Getting Started in German with Mark Twain

atwzurich · #1 21.10.2011, 23:20

For all you Anglophiles out there struggling like me to come to grips with German, rest assured you're not the first. Even literary giants have been tripped up:

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

Wollishofener · #2 22.10.2011, 16:12

	Quote:	atwzurich
	For all you Anglophiles out there struggling like me to come to grips with German, rest assured you're not the first. Even literary giants have been tripped up: http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

Imagine that he came over even BEFORE the first Duden Kommission had started out, and whiles before the last reform . As the book "Der Dativ is des Genitivs sein Tod" proves, the Genitiv now is on its best on the 4st place and at worst on the "extinction list"

Corbets · #3 22.10.2011, 16:27

	Quote:	Wollishofener
	Imagine that he came over even BEFORE the first Duden Kommission had started out, and whiles before the last reform . As the book "Der Danitiv is des Genitivs sein Tod" proves, the Genitiv now is on its best on the 4st place and at worst on the "extinction list"

I'm no native speaker, but isn't it "der Dativ?"

Captain Greybeard · #4 22.10.2011, 18:12

	Quote:	Wollishofener
	Imagine that he came over even BEFORE the first Duden Kommission had started out, and whiles before the last reform . As the book "Der Dativ is des Genitivs sein Tod" proves, the Genitiv now is on its best on the 4st place and at worst on the "extinction list"

It's not a book but, so far, a series of four books by Bastian Sick (sic!), and the correct title is, "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod." Anything else wouldn't make much sense.

It's a play on words that denounces a mistake while making the very same mistake, something like, "The dative is to the genitive its death." It's a bit like, "Es gibt Schweizer Journalisten, die beherrschen nicht einmal der Akkusativ" (sorry, no usable English translation possible without ruining the point).

meloncollie · #5 22.10.2011, 19:24

Twain's brilliance is timeless; this essay was my guiding light as I struggled with my first German course.

My favorite line, used many times in the ensuing 13 years:

"(I) would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective."

Thanks for posting this, ATWZurich.

Wollishofener · #6 22.10.2011, 19:24

	Quote:	Captain Greybeard
	It's not a book but, so far, a series of four books by Bastian Sick (sic!), and the correct title is, "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod." Anything else wouldn't make much sense. It's a play on words that denounces a mistake while making the very same mistake, something like, "The dative is to the genitive its death." It's a bit like, "Es gibt Schweizer Journalisten, die beherrschen nicht einmal der Akkusativ" (sorry, no usable English translation possible without ruining the point).

That many people, even journalists, and not only Swiss ones do not have a command of the accusative, is not nice, but the problem about the genitive in German rather is that the Genitive in all South German, Swiss German, Austrian German dialects is gradually replaced by a kind of "Dativ-Konstruktion". And it is similar in case of TV, where also those in crime-stories where the Dative gets gradually eliminated. I think that the Genitive in German language in a not too distant moment will be something for the linguism-scientists.

The books of Bastian Sick btw. are good and have read two of them.