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In case any of you want to study German vocabulary with the italki vocabulary lists, I strongly advise against it. See this https://www.italki.com/vocabulary/147349 and https://www.italki.com/vocabulary/158147 as example.
These italki vocabulary lists are riddled with mistakes. First of all: all nouns have to be capitalized in German. For 工程学 they write "der das ingenieurwissenschaft", even though it should be "die Ingenieurwissenschaften". For "Mechanik" the write "machanik". They translate 跳舞 (dance) as "der Tan" while it should be "der Tanz", but then they write "der Tanz" (the dance) next to 洋娃娃 which means "die Puppe" (the doll) and "die Puppe" next to 绘画 which actually means "das Bild" (the painting). Then down the list they misspell "die Malerei" next to 绘画艺术 (the wrote "die Malere") and then they write "die Malerei" next to 聚会 which means party and write "die Party" next to 摄影 which means photography. Nobody seems to double-check thos lists...
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What does "gas" mean?
I'm currently watching Criminal Minds and there's a scene where one guy (Derek Morgan) holds a colleagues (JJ's) baby and says "Look, look, what's he doing? He's smiling at Derek Morgan." His colleagues Garcia and Prentiss glance at each other and say "Gas!" Then JJ looks at their boss Hotchner (who rarely ever smiles) and says "You're smiling!" To which he responds: "Gas!"
I found following explanations for the word "gas":
something/someone is a gas: used for saying that someone/something makes you laugh a lot
gas: fun; empty talk; something that gives pleasure
So, what does "gas" mean here in this context? Something like "you wish!" , "yeah, right..." or "haha"?
Ok, after writing this post I checked how they translated this into German. The dubbed version says "Na, klar." and the subtitles say "Quatsch". Both can be translated as "Yeah, right...".
Do you use "gas" in the meaning of "yeah, right". Is it common?
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I only re-installed this stupid app to voice my disappointment. Italki killed its community. At first I was pleasantly surprised to see that the desktop version is functioning again but then I was disappointed when I learned that we still can’t write in the desktop version. We can only read what people post in the app. And what do they post? Of course, no discussions but just language partner requests. I don’t understand for what purpose italki got rid of the discussion section. Why did they reduce the community to a language partner request board? When I try to access “discussions” I’m redirected to “for-you“. No, that’s not for me. Thanks for nothing. This used to be a thriving community to discuss and learn about languages and cultures. Time to move on.
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I’m confused. Some people manage to still post in the desktop version. I got two new comments on one of my discussions. One is only visible in the desktop version, the other only in the app. Why? What’s happening here? And the app is so chaotic! Now I have to scroll through all of my posts instead of having them neatly divided between discussion posts, questions and notebook entries. And it’s difficult to find notebook entries for corrections. I corrected more than 1000 German notebook entries but in this app, I won’t make any more corrections. It’s too troublesome.
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I’m really disappointed that it’s not possible to post in the old forum anymore. I’ll have to archive all my posts now because I’m afraid that they’ll be gone soon. Not everyone has a smartphone and wants to use the app. You’re shutting out a big part of the community. It also seems that people who still have the old app can still make posts in the discussion forum. But people who have the new app have no way of posting in the forum. It would have been good to give users who only use the browser version a warning that everything will be disabled....
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He ran the whole gamut of political gambits but in the end he had to run the gauntlet of ridicule
I came across the word gambit and the phenomenon that people mix up gambit and gamut and for instance say "run the gambit" instead of "run the gamut". I find the articles about it very interesting and wanted to share them, just in case there's someone else who's also interested in this topic.
Run the gambit?
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/09/gamut-gambit.html
'Gamut' and 'Gambit' (and 'Gauntlet' Too). Know when to use (or run) each.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/gamut-and-gambit-and-gauntlet-too
I also find it fascinating that we have equivalent expressions in German that both have the same literal and figurative meaning. "Gambit" is an opening move in chess, a conversation starter as well as a tactic/clever plan. In German a move in chess is "ein Schachzug" but we can also use it for a tactic (the word "Gambit" also exists in German but is only used for an opening chess move in which you intentionally sacrifice a pawn). "Gamut" is the whole range of musical notes as well as the whole range of range of things that can be included in something. In German we can use the word "Skala" for both meanings.
The second article also threw in "to run the gauntlet" as this may also be mixed up with "to run the gamut", even though this has a total different meaning. I think it's interesting that the "gauntlet" in "to throw down the gauntlet (in German: den Fehdehandschuh werfen) and the one in "to run the gauntlet" (Spießrutenlaufen) are two different words and unrelated words, one derived from the Old French "gantelet" and the other from the Swedisch "gatlopp".
How common are gambit, gamut and gauntlet? Do you use these expressions? Do you think "to run the gambit" is wrong or do you think it's acceptable because it has been in use for quite some time (you can see examples in the first link). Are there equivalent expressions in your native or target languages?
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My name is Miriam and I’m German. I speak German and English fluently and Japanese, Chinese, French and Spanish on intermediate level. I’m a language enthusiast and love to dip my toe into other languages as well. I’ve been using italki for five years now and especially love the discussion forum and the notebook entry section. If you posted something in German and need a correction or have a question about German, you can notify me and I’ll gladly help. I’m not available for language exchange though.
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Namous! The buckaroo vamoosed from the calaboose!
Today I stumbled over the word "to vamoose" when watching the TV series Bones. Agent Booth said to Dr. Brennan "<em>Let's vamoose!</em>".
I found it interesting that "to vamoose" actually comes from the Spanish "vamos": <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vamoose" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vamoose</a>. It can be used to express "to run away, to flee; to hurry" and that it's a cognate of the obsolete British thieves' cant term "namous": <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/namous" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/namous</a>.
Sometimes I also use foreign expressions to tell my kids to hurry up like "Vamos!", "Yallah!", "Allez-y !" or "Dawai!" and it seems that I'm not the only German to do so, the Russian "dawai" even made it into the Duden, the major German dictionary: <a href="https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/dawai" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/dawai</a>. "Yallah" is part of German youth slang as there are many youth with Turkish or Arab heritage: <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/jugendsprache-lass-ma-lesen-yallah-a-811877.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/jugendsprache-lass-ma-lesen-yallah-a-811877.html</a>.
Anyway, "vamoose" sparked my interest in Spanish expressions that entered the English language and I found "buckaroo" (<a href="https://www.thefreedictionary.com/buckaroo" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.thefreedictionary.com/buckaroo</a>) which derives from "vaquero" and means "cowboy" and "calaboose" that comes from "calabozo" and means "prison" (<a href="https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/calaboose" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/calaboose</a>).
Question about Spanglish:
Do you know any other Spanish expressions (no matter if obsolete or still in use) that entered English but were adjusted to English spelling and/or pronunciation?
Question about the use of foreign expressions to say "let's go!":
Is it common in your native or target language to colloquially use expressions from other languages to say "let's go!"?
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How to deal with interlanguage fossilization?
I'm currently teaching a German course on B1 level where the participants are very diverse. From teenager to middle-aged, from different countries, some almost fluent in German, others almost illiterate, some highly educated and some with lower education (e.g. only visited school until the age of 10). With participants in their 40s/50s, I have the problem of interlanguage fossilization: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlanguage_fossilization" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlanguage_fossilization</a>. They've been living in Germany for several years, only learnt German informally, never have studied German grammar systematically and have developed their own kind of German. Some of them can speak quite fluently, albeit ungrammatically. They keep making the same mistakes, they've been making for years. I do raise awareness and sometimes when they made the same mistake, they realise that they did it again but next time they'll do it again. That's why I'm looking for effective methods against interlanguage fossilization.
Do you have any experience as a teacher or language learner with interlanguage fossilization? Do you know any good methods to overcome this problem?
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About parents, siblings and niblings
The other day I stumbled over the word "nibling", i.e. a gender-neutral word for niece and nephew: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/jennifer-lopez-shares-video-about-transgender-nibling-brendon-n1237838" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/jennifer-lopez-shares-video-about-transgender-nibling-brendon-n1237838</a>. The term was coined in the 1950s but is only recently gaining more momentum: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-nibling#:~:text=Nibling" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-nibling</a>.
I realised that this term doesn't exist in German. We could only refer to niece and nephew as niece and nephew but don't have a gender-neutral form like nibling. We do have the word "sibling" though:
brothers = Brüder
sisters = Schwestern
siblings = Geschwister
Now if you say, "nibling" isn't a real word but "sibling" has always been around, you might be surprised that using the word "sibling" in the sense of "brothers and sisters" is relatively new and only dates back to the beginning of the 20th century: <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/sibling" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.etymonline.com/word/sibling</a>. Originally, a sibling was just someone who was a relative belonging to the same "sibb". Why did the need for such a term arise? Wiktionary claims: "The term apparently meant merely kin or relative until the 20th century when it was utilised in a way that aided the study of genetics, which led to its specialized use. For example, the OED has a 1903 citation in which "sibling" must be defined for those who don't know the intended meaning." (<a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sibling#English" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sibling#English</a>)
In many languages the word sibling doesn't seem to exist. In French you just say
"frères et sœurs" (brothers and sisters) and in Spanish "hermanos", which can mean either brothers or siblings but definitely has only a male form ("hermanas" are sisters). Interestingly, in Spanish "padres" denotes both "fathers" and "parents", so there is no actual word that is either neutral or visually includes the moms as well. In Chinese you can say "父母" (father, mother) for parents" and "兄弟姐妹" for "siblings" which literally means "elder brother, younger brother, elder sister, younger sister".
Interestingly, in Turkish there is only one word for brother, sister and siblings: kardeş. You can specify by saying erkek kardeş (man sibling), kız kardeş (girl sibling) and kardeşler (siblings). For parents there is the word "ebeveyn" that derives from the Arabic الأبوان which is a dual form of أب (father), so it's "two fathers = parents" and similar to "padres" in Spanish. But another Turkish word for parents is "anne baba" which means "mom dad".
What's your native tongue or target language like?
Like Spanish: padres, hermanos [fathers = parents, brothers = siblings]
Like French: parents, frères et sœurs (parents, brothers and sisters]
Like German: Eltern, Geschwister [parents, siblings]
Like Chinese: 父母 [father, mother], 兄弟姐妹 [elder brother, younger brother, elder sister, younger sister]
Like Turkish: anne baba, kardeş [mom dad, sibling(s)]
Or do you have a different system to denote parents and siblings? Is there an equivalent to "nibling" in your language?
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