple-Smartphones, established by the German government and the Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI) with the best German virologists. About 6 million Germans downloaded it in only 24 hours.

This "Corona-Warn-App" checks other surrounding connected smartphones every 15 minutes and if there is someone near who confirmed to be infected, e.g. on the way to the hospital or at home in quarantine, it will inform absolutely anonymously you and the RKI about an active case in the near. The reason for this app is to find out the ways how this virus spreads when, where, how and to whom and to identify the ways of possible infections.

The German technicians think, this is one of the best corona apps in the world at this moment and it is planned to connect it as soon as possible with similar apps from other countries around Germany and governments in Central-Europe, for example Denmark, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Poland. It could be difficult with France, because the French system is completely different (as always), but the government technicians in France and Germany are said to be working on this problem soon.

More informations in German language here:


 
There's something I've been wondering lately. Is it just me or that the forum has become less active for the past few months?

I joined the community earlier this year and I've developed a habit of refreshing the website frequently while I'm at work. (I work from home nowadays and spend most of the day in front of my PC, with CF permanently open in one of the tabs on my browser.)

I feel like I'm seeing new posts less frequently nowadays compared to how it was a few months ago. Is it just my perception which has changed, or the website actually became quieter for some reason?

Being active for over 5 years now, I sometimes have such an impression too, but over a longer time, say, the last 18 months. Particularly Friday evenings and weekends seem quieter.
But like I say, it is an impression. There seem to be calmer days and days with more activity.
There are also the individual preferences. I do not follow all threads, because of lack of time, or because they do not draw my attention. So I do not have the whole picture.


I guess, we would need a lot of long time statistics to get anything making sense about that -or that it is just a perception.
 
Yes, we do. I still do not know if I should speak a "German" i in squirrel or rather a "ö" like "squörrel".
(Because of the similarity for Germans comparing "Sir" and "Squirrel", so the most would say "Sör Squörrel", I think.)
But there are problems in every language for everyone.

I never heard a native English speaker correctly pronouncing the Bavarian city of "Garmisch-Partenkirchen" at first trial and Bavarian is not easy for the most Germans, not even to identify the words, e.g. "Oachkatzlschwoaf" is the bushy tail = "Schweif" of a Bavarian spoken squirrel = "Eichkatze"!

And there once was a Bavarian movie with the "funny" title "Rama dama" which meant "(auf)räumen tun wir" = "Cleaning up doing we are" concerning the time after WW II.
The correct sentence in "high German" would be: "Wir räumen auf." So, this sounded even for Germans like a Yoda sentence from "Star Wars", but it really was a Bavarian saying.

If the Germans were to use an American slang term, they'd call squirrels Baumratten.
 
I never heard a native English speaker correctly pronouncing the Bavarian city of "Garmisch-Partenkirchen" at first trial and Bavarian is not easy for the most Germans, not even to identify the words, e.g. "Oachkatzlschwoaf" is the bushy tail = "Schweif" of a Bavarian spoken squirrel = "Eichkatze"!
I don’t know anything about the German language, so let’s just say that I have much respect for the Germans for being capable of spelling such words like "Oachkatzlschwoaf" :)
 
Mhm, we Germans are usually lucky enough NOT to have to spell words like "Oachkatzlschwoaf" because these are dialect words which are usually only written by dialect experts.

But there are dialects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland of which the several - more "high German" speaking - neighbours or neighboring countries always are making fun of.
For example, the Austrians and Germans are sometimes saying about the Swiss-German dialect:
"This 'Schwyzerdütsch' is not really German; this must once have been a collective illness of the throat or the larynx of the Swiss!"

And there is this famous musical rock band "BAP" in Cologne, which made fantastic and political music for decades, but only in the dialect of Cologne which is really hard to understand. So, there were always jokes in Germany about a coming sensation next year:
- "Did you hear about the sensational plans of BAP for next year?"
- "No, what will they do?"
- "They will make their very first song in German!"

One of the best songs of BAP:

Oh, there are really international web sites which are translating this dialect into "High German" like from a foreign country and this is the really wonderful philosophical text in "Hochdeutsch":

VERDAMP LANG HER SONGTEXT

Translation into High German

Verdammt lange her, dass ich fast alles ernst nahm.
Verdammt lange her, dass ich an etwas geglaubt.
Und dann der Schock, wie es anders auf mich zukam.
Merkwürdig, wo so mancher Hase langläuft.
Nicht resigniert, nur reichlich desillusioniert
- ein bisschen was hab ich kapiert.

Wer alles, wenn es bei dir klappt, hinter dir her rennt,
deine Schulter klopft, wer dich nicht alles hofiert,
sich ohne rot zu werden deinen Freund nennt
und dich Tags drauf ganz einfach ignoriert.

Es ist lange her, dass ich vor so etwas ratlos stand
und vor Enttäuschung echt nicht mehr konnte.

Ich weiss noch, wie ich nur davon geträumt habe,
wovon ich nicht wusste, wie ich es suchen sollte.
Vor lauter Sucherei das Finden glatt versäumt habe
und überhaupt, was ich wo finden wollte.

Ein Kopf voll Nichts, nur die paar instinktiven Tricks
- es dauert lange, bis du durchblickst.

Das war die Zeit, wo ich noch nicht einmal Pech hatte,
noch nicht einmal das, ich hatte sie nicht einmal satt.

Hier war John Steinbeck, da stand Joseph Conrad.

Dazwischen ich - nur relativ schachmatt.
Es ist ein paar Jahre her, doch die Erinnerung fällt nicht schwer.
Heute kommt es mir vor, als wenn es gestern wäre.

Verdammt lange her!

Fragst mich, wann ich zuletzt ein Bild gemalt habe,
ob mir ein Lied tatsächlich jetzt genügt,
ob ich jetzt da bin, wo ich hingewollt habe,
ob mir meine Farbe auf diese Weise nicht vertrocknet.

Ich glaube, ich weiss: Ob du nun laut malst oder leise;
es kommt nur drauf an, dass du es tust.

Verdammt lange her, dass ich bei dir am Grab war.
Verdammt lange her, dass wir gesprochen haben,
und dass vom einen auch etwas beim anderen ankam,
so lange, dass ich mich kaum erinnern kann.

Hast fest geglaubt, dass jemand im Himmel auf dich wartet.
"Ich gönne es dir", habe ich gesagt.
 
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I still do not know if I should speak a "German" i in squirrel or rather a "ö" like "squörrel".
It’s [ɪ], with tongue in about the same position as for [ö], but lips unrounded. But I’m sure either would be very acceptable.

‘Squirrel’ only came into English with the Normans, esquirel - modern French écureuil, which most English speakers, and Germans probably too, would have problems with, rolling that velar ‘r’ – but it sounds much sexier than ‘squirrel’ or ‘Eichhörnchen’.
 
It’s [ɪ], with tongue in about the same position as for [ö], but lips unrounded. But I’m sure either would be very acceptable.

‘Squirrel’ only came into English with the Normans, esquirel - modern French écureuil, which most English speakers, and Germans probably too, would have problems with, rolling that velar ‘r’ – but it sounds much sexier than ‘squirrel’ or ‘Eichhörnchen’.

Oh yes, écureuil is really difficult to speak for Germans, if you only try to imagine how this word would be written in German letters: "ehkühröiih" (ouch, that even hurts my eyes although it sounds nice for me!). But "Eichhörnchen" is also nice for me because of its connotations: The "-chen" makes it small and sweet in my imagination and it sounds a bit like children talking German in my mind. It sounds "sweet" for Germans.

French is sometimes really hard for Germans because the intonation and the melody of French is very different for Germans. For example, I always had problems with the French version for "UFO = unidentified flying objects". In French it is "OVNI": "objet volant non-identifié". Are you as native English speakers able to speak this fluent in French at first trial?
I always need one trial until it is fluent ...
English is much more familiar for Germans because of so many similarities, e.g. in German it is also UFO (= "unidentifiziertes fliegendes Objekt").
 
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In French it is "OVNI": "objet volant non-identifié". Are you as native English speakers able to speak this fluent in French at first trial?
Saying 'ovni' as a single word? It's not too tricky in terms of English phonetics, though we tend to stress the first syllable, rather than the last, and we don't get the tips of our tongues in the right place for the dental [n] and high front .
 
"UFO = unidentified flying objects". In French it is "OVNI": "objet volant non-identifié". Are you as native English speakers able to speak this fluent in French at first trial?
Well at least the people inside the OVNIs and UFOs hopefully do not have these problems; what with running a galactic empire they must have the babelfish, or brainwave converters, or something.

Of course in the movies the star-man will always step out of the saucer and say 'Take me to your leader' in English ;)
 
Well at least the people inside the OVNIs and UFOs hopefully do not have these problems; what with running a galactic empire they must have the babelfish, or brainwave converters, or something.

Of course in the movies the star-man will always step out of the saucer and say 'Take me to your leader' in English ;)

Heh some of us watch anime and there all the aliens speak Japanese (also supposedly English characters who should speak in received pronunciation really, really don't).
 
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