Talk:German/Level III/Mach Dir Keine Sorgen!

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The text sounds strange. "Beim Ballspiel" seems very formal (use "Beim ballspielen"). And the doubling of "Ja." conveys an annoyingly boring formality!

Thinking about it, this is more complicated. The form changes for a bestimmter Artikel (article the instead of a): ein erster Mann but der erste Mann.

nominative case - Nominativ (who - wer): der erste Mann / ein erster Mann die erste Frau / eine erste Frau das erste Kind / ein erstes Kind

genitive case - Genitiv (wessen) des/eines ersten Mann(e)s der/einer ersten Frau des/eines ersten Kind(e)s

dative case - Dativ (wem) dem/einem ersten Mann der/einer ersten Frau dem/einem ersten Kind

accusative case - Akkusativ (wen) den/einen ersten Mann die/eine erste Frau das erste Kind / ein erstes Kind

Boy, is it! - Marsh 09:28, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC) Simply requires more depth be put into the lessons. For example, we could have a third level (more advanced lesson 2B). The first pass through should be aimed at highschool students and beginners and not too overwhelming! - Marsh 09:33, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I changed the muß to muss. In older books you will find muß but after the reform of German orthography a couple of years ago it changed to muss. A more prominent example is the change from daß to dass (example: Ich glaube, dass Wikibooks eine gute Sache ist = I believe that Wikibooks is a good thing). Thomas


 * I'm happy. Vulture has been bringing in the modern changes as well. My German is coming back "pretty" fast. I'll  stop making those case errors with der words once I write the lesson on that. I'm actually pleased that the errors you are finding are not gross ones (numerous, but not large) as I am writing some of the Gespräch totally from scratch, hopefully (with your all help) to be more interesting than the old texbook stuff about Mutter and Vater ....etc. I was so bold this last hour to translate an article from the German Wikipedia (on geography of Lower Austria) and move it into the English Wikipedia! I know, no big deal, but I'm proud of me - Marsh 06:04, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Hi Marsh. I am really impressed that you write much of the "Gespräche" vom scratch, considering that you haven't been using German much lately. And you are right: your mistakes are absolutely minor ones (cases, stylistical) and I hope that by adding these "detail-comments" that you get an even better feel for the German language than you already have. Vielen Dank für die ganze  Arbeit, die du in das Deutschbuch steckst. Mach' weiter so!  Thomas


 * Bitte, sehr Without looking anything up I think you said: "Many thanks for the entire effort that you have put into the German Textbook. Carry on!" Or something to that effect. Question: is it that all the ess-tset s are gone, or is there a rule that specifies only certain ones become ess-ess? - Marsh 07:45, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Kamm (comb) has a short 'a', kam (came) has a long 'a'. The double consonant makes the vowel before it short if it's not a compund word. So the 'ss' is the doubling of 'ß'. Fuß (foot) has a long 'u' so it's written with 'ß', but Fass (barrel) has a short 'a' so it's written with 'ss'. After diphtongs (au, ei, eu) you also write 'ß' because they are long. In Switzerland, 'ß' is always written as 'ss'. --Vulture 09:07, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I can understand that. In essence it maintains consistency by considering the 'ß' a single consonant. Need to work on those rules in Appendix 1 - Marsh 17:52, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Ein volksmäßig Restaurant": A restaurant where the locals eat or "ein gutbürgerliches Restaurant", "ein R. mit gutbürgerlichem Essen" (gutbürgerlich: homely, good plain)? --Vulture 08:59, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * I was aiming for a "locally popular resaurant" - Marsh 16:23, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)