Eine Frage der Deutschen Sprache

Hula   Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:24 pm GMT
Ok, but I don't get why some one would think you were a native speaker just because your pronunciation/accent was native sounding. I mean if some one spoke English with a perfect accent, but made mistakes in grammar, idiom or basic structure, I wouldn't think they were a native speaker.
Roger   Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:38 pm GMT
<<Ok, but I don't get why some one would think you were a native speaker just because your pronunciation/accent was native sounding. I mean if some one spoke English with a perfect accent, but made mistakes in grammar, idiom or basic structure, I wouldn't think they were a native speaker. >>

Well, on a basic level I do a'ight. No one would immediately spot me out. I even had some of the flight attendants fooled on the following flight I connected to, just because I wanted to see if I could pull it off. They never caught on that I was American once I initially greeted them with "Guten Tag" and they just assumed I was German because they spoke German to me the rest of the flight.

It's only when you sit and try to have a conversation with me that it becomes evident that although I have a good foundation, it's never really been built upon further. And where I do not know the German idiom, I naturally substitute it with my native English.
Hula   Thu Dec 24, 2009 5:13 pm GMT
Hmm, I do always wonder just how much Germans pick up on grammatical mistakes. I mean when I lived there they would say to me that I didn't make any mistakes, yet I know I did. Of course I did, I mean my grammar's good, but when you're speaking quickly, it's hard to get the genders, plurals, endings all of the time. Maybe the endings tend to get swallowed in spoken speech, I think they do, but still, even if that's the case, I'm sure I didn't speak idiomatic German. Or maybe they just wanted to encourage me, but I don't think so, as when they did hear a mistake they would correct me, like I remember once I said 'ihm' instead of 'ihn' and I was immediately corrected, but in a nice way. But it's funny, because I can pick up on a bit of 'non-native' sounding English a mile off regardless of accent. Although to be fair, most non-native speakers have a foreign accent anyway.
Roger   Thu Dec 24, 2009 7:01 pm GMT
I don't think they care much, or are very forgiving in that regard.

The flight announcer, when he related his spiel in German, made SEVERAL gross mistakes (gross as I would call them), like saying "Wir haben auf Frankfurt gekommen", and one dative/accusative error (can't remember exactly the specifics), and I looked around and none of the German passengers cared (they were likely just not listening to him). But all in all I find that to be true. They're probably just so used to everyone making mistakes.

I will agree on the "ihm" vs "ihn"--I had a similar occurrence with "dich" vs "dir" which was SOFORT gecaught and corrected. And the worst part was I knew better. I was embarassed to say the least.
Hula   Thu Dec 24, 2009 7:28 pm GMT
Yeah I knew that the ihn/ihm thing was wrong as soon as I'd said it as well lol. It's nothing to be embarrassed over though, it's easily done, especially as they sound similar. But 'Wir haben auf Franfurt gekommen'? Please, that's very wrong. It should be 'Wir sind in Frankfurt angekommen', shouldn't it? Unless my German is failing me now, it certainly should be, so it was hugely wrong. I doubt any German listening wouldn't cringe at that. Maybe they just think German's so hard they have to ignore it, but that doesn't explain them saying they haven't noticed any mistakes, when some one is speaking to them directly.
Roger   Thu Dec 24, 2009 7:48 pm GMT
<<It should be 'Wir sind in Frankfurt angekommen', shouldn't it?>>

Genau.
Hula   Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:07 pm GMT
But saying 'Wir haben auf Frankfurt gekommen' is the equivalent of saying:

'Wir are coming onto Frankfurt' isn't it really? But yeah I suppose the average English speaker wouldn't look up from their mag and Gin and tonic either hehe
Hula   Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:09 pm GMT
Not the literal grammatical equivalent, you understand, just the equivalent in terms of being wrong!