THE QUESTION of the 7th November...

[Jochen Schmidt]

Hallo Ferendra,

... Du, auch aus Deutschland, oder was?...

Ich hoffe, daß es so schnell wie möglich bei mir ankommt. Sag mal, von woher aus good old Germany schreibst Du?

(I hope, that it will arive as soon as possible. From where do you write me from good old Germany?)

Tschüß (bye, bye)

Jochen

[Instar]

I understood about 1% of that German. Particularrly "schnell"
hahaha
"ACHTUNG! MAKEN ZIE SCHNELL!" haha that always sounds soo impressive

[Jochen Schmidt]

(Giggle)

"Achtung, machen Sie schnell!" means - "attention, hurry up!"

I´m always impressed, that a lot of people in internet forums know always a little bit of the german language. German is very hard to learn. I´m glad to be a native german - to learn german as an adult/ non native german must be terrible. I also know some american people living in my country, who speak german very well - amazing, still amazing.

O.k. - grrrrr, i´m still waiting for the SE4 game to arrive here in Stuttgart/Germany. I know that i won´t get it in my hands till next week - could anybody of you lucky american guys post some information here about your first impressions of the full Version?? It would be very kind.

Thanks a lot.

Greetings from Germany

Jochen Schmidt

[Jeb]

As an American who understood the German in your message even before I got down to your translation, I'm amazed that you say (in flawless English) that German is hard to learn. German grammar and pronunciation is complicated, but works according to rules with relatively few exceptions, while English grammar and pronunciation is all over the map. Learning any language as an adult is hard, but as I understand it, the international consensus is that English is one of the worst. So *I'm* glad I learned my English on my mother's knee and didn't have to pick it up later. Almost everyone on the internet speaks pretty good English, a fact that most native English speakers don't properly appreciate.

[greghacke]

Languages are generally rated in catagories for difficulty. English and Mandrin Chinese are Catagory 5 (the highest.) Russian is Cat4, German is a 3+(usually rated as a 4 now.) English, Russian and German are the Languages I know. IMHO, English has the largest deviation in rules and structure, Russian has the most difficult grammatical conventions and German has the hardest vocabulary (try the official word for speed limit in German...) I don't consider English the hardest, though. Because of the incredably large acceptable rules, you can say nearly anything and be understood

[Psitticine]

People say Gaelic is hard, and I admit the pronunciation is tricky for people who haven't grown up around the sounds, but compared to English and its wonky rules, Gaelic's a breeze!

Oh, and I'm getting my copy of SEIV on FRIDAY!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOO!!!

[Ferendra]

speed limit is

Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung or sometimes even
Höchstgeschwindikeitsbegrenzug.

Because the word is so long, we don´t have
any Gesch.. erh speed limits!

(Guys, this is not true. Only 40% of our
Autobahnen are left without speed limits).

Greetings
Ferendra