I want to learn a Celtic language

This is kind of interesting because my Grandpa was half Romanian (didn't speak the language though), and there was this thing in my family about how the Romanian side of his family are descendents of Dracula (I don't really believe that though). I always figured Dracula spike Romanian though, I don't know why, just did.

Ugh, why are there so mamy cases in German, first you have the masculine, feminine, neuter (and with the cases for the words "die", "der", and "das"), the plural. Then you have them in the genitive, normative, accusative, and dative forms. All for what would be the same word in English.

I like the German language, that's why I'm learning it, but boy does it really make me want to hang my head against a wall trying to learn it.

Well, that's a dilemma. I almost automatically wanted to dismiss Google's and Duolingo's (which, I believe is based on the same engine) translation attempts... But at the same time, I believe Google's German text-to-speech should be pretty good by now (in comparison to Welsh, for example, which is the classic robot voice beloved by all). Which is not to say that it can't make mistakes. At the same time, depending on the word you might have missed a diacritic, which would change the pronunciation completely. And, some words, with the same spelling, are pronounced slightly differently depending on the meaning. Although that's only which syllable the stress falls on.

Once again, when in doubt, refer to forvo.com. Or also to the wiktionary. In both of them the pronunciation might be missing for some words, but I think you're still studying the common vocabulary for which it's unlikely.

It's not unlikely, actually. Although I haven't looked into the matter myself, there's this meme that if you look back far enough, you should be descended from every person on Earth at a particular time (if they have surviving descendants at all). Simply mathematically speaking. Well, for absolutely every person on Earth that would be a really long time (60,000 years or something). But for someone with Romanian roots to be descended from a powerful Romanian noble 800 years ago (so maybe around 30 generations) is not unlikely, indeed. I think.

I don't seem to have the same level of frustration about this as you, but I think it's my learned helplessness. I'm just kind of resigned that I have to study all those nuances. Although I might grow old and never really master them (not to mention, it's quite likely that in my lifetime they'll change quite a lot - the genitive, for example).

I mean, when I talk about wanting to learn languages, I don't see it as a fun challenge. It's an almost depressing obsession. I know that it's going to consume more and more of my time, and I'm almost certain that I'm never going to master another foreign language to the same extent as English. Also I don't see myself getting so affluent as to afford going to live in the country of a particular language, or even to acquire the learning materials (in the form of textbooks or just entertainment) to really get me ahead. I mean, I'm feeling so guilty over spending several hours reading that book on Wednesday - that's learning and entertainment that could have been stretched over so many more days!

...Anyway... Probably, between not learning any languages and too many, you've hit the perfect balance. In which case, well, there's really not a lot of choice where you can avoid cases and genders... Well, okay, among the languages that I've studied, Spanish and French don't have noun cases... But all have genders (sometimes reduced to just two)... If we say that learning a language is an indispensable brain workout, then studying genders is... that ONE EXERCISE THAT YOU HAVE TO DO THAT MADE THIS ACTRESS GAIN 20 IQ POINTS! (You get ads like that in the US, right?)

I really kind of depressed myself there (or maybe it's just because I got up earlier than usual today). But there's really only two ways for me: either I abandon a number of languages, and feel like a loser. Or continue, with them devouring the days of my life without a clear benefit, apart from the feeling of performing a task diligently... I mean, I don't even have anyone to brag about my achievements to. (I don't know if here counts. I don't think you can characterize my activity like that fairly.) And rather prefer not to, anyway.

My best hope is that either the economic situation in Russia suddenly improves (and takes me with it), or I get a nice, well-paying job out of nowhere, enabling me to liberally enjoy entertainment in various languages... I mean, all in all, it's not the most outlandish of hopes.

Yeah, Google, Duolingo and my book all pronounce "ich" slightly differently, if it wasnt for songs I listen to, them I would be confused on the correct pronunciation of the word. I guess it's like how I may pronounce words differently than some other people pronouncing the same word, it probably happens in a lot of languages, I think, I don't really know.

Yeah, it's just something that got passed down through the generations, I just think it's an interesting tidbit of information, whether my Grandpa is truly a descendant or not.

I think my frustration is just coming from it being something I'm not used to, I'll figure them out sooner or later (probably later).

Today was a lesson on possessive adjectives, and that was a little confusing as the word "ihr" which I though meant "you" can be used multiple ways, as in "ihr" (formal singular address), "ihr" (her), "ihr" (formal plural address), and "ihr" (their), that was really confusing especially with no context or example sentences using all those forms of the word. Hell even the table showing "mein" in all its forms (as in, mein, meine, meinen, meinem, meiner, and meines) didn't give any example sentences using the words in the normative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases. I would have liked some examples of both "Ihr" and "mein" being used, it would have helped.

The economic situation here isn't the best either (though the media would have you believe otherwise), I will probably never actually be able to visit Germany, so I'm not completely sure why I'm learning the language other than I just like music in it and want to understand it. I'd probably be better off taking a second shot at Spanish, but for now I'll stick with German. Maybe I'll win the lottery one day and get to travel to Germany and use the language (well what I would know of it at that particular point).

Something I found on Facebook, it was a little kind of cute phrase that goes something like this;

"Don't be sad, because sad backwards is das, und das ist nicht gut".

I was just happy I was able to understand "und das ist nicht gut" without going to google translate, and knowing what word das was translating to (das being translated to that), though I keep translating it to "and that's not good" instead of "and that is not good", "and that's not good" just sounds better in my head, I dont know why.

Oh, "ich". Yeah... okay, the "official" (or normative, I suppose) pronunciation is clear, and those three sources really should agree (although I'm not sure about how the book is pronouncing anything at all ).

Apart from that, depending on the region, the ending "-ich" gets pronounced, as far as I've heard, two different ways... Aaand, letters fail me here. But the important point is, they are articulated almost identically. The placement of the tongue differs a tiny bit...

Oh, yeah, I'm at that stage in my learning where I pay attention to how exactly the tongue should be placed to produce a particular sound... I mean, I don't look into the mouths of native speakers. Mostly it's experimentation within my own mouth. Which must sound pretty weird.

I really don't know what you expect. Or what examples would have done. Like with "sie", these words only differ by the verb that follows (and even then not always). Although I should correct that "ihr" - the form of address - is actually the informal, familiar, and always plural form. "Sie" takes care of all the formal options.

...Oh, my sources of examples refuse to work at the moment... Well, I'm gonna try to come up with something, but, well, they're going to be these words + verbs in conjugations, which I don't know how well you know yet... And sometimes they're going to change depending on the case and gender...

Ihr springt. - You jump. (Or "Y'all jump", as some grammarians like to differentiate it.)

Ihre Katze isst. - Her cat is eating. (Or, indeed, "Their cat is eating.")

Die Menschen bewegen ihre Beine. - The people are moving their legs. ("Her" really wouldn't make any sense here.)

...And "mein" - especially "meinen", "meinem", and "meiner" - is going to be pretty tough to sort out, without a solid grounding in cases and when they are used. I mean, "Ich gebe meinem Hund ein Spielzeug". - "I give my dog a toy." Does it really make things clearer?

Maybe it is a problem with the book. But at the same time it seems to be a chicken and egg problem. I mean, language is a pretty interconnected thing. Like in my examples, you start illustrating pronouns - you step into cases and conjugations. And genders.

From over here it seems like you should have plenty of German speakers over there. Literally towns... I mean, it's still not necessarily a short walk away, but unless I've been severely misled by, among others, Wikipedia, you should be able to get a taste of Germany without international travel at least.

I mean, as far as I know, German has no equivalent to 's as an abbreviation of "is". And in translation you're guided by what sounds natural.

Now, there might be all kinds of appropriate abbreviations in various colloquial dialects that I don't know about. Which is neither here nor there, I guess. Because at this point I'm quite confident that if I don't know about them you're not going to see them in a meme meant for general English consumption (I assume).

Okay, makes sense, I've just heard "ich" getting pronounced different ways and was confused. I guess it's like some words that end in "ig" get pronounced one way, while others another way fertig gets pronounced one way while richtig gets pronounced another with the "ig" part (at least I think they do).

I don't know what I expected either, the book is mainly teachong you to speak rather than read an write which is probably why there aren't so many examples of grammar, and why the chapter wasn't super long (I just finished it today).

Thanks for the examples, they really did help me better understand things. And cases were explained the best they could be in such a way for a beginner, I'll need to look them up more to get a better understanding of them though.

I'm sure there are German speakers around where I live (well I know of two, my psychiatrist and group thera list, but for obvious ethical amd boundary reasons they can't help me), we do have a tourist town in my state call Frankenmuth, and it's kind of based off of Bavaria, but I don't know if anyone there speaks German. I'm sure they're around, it's just finding them.

I mean, I just went with what sounded better in my head, and that was "and that's not good", though the translation really is "and that is not good".

I'm still trying to figure out how the first word(s) in the song in my signature get translated from "ich bin" to "I'd", since "ich bin" is I am.

Well at least the next chapter starts off with pronunciation of letters in the alphabet, (though that should have came before the grammar chapter). Then it goes into like greetings and other stuff like that, but the pronunciation is what I'll be focusing on for the moment because even though I can pronounce some words both that I've already seen/heard and some that I've never seen before, I need to know how individual letters are pronounced, so I get better at pronunciation.

Nope. The same person should pronounce both endings the same way. Unless they're doing it for comic effect. Which tells me something about the social desirability of some pronunciations... Alternatively, it could also be that one pronunciation is their native, but they're trying to replace it with a more "proper" one.

Well, have you seen the versatile word "gern(e)" yet? In such expressions as "Ich lerne gerne Deutsch". Which would translate to "I like learning German".

It's a case where a particular sentiment is expressed by a completely different construction. The same with the word "lieber".

I don't think it works like that. I mean, German is more phonetic than English, but still, there's no letter "sch"... I suppose I'm nitpicking.

I mean, you're talking about pronunciation or names of the letters? I myself actually don't think that I know all of the names... Maybe just one - ß... Maybe it's time to rectify that... Hm, some fascinating colloquial names there - "Rucksack-S" - "Backpack S".

Well, I've learned something today, too... Or rather, had confirmed. And it's relevant to a not so distant conversation.

Says here in my grammar book:

"Family names (rarely first names) occasionally get used with the definite article. It's mostly colloquial and stresses the familiarity with the named person. Also the definite article can clarify the gender.

Denk doch an die Pawlowa! Die hat mit fünfzig noch ihren "Sterbenden Schwan" getanzt." - I think this would translate simply "But think about Pavlova! She danced her "Dying Swan" at fifty."

And later:

"In the South German colloquial speech personal names get used with the definite article. This is especially a distinction of South German and Austrian writers."

I suppose it's not particularly relevant at the moment, but it's not unthinkable that you'll see an example of that sooner rather than later. And for me it was enlightening.

Okay, I guess that makes sense, I mean it's just something that keeps tripping me up, it will probably take a while for me to learn proper pronunciations of words.