I want to learn a Celtic language

Yeah, I don't know. It's just that for me, writing the translation(s) on the other side hasn't worked out in the past. My mind fixated on remembering the exact phrasing that I put there, whereas what is important is the implicit meaning... because at least for me the eventual goal is not to have to even think about the translation of a word, but directly associate it with the object/action/whatever that it means.

So I might flip through half of my flashcards barely pausing, only detecting that, yes, I know this word... I suppose with physical cards it's not a problem - you can just move on without turning them over. But you don't get away that easily with a lot of online sites. For example, Duolingo, if I recall correctly, will make you type the translation out. I suppose it works on a classroom principle, but if you're doing it for yourself, it's actually counterproductive, I think.

/End rant.

Thanks for the explanation, In use Google just because it's convenient, but I do have a hard copy dictionary that I can reference too.

There's quite a few alternative/goth bands that sing in German (or both German and English), I just came across some of them by chance, one I was familiar with is Rammstein, they're one of the more popular German bands that pretty much sing only in German, the first time I ever heard them was over 10yrs ago on a late night talk show, and I didn't even realize they were dining in another language. I'm also finding songs in German on my "discover weekly" playlist on Spotify, it suggests bands that are similar to bands already in your library. It's a good thing there are so many German bands that sing in German because it'll help me to hear the language, and it's somewhat of a helpful way to learn a language aswell.

Yeah, like I said I should may physical flashcards just so I have something to flip through with words and translations, it won't be every single translation, but may be the one or two most common ones (like with das, being the or that for example).

And I started the lesson on cases, and I get most of it, the explanations were decent, but what frustrates me is when they show you something like the genitive case and say "well it's not used as much, so we'll only use it for comparisons", so is it really not used as much as the normative, accusative (spelling may be wrong on this one), and active cases? Just wondering.

Er... "active cases"? You probably meant to say "dative" (which is the one case left).

I can't quite draw a definite conclusion on the genitive, though. Maybe they have some statistics. I've never interacted with a German with a different distribution of cases. To me the genitive seems alive and kicking. As a point of comparison, in Dutch in the 19th century the genitive was very similar to German (at least in writing and formal speech), but nowadays it's completely gone and replaced by the "van" construction (equivalent of "von" in German... obviously), apart from a few vestigial expressions. I don't see anything like that in German.

In fact, I sometimes feel that Germans prefer the genitive to the "von" construction that kind of adds unnecessary clutter (admittedly, with one short word).

Well, here you go, another perspective to consider . I could be telling complete nonsense, because as I've mentioned many times, my own command of German is far from perfect. I just know that I can't complain about the lack of genitive. I think the amount I encounter is just right. You mileage may vary.

Okay, this might be a stupid question, but how have you been pronouncing Rammstein and is it going to change? (Namely, with the "s" or "sh" sound.) I actually don't know, maybe it already exists normally in English with the correct German pronunciation. I can't remember.

I know that in Russian it's pronounced like in German, even though traditionally words like that are converted into the Cyrillic alphabet differently. Which is to say, the combination "ei", instead of the sound like in "buy", keeps a more literal sound like in "hey". Like, Einstein becomes "Eynshteyn".

It's always fascinated me how English and Russian have approached the problem. Russian got the "s" right, while English - the "ei" (unless it randomly decides that it's the "ee" sound now). I've never found out exactly why that is... I mean, English might simply get confused because the alphabet is the same. But in Russian there must have been a decision by a translator at some point. And it makes me think that maybe it points to a time when the German "ei" was indeed pronounced like "ey" in "hey"... Or maybe someone just screwed up (because according to a certain Old North specialist I'm subscribed to, that sound goes quite a ways back)... Well, you can't really say "screwed up". It's really up to the language what it does with borrowed words, even if they are names.

It's just occurred to me that you might be inclined to disagree (probably not, though), because English is a weird language that tends to torture itself by trying to follow the correct pluralization for words of Latin and Greek origin... But I think no other language? I mean, at some point you have to realize the futility of that. Because almost no language has completely regular plurals, so you'd have to become an expert in the language of every borrowing.

In contrast, Russian has been happily "domesticating" all kinds of borrowings, among which "jeans" which has become "jeansy" (with our own plural ending tacked on) and "chips" ("chipsy").

Yeah, I meant dative, apparently my phone doesn't recognize the word and corrected it.

Thanks for your explanation, I was doimg pronouns today, and it didn't mention them in the genitive case, only the accusative, normative, and dative cases, maybe there are no pronouns in the genitive case, I don't know.

I pronounce Rammstein with the "s" sound instead of the "sh" sound, I think all English speakers pronounce it with an "s" sound because we don't know any other way, but the pronunciation may change for me once I get used to the correct pronunciation. Pretty much anything with an "an" sound in German if they are words known by English speakers will just get pronounces with an "s" sound.

Thanks interesting, I don't know much about this stuff to have an opinion one way or another, sorry.

Working on cases and today was pronouns, and it's kind of confusing, I'm not going to go through the whole thing, and "die" confuses me because apparently it can also mean "you" when capitalized, even Google translate the first translation of "die" is "you" so now it has four translations? She, they, them, and you, I guess it must be how it's used, the example sentences only showed the "du" pronouns, as in "du", "dir", and "dich", nothing else, I would have liked example semtemces fpr all pronouns, but that would have been pretty long.

Also an update on how google translate translates "sein", yes it does translate it to "be" as the first translation, but if you click on the other translations it does translate it to "his", Google translate isn't bad, but it's also not the best either, it's just conviente because I have the app on my phone.

Hm, I haven't considered that. Also, I myself haven't reached the pronouns section in my grammar book, so I still might discover something I don't know. But unless there's some tiny but disastrously important part, I think there's pronouns that can be used as a subject or an object - those you know in the nominative, accusative, and dative cases. Then there's possessive pronouns, which perform the same function as nouns in the genitive. So it would be mein, dein, sein, ihr... unser... and ihr, I think? And, of course, they take on different forms depending on where and what und so weiter.

I think I'm just going to ignore any mentions of Google Translate as a source for word definitions from now on. How about that? I mean, it's specifically not a dictionary. It's a translator. The difference is that it's not supposed to work outside of specific context... I suppose because of abuse (or market demand) they've been adding some dictionary functionality.

Also, that autocorrect really threw me for a loop.

And yeah, "sie"... Well, I've really kind of always considered it a blessing (and supposed others would too). I much prefer remembering a cut-down number of pronouns, than unique ones for every case... especially if they also had unique ways to make cases. I mean, do you miss the Spanish yo, tú, él, ella, ello, Usted, nosotros, vosotros, ellas, ellos... Oof, I've even gotten tired writing... Ustedes... And many of those have their own way to make direct, indirect, and possessive forms. I'll spare you examples. (Oh, also don't forget accent marks depending on the context.)

It's a shame about the lack of examples, though. On the other hand, there's really not much to see. They really do look the same. I mean, the verb would be conjugated differently depending on, well, if it's the "she" "sie" or all the rest. I mean, "sie lebt" - "she lives". And "sie leben" - everything else (plus add capitalization).

Also, I've just today read (in the book by Wolfgang Hohlbein) about the protagonist getting confused as to which "sie" her correspondent meant... Although I think maybe it was about different varieties of "them" "sie".

So bad example. But there could have easily been a scene where a policeman would say "Verhaftet sie!" and his underlings wouldn't know whether he meant that a woman or a group of people should be arrested.

I've been forgetting to ask: how's your épopée for Netflix? ...Wait, does that word exist in English? It shouldn't, otherwise I wouldn't have added the accent marks... Oof, well, that's one problem with being bilingual. You often get confused by which words have been borrowed from the other language and which haven't (yet, perhaps).

How's your quest for Netflix (and good German shows on it)?

Okay, that makes sense, the book hasn't talked about possessive pronouns yet, but I checked and it will talk about them later in the chapter.

Okay, I won't use Google translate as a source any further other than to check a translation quickly (on my own). I do have a dictionary, but it doesn't look like it gives too many examples of words (like if I did look up "sie" how many translations would it show, or would it only go with one translation?) But my dictionary isn't huge, and doesn't give many examples of word translations, or what they mean.

Sie is going to be a confusing word for me just due to it having so many meanings, even das isn't as confusing to me, even with the fact that it has a couple of different meanings.

I haven't signed up fpr Netflix yet, I probably will next week when I get some money, so I have no updates on that yet. But I'll let you know when I do sign up and find something good whether it be a show or movie. I did find my Kindle and have the app on it, but found out my speakers don't work right (when I have my headphones in), so it'll be interesting to watch shows on there unless I don't use my headphones that is.

First, there's a version of Kindle with apps? (Probably something like "Fire".)

Second, I highly don't recommend listening to a foreign language with malfunctioning or low quality speakers (as, I think, they tend to be on portable devices). Really, headphones would be best... Anything that can get the sound closer to you and remove any interference.

I mean, I've got this kind of paradox - some videos I listen to I feel like I'm almost fluent, by how much I understand. Then I turn on a different video and get crushed. It could be just a different accent, but generally it seems to be the quality of recording. It shouldn't make such a big difference (it probably doesn't, in your native language), but add a little bit of echo and you can cut intelligibility in half.

Well, it's supposed to be a gradual learning process... Although today I saw an ad promising to teach me 100 new words every day. And then I also googled a forum thread hotly debating feasibility of that... They calculated that at that rate you'd understand 90% of an average text in less than 2 months... I don't know if that's encouraging or depressing. I'm pretty sure I'd have to make that my full-time job, to keep it up. Especially for all my languages... It's not, of course, a problem of looking at 100 words, or even just remembering them for the day. It's that I'm going forget most of them the next day.

Anyway...

Jeez, I remember how only a few months ago I complained about the difficult pronunciation of Polish... And now I'm stumbling over Welsh words. While wondering how I could have ever considered Polish pronunciation hard.

And the thing is, it kind of isn't. The native speakers pull it off daily, without any more mistakes than an English speaker speaking English.

Oh, no...

I've just learned what language Dracula is supposed to have spoken... For some reason I was convinced that it had to be some variety of Hungarian. I was quite satisfied with that because Hungarian is in a completely different language family than all the languages I've studied, and so I've managed to convince myself that it's not worth the effort...

Well, actually, it turns out that he most likely spoke the Romanian language, which is within the Indo-European family and should be close to, for example, Spanish.

...On the other hand, I'm less fascinated by Dracula and more by Elizabeth Bathory... who is supposed to have a distant relationship to Dracula, and she spoke Hungarian... Which doesn't exactly make the situation easier, but rather more disturbing, because of how much those two figures are intertwined in my mind.

Yeah, the Kindle Fire has apps, I would use my phone for Netflix, but the issue of using up storage when I do literally anything on my phone is a problem
I figured out it's all cached data that is doing it, so I have to manually go in and delete that quite frequently. I'm probably going to have to use my Kindle for Netflix just so I can read subtitles because if I used my TV (I have an Amazon Fire stick), I'd have to sit literally right in front of the TV, my vision is that bad, so it's easier to hold something up to my face. I can hear perfectly out of the left speaker of my headphones on my Kindle, but I can hear put of the right, except it sounds muffled and not too good. Right now It's not so much me understanding too much, it's more getting me to hear the language being spoken to familarize myself with it.

Yeah, 100 new words a day doesn't really sound too feasible, I sewn an ad on facebook for the app Babble giving a challenge to learn a new language in 3 weeks, I don't think that's how it works, maybe if you go and completely immerse yourself in the language (probably by traveling to the country of the language you're learning), then maybe you might learn to speak it, but even that is a bit idealistic of a goal (and again probably not very feasible either).

The next chapter in my book is on pronunciation, that's also going to be hard as there are words in English I can't even pronounce, but I have the task of learning to pronounce words in another language, I already know how hard it can be to pronounce words in a different language from taking Spanish in school. The funny thing is Duolingo, my book, and Google translate all vice different pronunciations for the same word sometimes (I can't think of an example off the top of my head right now though). I also think the pronunciation chapter in my book should have came before the grammar chapter.