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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tourism & Travel > Ask me about germany.
 
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abelwingnut
Dec 23, 2002


 Here are a few questions.

1 - There's a style of writing that originated in Germany that's very ornate, almost like calligraphy. I think it was used in the 1500-1700 period. What's the name of it?

2 - My last name is Amspacher, which I'm pretty sure is just an altered version of Ansbacher. As Ansbach is a town, and most probably where my ancestors came through, I'd like to know a little mroe about it. Seems like a small, Bavarian town and not much more.

3 - Are there still Mennonites and Anabaptists in Bavaria? If so, how do they interact with the rest of Bavaria?

4 - How the hell do you guys remember all of the genders and conjugations of German? Further, which books would you recommend for learning German? I know that might be a hard question for you native speakers, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

abelwingnut fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Sep 24, 2009

* # ¿ Sep 24, 2009 20:08
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abelwingnut
Dec 23, 2002

Polonium posted:

Maybe I'll answer some more questions later (right now I'm hungry), but I believe you're thinking of Sütterlin.
It was actually used much longer, into the 20th century but since it is no more taught at schools (for quite some time, my parents, who were born in the 50s, can't write any Sütterlin), it might die...

I was actually thinking of Fraktur, but thank you.

Jesus, Sütterlin is dizzying.

* # ¿ Sep 24, 2009 20:18
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abelwingnut
Dec 23, 2002

Liface posted:

There was a study done where they made up German-sounding words, then asked native speakers to identify whether the word was der, die, or das. The respondents agreed with a staggering level of accuracy.

The ability to assign genders to German words is learned through growing up listening to and speaking the language. No one who has ever learned German as an adult will ever have this ability. They may develop their skills over time, but they will never be 100% on nouns which they have not learned through rote memorization.

Do you happen to have a link to this study? Sounds pretty cool.

* # ¿ Sep 24, 2009 23:17
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tourism & Travel > Ask me about germany.