German Language Weekly Newsletter - Wednesday, December 31, 2014

German Language newsletter

Top new questions this week: How easy/difficult is it for a native German speaker to understand Swiss German? Assuming she has never had any experience with it before. Would it be mostly comprehensible? Or mostly unintelligible? Or in between? swiss-german   asked by Kenny LJ 11 votes answered by Hans Adler 12 votes Expression of extreme surprise (possibly vulgar, but without being insulting) Is there a formula or expression that I can use to express these English sentences? What on earth did you just do? What the heck did I just hear? What the hell just happened? or, in ... translation expressions   asked by Dbugger 8 votes answered by Takkat 10 votes Verb when a bunch of people raise their glasses and swing it sideways while singing out loud A long time ago I was at a German class and we where discussing "hard to translate words" and our teacher said there was one verb in German that stand for the action when people (usually in an ... verbs single-word-request   asked by gmauch 7 votes answered by Chris 13 votes Sentences with same modal verb occuring twice Sein Führerschein wurde letzten Monat abgenommen, aber er dürfte wieder fahren dürfen. His driver's license was taken away last month, but he most likely is allowed to drive again. Is the ... usage modal-verbs   asked by boaten 7 votes answered by fill 3 votes Is "In der Pfeife rauchen" an idiom? I have seen this phrase a couple times now and I'm not sure what it means. It was in the headline of an article on Der Spiegel online: Frauenfußball-WM: Das Gras? Kannst du in der Pfeife rauchen ... meaning idioms   asked by AdamMasters 5 votes answered by Veredomon 8 votes Question word in "Wie/was ist deine Adresse/Nummer?" (a) Wie ist deine Adresse/Nummer? (b) Was ist deine Adresse/Nummer? I usually see version (a), rather than (b). Why is it that "wie" is used, even though the question corresponds to "what" ... usage questions   asked by boaten 4 votes answered by rogermue 2 votes Meaning of "dürfen müssen" From Focus: Dank dieser Gerüchte dürfte Marco Reus zum ersten Mal in seiner Führerschein-Affäre schmunzeln müssen. What does "dürfte ... schmunzeln müssen" mean? Is he allowed to smile, or must ... meaning modal-verbs   asked by boaten 4 votes answered by Veredomon 2 votes Greatest hits from previous weeks: When is "sch" spoken like "sh" and when like "s" "ch"? Regarding the words like Hose, Dose, Rose the pronunciation of the diminutive (Höschen, Döschen, Röschen) is with an explicit "s" phoneme. Opposite to the usual "sch" pronunciation. Is this a rule? ... pronunciation   asked by PsiX 15 votes answered by Wrzlprmft 39 votes Singular/Plural bei Aufzählungen Man betrachte folgende zwei Sätze: Demnach muss nun das Ziel und der Zweck der Regelung ermittelt werden. oder Demnach müssen nun das Ziel und der Zweck der Regelung ermittelt werden. ... grammar word-choice grammatical-number   asked by Marco 10 votes answered by Jakob 11 votes Can you answer these? Mundart: fuffzehn und fuffzig (15 und 50). Warum nicht "fuff" für 5? In Mundart (zumindest in Österreich) wird oft "fuffzehn" anstatt "fünzehn" gesagt. Ebenso wird "fuffzig" für "fünfzig" verwendet. Beide Wörter finden sich auch im Duden. (fuffzehn, fuffzig) In ... dialects numbers   asked by Georg Adelmann 2 votes Einordnung von Verbalkomplexen Ich habe mich mit Verbalkomplexen beschäftigt und bin etwas verwirrt über die für mich teilweise willkürlich erscheinende Einteilung in lexikalische und grammatikalisierte Komplexe. Es gibt eindeutig ... verb-usage grammaticalization   asked by Veredomon 2 votes Learning German and Yiddish at the same time I need to learn German for professional reasons to a relatively high level (say C1 on the standard European scale). At the same time (or within a couple of years, say), I would like to learn Yiddish ... learning yiddish   asked by user6849 1 vote

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