Search This Blog

Popular Posts

Labels

Friday, September 4, 2020

How To Read German When Travelling and Travelling Around The Internet. Also Swiss, Austrian and French areas which speak German




I just tried to credit a photographer with a German name (Petermueller12) for his photo. His first name must be Peter.

I knew that the English surname Miller translates into Muller with an accent above the U in German. I did not know the spelling mueller but guessed it was a variation or dialect.

Wikipedia says this:
The German word Müller means "miller" (as a profession). It is the most common family surname in Germany, Switzerland, and the French départements of Bas-Rhin and Moselle (with the spelling Müller, Mueller or Muller) and is the fifth most common surname in Austria (see List of most common surnames in Europe).

I thought that the most common name must be the translation of the British most common name, Smith, which becomes Schmidt. Never mind. I now know two easy to remember words and surnames in German. Words which make surnames. Surnames which remind you of words.

I linked back to his page but got a German message. It started:

Diese Benutzerseite existiert noch nicht.

Nicht is not. It was clearly saying this page no longer exists. I looked at the words and tried to decipher them. At school I learned French and Latin and have never learned German, although I completed the Duolingo German first course on my laptop and mobile phone. The Duolingo course is free.

Today, from the text  I could easily recogninize these words:




German - English
bitte - please
diese - this
Du - you (Like tu in French. If it helps, think f the phrase Do you? Du is German for you.)
existiert - exist
kannst - can
Kontakt - contact
kurz - short
mit - with
mueller - miller/surname Miller
neu - new (The first two letters of both English and German are the same. U and w (double u) are similar.)
Smith - Schmidt
und - and
wenn - when/if




English - German
and - und
can - kannst
contact - Kontakt
exist - existiert
miller - mueller / Müller
new - neu
please - bitte
short - kurz
smith (as in black smith)  Smith - Schmidt
This - diese (sounds a bit like like these)
when/if - wenn
with - mit
you - du

I first translated the entire paragraph from German into English to get whole sentences which made sense.

German Grammar
German sentences, as well as Japanese sentences, end with the verb or doing word or action word. Tha last word in a sentence is English as well  is most memorable and should be the word for emphasis.

English sentences are structured noun (subject), verb, object, for short SVO. German and Japanese and other languages are structured Subject Oject, Verb (for short SOV).

I am compiling this post in my coffee breaks from work and will come back later. You, too, come back later to see more.

Angela Lansbury
Aspiring polyglot.

Benutzer:Petermueller12

Diese Benutzerseite existiert noch nicht.
Wikipedia stellt jedem angemeldeten Benutzer eine Benutzerseite zur Verfügung, um sich kurz vorzustellen.
  • Wenn du Benutzer Petermueller12 bist und dich angemeldet hast, dann kannst du diese Seite über den Reiter „Erstellen“ neu anlegen.
  • Um Kontakt mit Petermueller12 aufzunehmen, schreibe eine Nachricht auf der Benutzerdiskussionsseite.
Falls du diese Seite bereits gerade erstellt hast, kann es sein, dass die Aktualisierung der Datenbank verzögert wurde. Bitte erstelle die Seite nicht nochmals neu, sondern warte ein bisschen und lade diese Seite erneut.

I received this translation from Google and made a list of the individual words English to German and German to English.

This user page does not yet exist.

Wikipedia provides every registered user with a user page to introduce themselves briefly.

If you are user Petermueller12 and have logged in, you can create a new page using the "Create" tab.
To get in contact with Petermueller12, write a message on the user discussion page.
If you've just created this page, the database update may have been delayed. Please do not create the page again, but wait a little and reload this page.


Then I took the time and trouble to translate word by word, simply starting a new line after each German word.


Useful Websites
translate google
duolingo.com

About the Author
Angela Lansbury Aspiring polyglot. Travel writer and photographer. Please share links to your favourite posts.

No comments: