Hello everyone
and welcome to the blog with the most nichtssagend title ever :).
Like anyone is like… “Oh, a couple of things, that’s exactly what I was waiting for. ”
But title shmitle… I just couldn’t think of anything better. There are just a couple of things I wanted to talk about.
And the first one is a big, fat, huuuuuge, colorful
D A N K E S C H Ö Ö Ö Ö Ö Ö Ö N !!!!!
What for?
For all your donations!!!! There are a few coming in every month, which is awesome, but in October you really knocked it out of the park because:
It was actually enough to pay my rent… and get a few beers!!!
WOW!!!
The things is… I know that the articles here are far from perfect, often too long and full of mistakes sometimes; but this blog is a part time job for me by now with about 15 hours weekly. I want it to grow and do more things but it needs to pay in some way. But at the same time, I don’t want to exclude anyone. It might not be many of you but I know that there are people for whom some 5 bucks subscription fee really would make all the difference and I really don’t like the idea of being like “No, you can’t read that because you’re too poor”. I mean… we’re not talking about caviar and fast cars here, we’re talking about educating yourself. And that’s a thing that should be available to everyone, period. It’s best for the whole society. What? Oh… that’s right Donald Trump… I’m a god damn socialist :).
Seriously though, I just think that “pay what you can afford” is a really great model in theory. And in October, you guys showed that it could work in practice. I can’t even tell you how happy that made me. Sincerely… thank you!
And if you’re now like
“I get it. Where do I need to go” … Here are the two options: You can send me a one time payment through Paypal (no login required), you can make it reoccurring or you can become my patron on Patreon.com… basically another way to support this on a monthly basis.
EDIT… membership model now :)
Oh and don’t think a dollar doesn’t cut it. It does. One man’s dollar is the other man’s 100. And if everyone reading this were to give a dollar I would have 98 solid Dollars… meh, a little more probably :).
Now, October didn’t only make me very happy… it also means that I have to work less on my day job (I’m a sort of bar manager, in case you’re wondering) and it was very motivating.
All right. Moving on.
Layout ideas
The second thing I wanted to talk about is the blog itself. I’m about to move to a new host that’ll give me more flexibility and I’m thinking about some sort of a redesign because I’ll have more options for layout and functionality. And I figured you guys are the ones who know best what you want. So my question is…
- Do you have any suggestions or wishes for the design or for functionality?
Stuff like a search function, or a less wide layout, or a wider layout or a different font, or more colors, or even lesserer colors, some cat pictures… you name it. So if there’s something where you’ve been like “Oh man, I wish the blog had XYZ” let me know.
And that’s already it. This was our look at a couple of things.
By the way… if you’re wondering whatever happened with the language school review I was talking about a few weeks ago… well, I took all those great ideas from your comments and drew up a questionnaire. Here it is (consider it a draft):
I think it wound up pretty tough, I think.Like.. if you’re a language school, you really need to think about your answers. I’ve sent it to them a few days ago and I haven’t from them since. So let’s hope we didn’t scare them away :).
Anyway, that’s all for today. Vote for which sucker-word you want to read about and let me know if you have any wishes for the blog’s layout and again… thank you for all your support.
Bis in ein paar Tagen.
Very nice, I’m glad your blog is growing. I would like some of that beer you’re having…lol. I think it would be nice to have a search box to look for the stuff you have on the “Word of the day tab”, that tab is super useful by the way, I found a lot of things I wanted to learn there. I love this current white layout and the font as well (keep it simple, if possible), I would also suggest you to insert a cat picture somewhere PLEASE..lol (pretty serious on the cat idea)
Thanks for teaching us so amazingly.
All the best for you and your blog Emanuel!!! :)
Good idea with the cat picture…. do you know where I can find any, though? Do you think there are some online? :)
I doubt it Emanuel, really hard to find cat pics online these days, you should take one yourself, sorry about the bad news.. Good luck!! ;)
Hi! On the new site I would like to see some better functionality for exercises. Now you have the right answers in yellow if I remember correctly. The right answer could be hidden until you click on it to reveal it or something like that :)
Thank you for great work on your blog :)
Good idea, I think this should work with the new host so I’ll look into it. Thanks.
What are some good suggestions you got for “other”?
Glad you ask… this section is actually quite fascinating. Here’s a selection:
– kein vs. nicht
– beziehungsweise
– das vs. diese
– ich-mich-mir, du-dich-dir, etc
– Diejenigen etc
– doch
– halt
– also
– zwar
– genauso
What really confuses me is that the latter half is already covered here, some even have their direct own entry in the archive. I guess I really need a search function.
The best one is this though:
– eben
uhm… yeah.
Hahaha someone is really hoping for eben
I have an “other” suggestion for a lesson: So my problem is when i read german, i can read the numbers. (30 kilo -> “dreißig kilo” pretty simple). But when there is math, (4,6 Milliarden -> “vier (???) sechs Milliarden?”), i have no clue what to do.
In English, there are many ways to read math. For example, “three *divided by* five” “three *over* five” “three *fifths*” all mean 3/5. Or “zero *point* six” if you want it in decimal (0.6). But there other ways to read math that isn’t always correct. For example, if you get a 3/5 on a test, you could also say ” I got three *out of* five” or “I *failed*”, but you can’t say that if you are actually dividing 3 by 5. If you change 3/5 to 0.6/1, you can read it as “.6 miles *per* minute” (if it is miles/minutes of course)
If you use multiplication for dimensions like 8.5″ x 11″, you would say “I have eight and a half *by* eleven paper” not “I have eight and a half *times* eleven paper”. That would sound like you mean you have (8.5×11=)93.5 sheets of paper.
Ratios like 1:1 are read as “one *to* one”. If you crop a picture so it has that aspect ratio, you can also call it a “*square*”. If you were making simple syrup, it would need “one *part* water and one *part* sugar”
These are things we can do easily since this normal english, but I can’t do any of this in german. Duolingo added a math skill but it only teaches how to add and subtract, i’m sure we all can do more than plus and minus. i can find numbers 1-100 on the internet, but i don’t know how to say and use words like “fraction (1/2)” “integer (8)” “irrational (1.333333….)” “even (2)” “negative (-3)” “area (5 cm^2)” “power(2^3)” I can’t even say “square” lol
You already taught us math for telling time, but as an English speaker I would just give and ask for the exact time though (“Its twelve/two thirty/eight oh three/five fifty nine”). Do people usually use math?
Interesting suggestion, I think I’ll do a quick round up on that (haha… get it… round sth. up) . What do you mean by “do people usually use math” though? I don’t think it’s any different than in English.
In Time Part 2, you taught us two ways tell the time in german. if it is 7:45, saying “seven forty five” would be news speak cos it’s normally used for tv and radio but it sounds stiff so people say “a quarter to eight” which would be street speak. idk if its an English thing or regional thing but “seven forty five” sounds like the more natural one and people usually say that instead. I don’t understand people who check their phone, see 7:45, do some calculating, and tell me that it is 8:00 15 minutes from now instead of just telling me what time it is, cos then I have to undo their math to get the current time. When people tell me its “a quarter to eight”, its like if I ask what page are we on and they say “15 pages before chapter 7”. I was wondering if german speakers regularly bother doing the math or would rather use news speak.
It does sound like an odd way to give the time when you explain it that way but you can also look at it from a different angle:
7:50 and 7:55… what’s the difference? A human being can much better fathom the difference between 5 minutes and 10 minutes than between 50 and 55. So by saying it is 5 to 8 or 10 to 8 respectively I am giving the other person a much more direct, “feelable” insight into where we stand time-wise, rather than the abstract 7:55.
Imagine you get a beer at a bar for 2.50. Now you want to tell your friend that the same beer costs 5 bucks in the bar two blocks down. I think chances are you’d say “twice as much” or “double” even though that technically means the person has to do math. But you’re focus is “twice”, not the mere price…. don’t know if that makes sense :).
Also, “viertel vor 8” is just much shorter than “7 uhr fünfundvierzig”.
Me, I rarely use news-speak for time in daily life and never if the number is 5, 10, 15 or 20. And if someone were to use news-speak to tell me it’s quarter to 8 I would feel a little bored by the sheer length and “elaborateness” of it.
Ah yes, I submitted bzw. The first times I came to it, I really couldn’t make any sense of it (and I do use “respectively” a lot in my writings, which can sometimes be an accurate translation). But now, even though I could not explain it, I sometimes really want to use it in English, cause it has something more—it’s one of these “useful terms” that foreign languages provide and cannot be translated.
Most importantly, which bar is that you are managing? I’m already donating for YDG, but would love to donate through beer consumption!
And my personal experience: Learning German is utterly depressing, if not by the grammar, vocab, and syntax itself, at least by the fact that German people are extraordinarily picky when it comes to pronunciation—a wonder of sort considering the sheer amount of dialects. Put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, pronounce “Roggen” as “Rogen”, and you’ll be facing blank stares. YDG, with its light side, is one of the very few things keeping me on tracks—mind you, I’m only willing to speak English with my German friends as a result of the aforementioned difficulties, but at least, they can answer in German :-) So thank you for keeping “fun” in “learfuning”. Or putting it in. Well, you get what I mean.
Haha… it’s not my own bar. I’m just the weekend manager there. So I won’t benefit from the beer you drink there :).
I know what you’re saying about pronunciation by the way. I have given people these kind of looks. I really really didn’t understand what they were trying to say even though objectively they were quite close. But there are these kind of pronunciation mistakes that just ruin everything. Rhythm and word stress are especially sensitive.
I have had similar experiences in Italian though. I think it’s even worse there. Like… I would say something and my only mistakes was to have the main emphasis on the wrong syllable. And my Italian colleague would not understand me, even though he wanted to. That was a bit frustrating :).
Thanks for your support, by the way. Vielen Dank!!
I remember being a new learner of German, and by chance I stumbled upon your blog. I’ve been an active reader for about a year now, and have ended up donating once. There are a few things that have made me stay, but the main thing is your very lengthy explanations paired with your very many examples. I can read one blog article, understand the contents, and have enough material to study for a week(: it’s great, and it makes your blog a one of a kind resource for german. If you are taking suggestions though, I would comment that when you switch to a new host you should reorganize the table of contents/index/all your word gems. For a new learner, it would be nice to see specific categories of the words you have done ie. those weird verbs that are not really taught, have multiple meanings, and are used all the time (kriegen). When I first stumbled upon your blog I just saw a bunch of words in the contents and so clicked randomly. The first article I read of yours was the one on “Der Schrank”. It went completely over my head haha and did not seem useful at all for me as a beginner. If it wasn’t for my sheer determination to learn german at that time, I would’ve never come back. Since your website caters to both experts and beginners, it would be wise to better document your work such that it is more easily accesible by each audience. When a new visitor comes to your blog, the first article they read determines whether or not they will return, therefore by better categorizing your things you can retain more visitors. In short, make your website such that a new visitor like I was, can click on “kriegen”, and not “der Schrank”. (:
best wishes,
This is great! I have never thought about it that way but what you’ve said makes a LOT of sense. Some words are really super useful and a must have while others are more for diversity of the vocab and for the fun of it. I guess I should maybe sort them also be level. Or some useful-ness factor or something. I’ll think about it. Vielen Dank (auch für die Spende !!)
Just please God don’t start using Cloudflare. :)
Your format is great, just the index or table of contents or whatever could use more updating, but that’s what googling’s for anyway.
No chance… I’m place social button all over like it’s confetti ;)
*I’m gonna
(click here to like the comment on Facebook)
(button to share the comment on Twitter)
(button to add the comment to your instagramm)
(button to put it in your tumbl)
(button to meet the comment on tinder… wait, I guess those don’t exist)
Some others mentioned this as well, but it would be great to be able to comb through the archives. I like the word of the day posts and wish I could get a list of all the words you’ve covered.
Okay, I’m starting to get really confused here… what about the “Word of the Day” menu. All the words are listed there, sorted by word type in alphabetical order. Well… okay, the most recent ones are usually missing because I’m bad with updating but 95% are there. Are you reading the site on mobile maybe and not seeing the menu?
Oh yeah, sorry, I guess I didn’t scroll down enough!
I know that the votes for “ja” was not the highest. But I hope you talk about it some time soon.
Using “ja” in the middle of the sentences is rather confusing. Gradually I have learnt how it means but I still cannot use it in my sentences. Often I use it in wrong context or wrong positions in the sentence.
Well, the voting will be open for some days, so “ja” can still make it :). Yesterday, “gerade” was in the lead and that change, too.
So you are a Barmanager and can’t get a few beers on the house? Damn you are honest
Haha… I can but I don’t want to hang out at work all the time. And it’s not anywhere close to where I live.
Please don’t change the site design! It works too well! Anytime an odd word (like doch) comes up while I’m reading German I just google “doch german is easy” and your article pops up. And definitely, definitely don’t change the way you write articles (especially with voting for what article we want to see next). Your word articles give the best, most in-depth explanations for how to actually use the German language that can be found anywhere. Dictionaries are pathetic at this. Thank you so much for your work!
That is a good Google tip. Soll ich mich es gedacht. (Oder etwas ähnliches). Now I will look up “reflexive pronouns German is easy”
Works even better with “yourdailygerman” :)… here’s the link for the reflexives, just in case you haven’t found it already:
https://yourdailygerman.com/2013/11/13/german-reflexive-verbs/
Don’t worry, I won’t make crazy changes… just tweaks.
Thanks a lot for the nice feedback!!
I agree about the monthly archive idea. I miss so much here and there is so much I would love to go back and read. This blog is well written and entertaining and I feel I learn from it. It keeps me motivated. I have been in Deutschland twice for a total of 9 months so far and will be there again for 6 months beginning in January. It is not so easy to get better when so many People there speak English and want to practice that, but I am getting better and reading this blog is part of that. So I too want to add my thanks.
Okay then, a monthly archive/calendar archive is one of the first things I’ll add :). Danke für das tolle Feedback
I honestly think you are making pretty good use of the mySQL/wordpress functionality. However, I do wonder if a side bar that listed the topics/categories you’ve covered would improve navigation? Just a thought.
As always, I’m looking forward to the next entry that makes me feel like a leaky boat in a storm!
Dear Emanuel,
First of all… Thank you for your wonderful and really helpful blog. There is no other online resource for learning German as useful as this one (at least, that I know of). I started reading it sporadically in 2012 when I arrived to Germany to make my Master studies. There were A LOT of things that I could not understand and when I asked, German native speakers were just like “I don’t knooooow, I just speak it”… Or, even worse “is like thah, because it is logic…”. Well, maybe it is logic in German, but not in other languages!!… However, you explain these things for us that need a background and a better understanding of WHY we are saying what we are saying. For that, I am extremely grateful to you…. And yes, when I was just studying I would not have been able to pay for this (not even 1 EUR). Now I do have a job in Germany (in which I have to speak German most of the time) and I think your blog might have to do with it (to be fair I also get to speak English and Spanish, my native language… but still German is the main Geschäftsprache). So, yes, I will start donating… I think it is more than fair! I wanted you to know this because I read a lot of diverse blogs and I have noticed that Bloggers appreciate when their followers share how much their blog has helped them. So, to sum up, DANKE SCHÖN!
A suggestion for the layout… When I find a blog that I really, really like (like this), I like to read ALL of it…. So, I read a couple of posts, and if I am hooked I tend to read it from the first to the most recent post. For this, most of them have something like a “Monthly Archive”, where you can select the month and year and then you can read the post of each month (I think you know what I mean)…. I would love to see that in your blog (maybe it exists, I just haven’t been able to find it). Because yes, I would like to read all of you blog! :) I absolutely dislike the idea of losing the opportunity to impress my German husband and German Bekannte with my knowledge of specific German words… ;)
Have a nice day and thanks again!
Hey Norah, yes bloggers do like to hear that what they write is useful so if I could help you with your journey to German, that’s awesome :D.And it’s great to hear from someone who really wouldn’t have been able to afford a subscription because that shows me that “pay what you can afford” was not just some dumb idealistic idea (some friends pushed me toward subscription model) but does make a difference for some.
As for the archive… I don’t have anything like that on my site because that would have meant to have a side bar and I don’t like side-bars on the posts. I kind of like the wideness :).
But with the new host that won’t be a problem anymore so I think I’ll add such a feature there (you’re definitely not the first one to ask for it).
Speaking of compliments… I just randomly found this video … sooooooo funny :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8ShAosqzI
And they got more hilarious vids like this… check out “Super heros can’t be gay”.
The one thing I would change about the site is the added necessity of having to click on every individual article I’d want to read when scrolling through the homepage. I’d read so much more if the entire article was visible immediately on the homepage, without having to click on ‘continue reading’ everytime. :)
Other than that – keep at what you do, it’s brilliant!
Interesting idea. I had it this way in the beginning but then the home page will be incredibly long. There are 5 snippets on display now and if they were all full length you’d have to scroll for ages. The alternative would be to only have the latest article on the front page but then I’m sure people would complain why there’s just one and how they could get to the most recent ones. Thoughts?
a good theme with infinite scrolling should be good to use – as long as you have the ability to link directly to posts etc; the best thing is if it also changes the browser’s URL to reflect which post you’re currently reading as you scroll over it
That might even be possible with the theme I’m using. I’m just not sure if this doesn’t slow down the site too much since it has to load a decent amount of comments. But we can play around with that once I’ve moved.
haha geil, habe gerade gewählt – und wieviele votes gibt es jetzt? 98!
regarding the layout, I think being able to choose the font size (or even the font) and the background color (light/dark) would be really great – especially helpful for longer posts :)
rock on ;)
Interesting suggestion. I don’t know if there are plugins for that but if so, I’ll add it.
Awesome!
Ja. One of my earliest German phrases was learned in the car: gerade aus!!!
:)
I had always mentally translate gerade as “stay the course” both in literal and figurative situations. One of my earliest memories of learning this word in high school was in the context of “Go straight ahead” Gehen Sie gerade aus.
I would like to know more about particle words in general, but schon in particular. I am reading a book right now where the author has a tendency to write “schon fast sth.” Really? Already almost sth? How does that work :).
This notion of “straight” is indeed the core of “gerade” but German has twisted that in crazy ways.
As for “schon”… I got you covered. The article is quite long but if you can make it through you’ll definitely have an idea.
“schon fast sth” does seem weird when you think of “schon” as the word “already”. But what it does here basically is expressing the idea that the speaker considers the information quite some achievement or quite a lot.
– Es wird kalt. Gestern waren es nachts schon fast -10 Grad.
– It’s getting cold. Yesterday night, it was almost freezing 10 below 0.
Without the “schon”, the sentence is just stating a fact that a certain number was almost reached. The “schon” adds the idea “Wow, that is pretty cold for this time of the year”
Here’s the link about “schon”:
https://yourdailygerman.com/2013/02/05/meaning-schon/
Hope it helps
Aren’t eben and gerade both “even”. I know eben has other uses, (hence my selection)…. but ???
You’re right… they are really really similar. Those were just the 3 particles that I haven’t covered yet. But I might be forgetting some.
They both have TONS of other uses!!