Turkey, Fish, and a Thanks Giving wish!

[Namutree]

One of my favorite holidays has arrived! Good old Thanks Giving! One this awesome day; I like to feast like a beast. All the while I get to visit with my fantastic extended family. Normally this is awesome enough, but it seems there is even more good news for me!

 

I love Turkey, but I'm really in the mood for fish. I guess it's been awhile since I had any, and I've been craving it for hours. Just a bit ago; I found out my Aunt will be bringing fish sticks with her! What are the chances? I've got awhile before my family meets up; so in the meantime I guess I'd like to see if there was ever a little holiday miracle for any of you guys.

 

Got any little holiday stories to share?

Edited November 27, 2014 by Namutree

[Blarghagh]

Here I am in Europe, eating a burger and having no special holiday to celebrate. Happy Thanksgiving to you Americans and whoever else celebrates it at this particular time.

[Longknife]

In Germany, today is known as "Donnerstag."

[Blarghagh]

My high school german is a little rusty, but that's just thursday isn't it?

[Longknife]

My high school german is a little rusty, but that's just thursday isn't it?

 

 

Thank you for explaining the joke.

 

 

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

Edited November 27, 2014 by Longknife

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm eating ham, mashed potatoes, some vegetable, yeast rolls, chocolate cake, and pecan pie. going to drink rum with it I suppose.

 

 

My high school german is a little rusty, but that's just thursday isn't it?

 

 

 

Thank you for explaining the joke.

 

 

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

That explains why it's so confusing, the English are rather sloppy.

[Blarghagh]

 

My high school german is a little rusty, but that's just thursday isn't it?

 

 

Thank you for explaining the joke.

 

 

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

 

 

The similarities are precisely why. I failed German in high school but I'm straight A's for English and Latin and passed French without trying (though to be fair, I forgot pretty much every little bit of French that I knew because high school French class is "remember all these words and phrases" and not "learn how the french language works in any way") but when I try to speak German my brain gets confused with Dutch and a use the wrong words, the wrong grammar etc. Although I can find my way around Berlin well enough, so I guess it's passable.

Edited November 27, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Walsingham]

I had roast beef short rib, vegetables, rye bread, today, because IMO being sick doesn't mean eating hospital food.

 

I'm now eating a crisp fresh apple.

[Leferd]

Happy Thanksgiving! We're having a traditional family get together with non-traditional foodstuffs!

 

Crab, fideos, paella, shabu shabu, bok choy, and fruit cake.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Leferd

[Longknife]

 

 

My high school german is a little rusty, but that's just thursday isn't it?

 

 

Thank you for explaining the joke.

 

 

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

 

 

The similarities are precisely why. I failed German in high school but I'm straight A's for English and Latin and passed French without trying (though to be fair, I forgot pretty much every little bit of French that I knew because high school French class is "remember all these words and phrases" and not "learn how the french language works in any way") but when I try to speak German my brain gets confused with Dutch and a use the wrong words, the wrong grammar etc. Although I can find my way around Berlin well enough, so I guess it's passable.

 

 

 

I know the confused brain part, but from the perspective of an English-German speaker, all that happens is your mind TRIPS THE **** OUT for a minute or two when it hears dutch, trying to decide between flipping the english translator or the german translator on, then it pins it as dutch and somehow I "speak" your language despite not actually speaking it. You could probably talk to me in dutch and I would fully understand you.

[HoonDing]

More like English came from Dutch and German.

 

It's literally Anglo-Saxon bastardized with Norse and French.

[Blarghagh]

I'm better at listening to German than I am reading it, when someone speaks to me I can usually make out most of their general gist. I'm not seeing the similarity between Dutch and English though since Dutch is obsessive about grammar and the entire English language is an exception to its own grammar, but let's not hijack the thanksgiving thread. :D

[Gromnir]

 

My high school german is a little rusty, but that's just thursday isn't it?

 

 

Thank you for explaining the joke.

 

 

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

 

literally? is literally the result of german and english having sex? 

 

regardless, happy thanksgiving to all Americans. is understandable that thanksgiving were a contentious holiday for our extended family, but our immediate family always celebrated. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Blarghagh]

 

I cannot unhear it.

[Longknife]

I'm better at listening to German than I am reading it, when someone speaks to me I can usually make out most of their general gist. I'm not seeing the similarity between Dutch and English though since Dutch is obsessive about grammar and the entire English language is an exception to its own grammar, but let's not hijack the thanksgiving thread. :D

 

 

Fourteen = Vierzehn = veertien (or however you spell it)

 

Street = Straße = Straat

 

You also have a word...your formal 'you' (Sie in German) sounds like "Ye" or some old english crap. I only remember my english is what helped me understand it.

[Blarghagh]

I think you're referring to "u".

[HoonDing]

What's fun about German is that it can mean whatever you want.

 

[Longknife]

I think you're referring to "u".

 

 

I looked it up and I think I meant jij.

 

Hell, all of these seem familiar to english for me. jij = Ye, hij = he, wij = we...not sure how you don't recognize the english aspects. xD

 

 

 

What's fun about German is that it can mean whatever you want.

 

 

 

 

Not true, those are far less fun when you actually speak the language. :C

Edited November 27, 2014 by Longknife

[Blarghagh]

Jij is the informal form of you. The formal is u.

[ManifestedISO]

You mean all those tweeter twits that shorten it to "u" are speaking Netherlandian? All this time I looked down my nose at lazy, lazy diction. 

 

Also, happy Native American Heritage Month. Thank you for engendering our nation. 

Edited November 27, 2014 by ManifestedISO

[JadedWolf]

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

 

 

To be fair, most of us can understand written German and mostly understand German if people don't have a horrible dialect and don't speak too fast. We're just completely buggered when it comes to actually speaking or writing German on the account of it being invented by people with a horrible fascination for extremely complicated grammar. I mean, ye Gods!

 

Edit: but yeah, to stay at least somewhat on topic, happy turkey day.

 

Edited November 27, 2014 by JadedWolf

[Longknife]

Jij is the informal form of you. The formal is u.

 

Yep I had the formal and informal confused. Anyways the point was one of the you's sounds like ye olde english's "ye".

 

 

EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex!

 

 

To be fair, most of us can understand written German and mostly understand German if people don't have a horrible dialect and don't speak too fast. We're just completely buggered when it comes to actually speaking or writing German on the account of it being invented by people with a horrible fascination for extremely complicated grammar. I mean, ye Gods!

 

 

 

To be honest I find German grammar to be more or less logical once you get it. The real nonsensical part of German is the gender of nouns and der/die/das/die. French or Spanish by comparison have very simple rules regarding what gender a noun is based on it's spelling for the most part, but German? With German it feels like certain groups and topics each have different genders with many exceptions. For example most vehicles or forms of transportation are Der OR Das. Fruits and vegetables are Die with exceptions like Der Apfel and the very category words themselves - Fruits and vegetables being Das Obst and Das Gemüse. Some rules do exist but only in regards to certain word endings, such as words ending in -chen being das....though this of course leads to the not-so-user-friendly issue of das Mädchen (little girl) being neutral in gender, counter intuitive to what most foreigners would expect.

  If you simply don't have experience with certain vocabularies, you have no way of knowing which gender of noun to use, though luckily this shouldn't bite you in the ass too hard.

 

Then again I don't know Dutch so perhaps the grammar of dutch is far simpler despite the clear similarities.

 

From tutoring, I've always known the issues to be:

 

English = Learn some god damn consistent spelling and pronounciation rules and learn to divide your ideas neatly, english!

German = Learn to better categorize your gender of nouns and be more user-friendly to beginners in regards to grammar rules!

 

 

 

And look on the bright side: you guys absolutely thrash the Germans when it comes to speaking english, and all of that simply thanks to what I would consider subtitled TV vs. dubbed TV. As a German-American, the sheer reason I have work tutoring english is because english is not a labor of love or leisure for Germans but simply an annoying school requirement. Comparatively I can cross the border into the Netherlands (just an hour away) and find many Dutch speaking with flawless british or american accents. Same applies to much of Scandinavia. But no, Germany's gotta have it's horrible dubs that even the Germans often hate. :D

[Agiel]

All the Dutch people I know seem to speak with American accents. Can't really hear "Schmoke and a pancake" in them.

[ManifestedISO]

Hmm, then which is the correct phrase in German for "Shoot ... the glass." Like window glass, inside an office on the 34th floor of the Nakatomi building. Der? Dem? Das finster? 

[JadedWolf]

To be honest I find German grammar to be more or less logical once you get it. The real nonsensical part of German is the gender of nouns and der/die/das/die. French or Spanish by comparison have very simple rules regarding what gender a noun is based on it's spelling for the most part, but German? With German it feels like certain groups and topics each have different genders with many exceptions. For example most vehicles or forms of transportation are Der OR Das. Fruits and vegetables are Die with exceptions like Der Apfel and the very category words themselves - Fruits and vegetables being Das Obst and Das Gemüse. Some rules do exist but only in regards to certain word endings, such as words ending in -chen being das....though this of course leads to the not-so-user-friendly issue of das Mädchen (little girl) being neutral in gender, counter intuitive to what most foreigners would expect.

  If you simply don't have experience with certain vocabularies, you have no way of knowing which gender of noun to use, though luckily this shouldn't bite you in the ass too hard.

 

Then again I don't know Dutch so perhaps the grammar of dutch is far simpler despite the clear similarities.

 

From tutoring, I've always known the issues to be:

 

English = Learn some god damn consistent spelling and pronounciation rules and learn to divide your ideas neatly, english!

German = Learn to better categorize your gender of nouns and be more user-friendly to beginners in regards to grammar rules!

 

 

 

And look on the bright side: you guys absolutely thrash the Germans when it comes to speaking english, and all of that simply thanks to what I would consider subtitled TV vs. dubbed TV. As a German-American, the sheer reason I have work tutoring english is because english is not a labor of love or leisure for Germans but simply an annoying school requirement. Comparatively I can cross the border into the Netherlands (just an hour away) and find many Dutch speaking with flawless british or american accents. Same applies to much of Scandinavia. But no, Germany's gotta have it's horrible dubs that even the Germans often hate. :D

 

 

Well, I don't know about simple but it certainly is different. The biggest difference is that old Dutch had four cases akin to German, but we only use the nominative now in modern Dutch. So one of the main problems in learning German is getting the hang of using different cases, period.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_grammar#Cases

 

But hey, German is nothing compared to Finnish when it comes to cases. I mean, I just have to take one look into a Finnish grammar book and I just give up.

 

Also, obligatory turkey to keep thread on topic:

 

Edited November 27, 2014 by JadedWolf