#bad german

meine deutsch ist nicht sehr gut,,,, ich werde nach deutschland gehen (nächsten monat) i am COOKED it's an exchange trip and so far we have only talked in english 😰😰

i got nearly full marks in my oral mock when I was literally just making it all up (I didn't learn them until the morning of) so I'm hoping that means I'm good enough to cope

deutsch ist ziemlich einfach?? besser als französisch(i had to google the word for french idk if its right) its kinda annoying sometimes but i like it so much more than french i found french SO hard

“What if the ghost doesn’t speak English?” His assistant asked timidly.

“Wot?”

“I mean....what if it was a person from another country? An immigrant or something. It might not understand us.”

Wannabe rolled his eyes. “Ich weiss nicht.”

“Eh?”

“I don’t know!” Wannabe snapped.

The assistant frowned. “Don’t know what?”

“No. ‘I don’t know.’ It’s German.” Wannabe moved down the hall.

“Is what German?” The assistant said. He didn’t see the tendrils of shadow crawling out of the wainscoting, crawling towards his spine.

“Ich weiss nicht,” Wannabe sighed. “It’s German for-,” he turned around and froze. “Gott im Himmel!”

“Who’s Himmel?!?” The assistant cried. Wannabe pointed behind him in terror. The assistant turned and saw a badly burnt man with no eye sockets, just before the man grabbed him by the throat. His jaws stretched out, as if to swallow the assistant whole.

“NEIN!” Wannabe shouted. “Er ist mein freund! Lass ihn gehen, du schweinehund!”

The ghost (for it was indeed one) dropped the assistant, who clunked to the floor. He lay there like a slug: it was his only defense.

The ghost stepped over him. “Was war das?” He demanded, with a dangerous cock of his head.

Wannabe frantically whipped out the wand of his proton pack. “Er...er...ja. Du bits ein schweinehund. Und mein hund hat keine Nase!” His hands shook badly, as he pushed a button and the wand lit up. The ghost was nearly upon him.

“Du sprichst scheisse Deutsch,” it growled. “Dein Seele gehört mir!” It grabbed Wannabe’s throat....

...Just in time for Wannabe to stick the wand in its mouth. The wand gave a shrill buzz, before the ghost blew up into ectoplasm. Chunks flew everywhere. It was like green boogers.

“Are you okay?” Wannabe asked the assistant. He nodded and let Wannabe help him up.

“I guess that’s it for Himmel,” he said, looking around at the mess.

“Yes, well,” Wannabe shook out a kerchief and wiped his face. “No more Jerries here.”

“I thought you said his name was Himmel?”

This one is about an element of English grammar that often gets overlooked or mischaracterized in some over-simplifying instruction.

One of the elements of the Germanic languages, which English shares, is the presence of attributive nouns. That is to say, it allows a noun to directly modify another noun. (Note, the aforementioned over-simplifying English instruction will often refer to these nouns — incorrectly — as adjectives.)

My personal example I like to use is the phrase "a girl scout troop leader uniform skirt." That is, "girl" modifies "scout" to indicate what sort, then the phrase "girl scout" modifies "troop" to indicate what it is a troop of, then "girl scout troop" modifies "leader" to specify what is being lead, then "girl scout troop leader" modifies "uniform" to indicate what kind of uniform, and then that whole thing modifies "skirt" to specify the skirt that is part of such a uniform.

Contrast a Romance language like Spanish, without attributive nouns. Pretty much every one of these would require either a preposition of some kind, or conversion in some manner to a verbal, then participle form. My high school Spanish is rather rusty, but I believe our example phrase translates to something like "una falda de uniforme de líder de tropa de niñas exploradoras" (I've probably omitted a few necessary articles in their somewhere).

Scide Splitters: Bean Bag Cats & Bad German by Ed Bryant

Ed Bryant in 2016 Photo by Gage Skidmore Ed Bryant is probably not the first name that comes to mind when you think of humorous genre fiction. In fact, his name may not come to mind at all when you think of humor stories because he didn’t write many. He was better known for short SF identified with the New Wave and for his horror stories. But I am featuring two of his stories this month because…

Like what the fuck is a “Hollenhund” supposed to be? A dog from an area in the Netherlands? I guess they meant “Höllenhund” but sorry these little dots aren’t there to make the word look german they actually have a meaning.

And just because their English is bad doesn’t make them very german if their german is bad as well...