“Oftensity”
Hey ihr Deutschlerner,
today is the 6th of December and at least in Germany that is the day of discount Santa.
Okay, that’s mean actually. The 6th of December is Nikolaus’ name-day and there’s a lovely and very old tradition. The night of the 5th, all the kids shine their shoes and put them in front of the door and at night Nikolaus, sometimes also referred to as Knecht Ruprecht comes and puts in some little presents, like fruits, candy or ginger bred.
And of course I also have a little present for you: a thing that I call
intensity chart
“Wow great! … what’s an intensity chart.”
I’m glad you asked… it’s basically an overview over how to express different “intensities” in a given dimension.
Haha… that still sounds pretty complicated actually. A simple example is the dimension of temperature. You can go from freezing to seething and in between you have a bunch of words for different … ahem … degrees of temperature… get it? My pun? With degrees? Pretty high degree of funny-ness, ri… okay whatever.
Now, temperature is all well and good, but the intensity chart of today is about something much more interesting and useful: degrees of frequency. Or in simpler terms…
How to answer the question “How often”.
Here you go :).
(The image is refusing to be a link for some reason
Click here to view in full size)
Pretty cool, right?
“Uhm… yeah, but we have a few questions.”
what’s with all the curves?”
Well, it’s a reference to language being an organic thing that grows and winds.
“Okay, and … what’s with the colors? Why did you use so many? And do they stand for something?”
Uhm… no, not really. They’re a bit like leaves on a branch… but yeah, basically, I just thought it looked nice. I had a couple of Glühweins, when I made this.
“Oh I see…. and so these words in smaller letters are like modifiers, right?”
Yeah, exactly. They’ll pull the word in a direction if you put them in front.
“Okay cool. And why didn’t you add the translations?”
Uh….. I uh… reasons! Yeah, because of reasons. Didactic reasons.
“Uh… well, there’s another thing… why didn’t you just make a list. Like… a list with translations would be more efficient.”
Well, efficient, shmefficient… all this efficiency in language learning is getting on my nerves. And new studies show that above a certain level of efficiency, the efficiency is actually less efficient. So you have much efficiency but not a very efficient one. You’d want to go for the quality efficiency. Less is more… oh man, what am I saying. Where were we… oh yeah… the list :)
- (absolut) nie : (absolutely) never
- (extrem, ganz, ziemlich) selten : (extremely, very, pretty) rarely
- (ganz) manchmal : (extremely) sometimes
- hin und wieder, ab und zu : every now and then
- öfter(s), des öfteren : somewhat/fairly frequently
- (ziemlich, ganz, extrem) oft : often
- dauernd, ständig : all the time, continuously
- immer : always
So that was your little Nikolaus-present… an intensity chart for answering “How often”.
How’d you like it? What did you think of the colors?
But seriously, do you think it is helpful and do you want more of it? What would you change?
And of course, if you think I forgot something, or if you have a question go right ahead and ask. And if you want, you can also make some example sentences and I’ll correct them.
Hope you enjoyed this. Have a great day and see you tomorrow.
Man… we do see each other ziemlich oft in December ;).
This post is good and all but I dont think any one ever says in English “Extremly rarely or pretty rarely” I dont know if they are wrong gramatticly but they tick off my ears ( I am not a native,but I have consumed so much English media by this point ) yet still I have horrible spelling. But in German, it’s ok to use these phrasing that i described as weird? Mabye you could edit the chart to include “fast nie”, “fast immer”
Wonderful and useful, but I’d have to say even a quick poke in the dictionary for English frequency words leaves me with more questions than answers where these would fit on your scale… :-)
Seltenst … äußerst selten… höchst selten… nur selten … selten oder nie … sporadisch… gelegentlich.. mitunter… bisweilen… zeitweise… zeitweilig… verschiedentlich… von Zeit zu Zeit … gelegentlich einmal… oftmals … vielfach … unaufhörlich…
Plus häufig and meistens, and the “fast” modifier as others have noted above.
Less pretty, I know, it occurs to me that this sort of scale might work better as a ladder rather than a branch as it’s easier to slot in new rungs as people suggest stuff! :-)
Wow, you’ve dug up quite a few more :). The ones in the chart are really only the most common ones.
Yours are more or less synonymous to one of those on the list though. With stuff like this you can only make a few categories. It gets really hard/impossible to say if for example “bisweilen” or “mitunter” is the more common one, or how they relate to “ab und zu”. I could add a synonym-container to each group though. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.
Does häufig come between oft and dauernd/ständig and meistens is oftener (!) than häufig?
And yes, this branch is brilliant!! – much easier to remember and visualise than a list. I think the concept could be used for other adjective scales too . . say from dark to light or bad to good/terrific . . . might have a go at some myself – with the help of some wine.
To me, “häufig” and “oft” are kind of the same, but someone else might have a different pereception.
“meistens” is definitely more often than “oft”… well, it “feels” more often, that is. I think it’s the same in English… “most of the time” feels more frequent than “often”.
Yeah, pour yourself a glass and give it a go :). And share your results please …
other words that could be added on this scale (although it would certainly clutter it) would be : Meistens, oft, häufig and for the adjectives , fast (e.g. fast nie) : nicht (e.g. nicht oft)
“oft” is on it but yeah, “häufig” and “meistens” are definitely missing. Thanks for adding them:)
Oh and one more thing, *ganz* manchmal sounds veeeeery fishy. Is it often used/heard? I wouldn’t use manchmal with any other adverb actually.
It’s colloquial, no doubt. But at least in Berlin it’s kind of a normal option.
I’m just here to express my gratitude for you for making my mornings funnier AND informative, the best combination there is! :-D love your humor!
small remark: ginger *bread :-P
Ugh…. I keep making this freaking bred/bread mistake :).
“Ganz manchmal” confuses me. Can you really do something “extremely sometimes?”
Well, it’s colloquial German but yeah, people do say that when they want to stress that it’s really just sometimes.
I love the intensity branch!!! Können Sie bitte make MORE of them? For stuff like “how close?” or “how soon?” or “how strongly?”
Will do :).
Seems like “fast immer” should be in there somewhere. Especially useful when discussing German Grammar rules.
Haha, yeah…. I forgot to include “fast immer” and “fast nie”
Yeah, I forgot “fast” as a modifier. What’s the relation to grammar though? Is there something iconic about “fast immer” that I am missing?
I was told that in Relationship English -always- means -twice-
Stop that! You are always doing it!
Buahahaa…. nice!!! That would be “(an)dauern” or “ständig” :)
That chart is awesome! Gute Idee, die Wörte so zu illustrieren.
Danke :)
“seethe …. 1.(of a liquid) boil or be turbulent as if boiling.” Nice bit of nearly rhyme, I thought, and continuity, with both verbs referring to liquids.
I like the visual approach. Am really surprised that “öfter” should be less frequent than “oft”, and would never have thought of “ganz manchmal.”
Danke.
Great you noticed that :). This is actually kind of a pattern.
And I think you have it in English too.
– A coke, with less ice please.
– A coke, with little ice.
Which coke has more ice… at least if you do that in German, it would be the first one.
The reason is that you use the comparative form as a short version of “less/more than usual”… which might still be way away from the actual poles “few, much”
– A coke with less ice please : infers that you’ve already had one with too much or you’ve seen how much they usually add and want less . . . than usual.
What about the use of des öfteren . . . I’m not sure how to work that into a sentence?
You can use it just like you would use “oft”, same position, I mean.
Try it out and make an example ;)
So could you say both…
Er geht oft ins Fitnessstudio, aber wenn er öfter geht, könnte er vielleicht noch schneller abnehmen
and
Er geht öfter ins Fitnessstudio, aber wenn er oft geht, könnte er vielleicht noch schneller abnehmen
And still have the sentence make sense in context? :-)
Very clever question ;). So in the second one you would definitely add some additional words to make it clear
– Er geht öfter mal ins Fitnessstudio aber wenn er wirklich oft gehen würde, könnte er vielleicht noch schneller abnehmen.
I second RuthE‘s motion! How ‚bout an intensity chart for liking/interest? Love drinking Glühwein to hating shopping, and everything inbetween.
I know that there’s a universe of feelings between those but are there really many ways to express those? Isn’t most of that done by modifiers like “a bit, rather, very much, really”?
Oh and kleine Korrektur. You go from freezing to searing. At least to me, I haven’t used seething in the context of heat. Not saying it’s wrong but I think it sounds wrong. Nur meine Meinung.
Yeah, “searing” or “blazing” for me feels more generally applicable for temperature. “Seething” gets used metaphorically ziemlich oft to mean that somebody is just barely keeping their intense anger under control.
Wait, so one major cause for seething is slow internet?
In diesem kontext sind Bilder für mich immer mehr hilfreich. Die Titelbilder, die du normalerweise zu ein Artikel geben sind auch so da die Seele des Worts da drin ist.
And the prize for worst early morning german ever goes to
ME
Viel glück beim verstanden
Wenn mein Morgenatem so wäre, wie dein Morgendeutsch, dann müsste ich nicht Zähneputzen ;).
Hier ein paar Korrekturen:
– mehr hilfreich… is “hilfreicher”
– …, die du zu… geben…. “gibst” nicht “geben”; great job on the sentence overall though. Perfect structure and feel!!!!!
– Viel Glück beim…. verstehen, nicht “verstanden”
Ich mag Ihre Glühwein inspiriert Illustration mit die Farben und Kurven. Aber, wo sind die Einhörner und die Elfen? Ich habe gehört, dass Einhörner und Elfen ganz oft Glühwein begleiten.
Es ist etwas mehr hilfreich für mich als die Liste, aber ich verwende beide Methoden. Die Illustration ist leichter zu behalten. Ich habe zu viele Listen.
Haha… I actually really thought about adding a kitten somewhere but I was too tired.
Häufig und gelegentlich?
Ich hätte nicht erwartet, dass “hin und wieder” und “ab und zu” öfter sind als “manchmal.” To me, an AE speaker, “sometimes” feels more frequent than “every now and then” or “now and again.”
Oh wow, I didn’t know that. “ab und zu” is definitely more often than “manchmal” but yeah… now that you say it “sometimes” feels a bit more frequent than “manchmal” to me.
We celebrate “St. Nick’s Day” here in Milwaukee too, and I believe in a few other midwestern US cities as well that had large amount of German immigrants once upon a time. A stocking is hung from the mantel and filled with small treats and toys and, in my family at least, always an orange in the toe of the stocking.
Ah nice :). I really enjoyed Nikolaus as a kid. Great tradition!