frenzy's langblr bloggy

schießen -> to shoot | erschießen -> to shoot to death

würgen -> to choke | erwürgen -> to choke someone to death

stechen -> to sting | erstechen -> to stab to death

schlagen -> to hit | erschlagen -> slay (also: overwhelm)

drücken -> to press | erdrücken -> to crush

"Ich habe deine Mutter nicht getötet" - Doch!

"Ich habe nicht gelogen" - Doch!

"Du wolltest doch nicht mitkommen" - Doch!

Doch has many meanings, among the best is used above. Duden calls this usage:

"als gegensätzliche Antwort auf eine negativ formulierte Aussage oder Frage in Konkurrenz zu „ja“ bei einer positiv formulierten Frage und in Opposition zu „nein“"

(as contrary answer to a negative statement or question..."

So what does "Doch" mean here?

You say doch when someone makes a negated claim (I didn't kill your mother; i didn't lie; you didn't want to come with) and you want to say that in fact they DID/you DID

-> it's negating a negated statement/question

Doch can also be used in different ways (though not as fun):

"Es wird doch nichts passiert sein?" -> strengthens the question, similar to "surely...?"

"Das ist doch nur dumm!" -> fortifies unhappiness or frustration in a Statement/question, similar to "straight up, simply..."

"Ihr kommt doch heute Abend?" -> fortifies hope in a statement/question, like "you ARE coming, RIGHT?"

(you tell the two apart by overall mood of the person speaking)

"Wie ging der Text doch gleich?" -> implies the person knows the thing they ask about but can't recall at the moment

while death from laughter is physically possible, it's not a very frequent occurrence. so why laughter? laughing doesn't feel like dying? is it just the 'split your sides laughing' metaphor developed further? ('I'm dead' can also mean 'exhausted', but that one is more intuitive) it's fascinating how it occurs in multiple languages, despite being seemingly unapparent.

Yesterday I found the site LingoHut (link).

LingoHut is a completely free website to learn languages, no account needed! They have soooo many languages too! Fifty, even!

The lessons and website are pretty basic but they seem like a great starting point so long as you have the writing system down already -- I tried Hebrew and there were no alphabet lessons, just straight into beginner phrases.

It uses a flash card system to teach, including a few mini games like tic-tac-toe and short quizzes. You can record yourself speaking and compare your recording with the professional audio.

that are not primarily about language learning

mademyday - jokes, often interactions between people

jodel (any acc with "Jode" in them) - posts taken from the uni-student app Jodel, in which students share (funny) stories, similar to mademyday

tagesschau - german news

zfd-info - public german broadcaster

elhotzo - their own posts from twitter posted on instagram, they joke about social conventions and criticize (German) politics

bestofkleinanzeigen1 - posting funny/stupid interactions from eBay, Quoka etc (places similar to craigslist)

twitterperlen - best german twitterposts of the day

notesofgermany - photos of notes people left for others in public

Hyplern

Language Crush

Readlang

Vocab Tracker