Translation: Happy days are here again!
My German classes have re-started, albeit by Zoom and not in a sparse church room in Linslade. Nevertheless I’m celebrating, because my OCD-inclined brain did miss its weekly workout during lockdown and the summer hols.
Strictly speaking the blog title should be Die glücklichen Tage sind zurück, literally “The happy days are returned”, and that’s why I love German (as opposed to Germans, Germany or anything EU-related, being born near Workington and educated around Wakefield; EU-rebellion is in my genes).
I must come clean and admit that what I’m learning is Hoch Deutsch (high German), which is very formal, and most Germans (and Austrians and Swiss-Germans, etc.) speak local dialects. Think Queen’s English vs rural Cumbrian, or “Come and join us for some entertaining discourse” vs Git alang fer sum grand mak o tawk.
Take this blog-title sentence as an example of being rule-driven, noting that glücklichen ends with an n in the second version but not the first. That’s not a typo. In the second version, the adjective (descriptive word) “happy” comes after the definite article “the”, and that one little word is a game-changer. By the way, all German nouns start with a capital letter, i.e. day = der Tag. German nouns are also assigned a gender – masculine, feminine or neuter (I shall resist the temptation to make a topical joke here) – that behave differently under different circumstances (was it ever thus). So it’s der Tag (the day), die Woche (the week), and das Wochenende (the weekend).
Still with me?
While all German grammar rules are logical, some of them are bloody stupid, if still logical and consistent. For example, always having the verb (the action word) as the second element in a sentence, as opposed to an English verb that can trip the light fantastic, seems sensible. But when something happened in the past, the auxiliary (i.e. have as in have walked) stays in second place but the participle (walked) goes to the end of the sentence.
It gets worse. If the verb is “separable”, in the present tense most of the verb stays in second place but a bit separates off and moves to the end, no matter how long the sentence. But in the past tense, the whole participle comes back together and sits at the end of the sentence, although it can then be split by letters that indicate it’s a past participle.
Please don’t shoot the messenger. This is the simplified version – if you're mad at me now, be thankful I'm not venturing into subordinate clauses and the like.
How about some real-life examples. Ich komme, means “I’m coming”. Nice and easy. (The verb is highlighted in each case).
The German for “to arrive” is ankommen, and here’s where the fun and games start. “Because of the weather I am arriving on Saturday at ten o’clock with a lot of luggage” is translated as Wegen des Wetters komme ich am Samstag um zehn Uhr mit vielen Gepäck am Bahnhof an. Look where the an ends up – about half a mile from the komme!
Or as Mark Twain put it, “When a German dives into a
sentence, you won’t see him again until he emerges at the other end with the
verb between his teeth.”
Are you ready for the past tense? Thought not. “Because of the weather I arrived on Saturday at ten o’clock with a lot of luggage” becomes Wegen des Wetters bin ich am Samstag um zehn Uhr mit vielen Gepäck am Bahnhof angekommen. The an and the kommen are back together, except they’re not totally, because a pesky ge gets in the way to signify it’s in the past. Streuth!
I actually prefer another quote of Twain’s. Remember the strange n on, or not, the end of glücklich)? (Yes indeedy; the adjective can also appear without an e or an n!)
Twain said, “I would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.”
Some German grammar rules might be daft, and there might be a lorra lorra rules, but they are logical and consistent and I love stuff like that.
If there’s anything else that comes close to titillating my brain cells, it’s a beautiful piece of classical music that is structured yet inspired. So last year when I sang Braham’s German Requiem IN GERMAN, it was truly orgasmic.
No comments:
Post a Comment