Any question answered...

Anyone want to go to the bike show tomorrow?

I have a ticket going spare.

I used to go to Switzerland regularly. In the francophone regions when I tried to speak French people would either ignore me or reply in English. In the Germanic regions if I tried speaking in German they'd assume I was a lazy French Swiss who had never bothered to learn German and would reply to me in French.

Go to the Goethe-Institut.

https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/sta/lon/kur.html

Don't do anything on-line. It leads to short-term gains which are quickly lost again and is not worth wasting your time on. Don't be put off by the cost. I've obviously never done of them, but I've heard only glowing reports from people who went there.

Persevere. German has more systematic grammar than English and the initial learning curve is much steeper. Many people give up and are left with the mistaken impression that German is much more difficult (as in the standard prejudice). That's not the case. Once you have got the basics together, it becomes easier, unlike English, which becomes harder to improve as you learn more.

Make sure to invest considerable time into pronunciation. Courses (even good ones) tend to aim at getting students to speak quickly, but it's really worth working on the basics. There are a number of sounds in German with which English native speakers typically struggle. The main one is the soft and gentle German ch as in "ich" (not as in "Bach", which is approximately as in 'Khan'). Most English native speakers end up pronouncing this either as k or sh. This can cause considerable confusion. Others include the long and very flat German "eh", which most English speakers pronounce as the diphthong in 'stay' (German has fewer diphthongs than English and all vowels are simple), the three "Umlaute" (which is a word that refers to the whole letters and not just the diareses on them) ä, ö, and ü (the German alphabet has 29 letters), as well as the German sch, even though this is very close to English sh. The German version tends to be fuller and more rounded and is a very important sound. Apart from these, the pronunciations are very close.

I have noticed it to be a considerable source of frustration for German language learners when they had already got quite far in the language and their inability to produce these sounds rendered their speech unintelligible, causing native German speakers to ask them to repeat what they had just said. The effect to a German is often one of sounds run together and not pronounced distinctly enough. It is therefore much better to practise pronunciation before suffering that kind of indignity. While it is hard for an adult to learn sounds they didn't learn in their youth, it is possible. Once you have those sounds, you will be much more confident and enjoy the experience far more.

You will need to learn how to perform 'glottal stops'. German uses these to structure itself and they are one of the most prominent features of the 'German accent', although most people don't know what it is that they hear there. They're present in English, too, although much less frequently.

Other than that, as zischendes.Reinigungsmittel said--make sure you find people who want to speak German, e.g. at a Stammtisch, go to German cultural events (not the Oktoberfest, as it is not a cultural event), read classic German literature (happy to provide suggestions). Listen a lot, speak a lot. Only practice works.

As has been noted before, Germans tend to learn English at school, and even though many of them end up sounding like German footballers called Jürgen, they are quick to switch to English when they notice you struggling. This is annoying, and you should be very clear with them that you don't want them to do that when it happens. They'll usually comply, as they thought they were helping you and didn't mean any offence. If you don't bring it up with them, you'll end up speaking English to them most of the time.

Anyway, feel free to ask any questions--it should be a lot of fun and of course I'd be happy to meet up about it, too.

Swiss German is as foreign a language to Germans as English.

Schwyzrdütsch occurs in several depths of accent. Some of it is quite close to standard German, but that from other regions is indeed completely unintelligible to a German German speaker. Then again, I can't understand a word of really heavy Platt (influenced by Friesisch), Schwäbisch, Bayrisch, or Österreichisch, either.

German's a great language. I'm just sad that I don't use it.

I got a U grade in O level German in 1976.

that is hilarious

is the ringel s also not part of german alphabet? i.e. 30 letters in theirs?

interesting to remark maybe, as a dutchman in hochdeutsch spheres, whenever i go to germanophone schweiz some inner process makes that i think i hear dutch whenever people speak schweizerdeutsch. this illusion is quickly evaporating due to not being able to understand a word, but the instinctive reaction gets me every time.

i guess it has to do dutch and schweizerdeutsch and lower german not experiencing the hochdeutsche klangverschiebung hence remaining more similar in sound and intonation..?

What's the best cure for occasional but catastrophic insomnia please?

sit in a dark room, but don't do anything

Reading this thread on the nuances of the German speaking peoples?

^ räp

is the ringel s also not part of german alphabet? i.e. 30 letters in theirs?

You mean the "Eszett" (ß). It's controversial. The current official story is that it's part of the alphabet, but I resist that for various reasons.

(1) I don't accept most parts of the disastrous 90s-00s spelling 'reform', which has resulted in a lot of silly nonsense and confusion (and much of it has already been taken back and more will be). A new (and supposedly 'standardised') role for the ß is part of that. I don't think that the ß is genuinely an independent letter, but rather a contraction of (old German writing) s and z, so essentially just a small aid to writing.

(2) The ß has been removed from spelling of German in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I think it's confusing to include it in the alphabet in Germany and Austria. I'm in favour of continuing to use it, however. And yes, it is all a bit messy.

(3) Traditionally, underlining its nature as merely a short form of two (lower-case) letters, there has traditionally not been an upper-case form of the ß (and it is hard to write one that is in any way distinctively upper-case). Where words in which it occurred were spelled in upper case (e.g., "STRASSE"), the letter was replaced by a double s. As the spelling 'reform' nonsense gave the ß a different role, in which spellings using double s and ß were distinguished by sound rather than convention, it has more recently been felt to be necessary to introduce an upper-case version, but it is not generally accepted. I think it's absurd to accept a letter into an alphabet that has only a lower-case version, but also, for reasons given, inappropriate to invent an upper-case version that to all intents and purposes hardly looks any different from the lower case. Here are the characters for comparison:

ẞß

It's lost on me what in the character on the left makes it more suitable for upper-case use (seemingly just squashing it a bit and giving the upper bow a slightly sharper angle). See the Wikipedia article:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F

^ This post was written strictly for the benefit of johnnyhotdog.

interesting to remark maybe, as a dutchman in hochdeutsch spheres, whenever i go to germanophone schweiz some inner process makes that i think i hear dutch whenever people speak schweizerdeutsch. this illusion is quickly evaporating due to not being able to understand a word, but the instinctive reaction gets me every time.

i guess it has to do dutch and schweizerdeutsch and lower german not experiencing the hochdeutsche klangverschiebung hence remaining more similar in sound and intonation..?

To me, Dutch and Schwyzrdütsch don't sound at all alike. I imagine that what you hear there (fleetingly) must be something in the vowels; consonantically, they are really very different. It's a very interesting observation nonetheless.

Learn Bavarian rather than High German. It's miles easier. None of that Sie/Du nonsense and everyone will think you're a farmer which is cool.

Are there any good 5 bolt 130 BCD 11 speed chainrings? Would like to keep using my current cranks, but spending ~£80 on a pair of FSA chainrings seems a false economy when I can just buy a new Ultegra crankset for £110

I don't understand the detail there, but my dad has a similar illusion when he hears Filipino, it sounds like Indonesian except when he tries to understand it he can't. His Indonesian is not fluent and I imagine if it was the illusion wouldn't exist. I get it a bit when I hear Dutch (couldn't say what kind) that if you're not listening properly it sounds like English.

Are there any good 5 bolt 130 BCD 11 speed chainrings?

11-speed has the same roller width as 9- and 10-speed, so if you're using non-matching rings anyway then using 9/10-speed ones won't create any additional problems. Stronglight would be the usual #tester_approved option, the basic Zicral ones (avoid the Dural, they're a false economy) will be about £45 for a pair. Stronglight CT2 from ACycles will be about £60 including shipping from France.

Oh, so internal width is the same, and fine on the chain rings, but external width is narrower meaning new RD / cassette? That's good to know, thanks

I'm doing the Kings College course at the moment, it's not cheap but pretty good and actually quite fun, the teachers are great. but as with any short course it's only as good as the effort you want to put into it. There's no exam at the end though which is both a blessing and a curse. I'd go for a class rather than online as it's really useful to be forced to talk german to strangers for a couple of hours a week - brings into focus what you know and what you dont.

I think it's absurd to accept a letter into an alphabet that has only a lower-case version

Блять!*

*Technically, there is an upper case мягкий знак but there is no need for it (unless you insist on shouting) since it cannot occur in the initial position

external width is narrower meaning new RD / cassette?

It's really the other way around - if you get a narrow spaced cassette you have to get the narrow outer width chain to fit. 11-speed chain will run fine on 10-speed cassettes.

was fuer ein witz eh alter