Is there a German speaker in the house?

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Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Lance » Tue Jun 03, 2014 12:44 am

Every person here with at least one German grandparent remembers a phrase from their youth. It sounded something like:

Arouse (rhymes with grouse) mit chu

or

Arauche mit chu

I'm pretty certain the "mit" means "with" and "chu" was the English word "you" with a heavy accent. I have no idea what the first word actually was or means though. The context would lead one to believe it meant something like "away" or "be gone" but I would love to know once and for all what it really means. Cyndi and I both had German grandparents so it is a phrase we grew up with and frequently use with our dogs. I just want to be sure I'm not telling them to "come lick my nuts" or something.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:24 am

Heraus?

If so, not the way I would said it, but I am very definitely non-native.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Lance » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:36 am

Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Thanks!
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:17 am

Well, it's possible it is my native language. But if so, it was replaced by English at a very young age, and had to rebuilt from scratch :)
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby tubeswell » Tue Jun 03, 2014 10:21 am

More like 'Raus mit du' I would think

(And the fat schmaltzy guy who said it a lot on TV was taking a breath in as he spoke, or so I seem to recall, which would account for the 'he' in front of 'raus' in your phonic spelling)
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Arneb » Tue Jun 03, 2014 12:06 pm

Augenblick mal bitte...

I think Lance's hunch is mostly correct, but I strongly suspect it is a sort of English-German amalgam German immigrants used - tongue-in-cheek and with a view both to mocking their linguistically-challenged grandkids AND their own heavy accents. With me, the phrase doesn't ring a bell at all - I am totally not bilingual, having started to learn English at a very late age (in 7th grade, when I was almost 13 years old).

So here is my interpretation:

"You" does rhyme with its German counterpart "Du" (pronounced like "doo"), but not with the declensed German form, which is "Dir" or "Dich" and would be applicable here in correct German. So "Heraus (or just Raus) mit Du" is just very, very, terrribly wrong - it should be "Raus mit Dir!". The literal translation is "out with you", meaning "out of here", "be gone", or "off you go". Maybe they made a joke of their non-declining new language saying "Raus mit you" precisely because the word-for-word no-declension translation of "out with you": "Raus mit Du" is so grinding to a German ear.

The other part of the joke is the use of sounds that are alien to English and betray the speaker's German origin: The addition of "He-" to "raus" is optional in German and would not normally be used in colloquial speech. But, of course, you can use it to good effect to pimp a simple phrase into a stereotypically German "barking orders" sound: HeRAUS mit you". Additionally, Germans have two very charcateristic difficulties pronouncing English: Our "r" often comes out very guttural and hard (a bit like the "ch" in "Loch Lomond)", and so does the soft"y" sound, coming out almost as a "j". So, if you bark "Hhherrraus mit juh" at your impressionable all-American grandkid, you mock the German stereotype, your own accent, AND the stupd, facile language without proper declensions you had to learn, all at the same time. Plus, you get rid of those stupid grandkids immediately. Not bad for just three words.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:04 pm

It is my understanding that, although "you" sounds like "Du", it is really descended from "Sie". So it should be, "Heraus mit Ihnen!"
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Lance » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:14 pm

I love this place. I think collectively we know everything there is to know. Either of these work well and fit perfectly.

It's interesting that there is nothing I can get to translate the other way. "out with you" just becomes "mit dir", which I would guess is missing something.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:35 pm

Arneb wrote:Additionally, Germans have two very charcateristic difficulties pronouncing English


Not to worry, you got back at the English speakers with ö and ü :)
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Heid the Ba » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:51 pm

Lance wrote:I love this place. I think collectively we know everything there is to know.

Certainly everything worth knowing.

My Mother learned German at school and, deep into her 80s, can still speak it to some extent. I suspect it has a quaint, out of date charm to a modern ear since it has never been updated.

There was no German spoken in our house but ocassional bursts of Hindi, by both my father and grandfathers, courtesy of time spent in the Army.

"Get to your charpoi jildi" was heard on many a night. I still do dhobi and drink pani and chai, as does the Memsahib now.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Arneb » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:52 pm

Lance wrote:It's interesting that there is nothing I can get to translate the other way. "out with you" just becomes "mit dir", which I would guess is missing something.


Missing something, sure, but correct German. Which is something.

I notice that good, really good English or American speakers of German usually master umlaut, strong verbs and our funny declensions at some point, sometimes to near perfection. What almost none of them ever get completely right are the genders and the "r" sound. "Ch", which can be either the ch in "Loch Lomond" or something you don't even want to know, depending on the preceding vowel, is also very tough.

I guess a good shibboleth to separate the wheat from the chaff for German would be "Streichholzschächtelchen" (little matchbox). How do you do, Mactep?
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Arneb » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:01 pm

To give you an idea, try to answer this one: Which of the German words for the following items is/are not in the female gender:

Rocket
Road
Rod
Girl
Erection
Pistol
Grenade
Ammunition
Disease
Bus stop

You guessed it, right? :shock:
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Heid the Ba » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:01 pm

I think it is virtually impossible to completely master another language unless you start young and live in a country it is spoken in and I'm always wary of people who are described as "fluent" in x number of languages.

We used to have a trainee who was Belgian, spoke Dutch as a native language, French (though she would never admit it) and very good German as her husband was German. Her English was good enough that she passed her law degree, diploma etc. in Scotland but still got caught out by some things like "unpossible" when I pointed this out to her she said "But that is unlogical . . ."

This is not to decry polyglots of any ability as I am effectively monolingual.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:13 pm

Arneb wrote:What almost none of them ever get completely right are the genders


Most of the time (IMHO), the mistake is a masculine/neuter screw-up. Structuring one's sentences so that the noun with the uncertain gender appears in the dative case (so that the articles and adjective endings are the same) is a high art form for the foreign speaker. Plural is also helpful in this regard, but if one doesn't know the gender, then possibly one also doesn't know the correct plural form.

Although Russian has the same three genders, the correct one is obvious a large majority of the time from the word itself. Furthermore, Russian has neither definite nor indefinite articles, so it matters less. Except in the past tense, when conjugation of the verb depends on the gender of the subject :)

Or do you mean issues like the difference between grammatical and natural gender? E.g., when you find the missing fork, do you say "here it is" or "here she is"?

Arneb wrote:and the "r" sound.


I think I'm probably guilty of that.

Arneb wrote:"Ch", which can be either the ch in "Loch Lomond" or something you don't even want to know, depending on the preceding vowel, is also very tough.


Well, I say it. I don't know how correct it is. But isn't there huge regional variation in the "ch" sound? (Swiss?)

Arneb wrote:I guess a good shibboleth to separate the wheat from the chaff for German would be "Streichholzschächtelchen" (little matchbox). How do you do, Mactep?


There, I just said it. How was it?

Now, without looking it up, do you know whether someone or something is "discrete" or "discreet"?
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:14 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:This is not to decry polyglots of any ability as I am effectively monolingual.


'Tis better to be monolingual, than semilingual!
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:17 pm

Arneb wrote:To give you an idea, try to answer this one: Which of the German words for the following items is/are not in the female gender:

Rocket
Road
Rod
Girl
Erection
Pistol
Grenade
Ammunition
Disease
Bus stop

You guessed it, right? :shock:


I don't know all the words, but Mädchen is neuter! And don't forget Fräulein.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:19 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:but still got caught out by some things like "unpossible" when I pointed this out to her she said "But that is unlogical . . ."


I hope you mentioned to her that "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing :)
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Мастер » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:28 pm

Arneb wrote:I notice that good, really good English or American speakers of German usually master umlaut, strong verbs


Not only are many of the strong verbs also irregular in English, they sometimes even have the same pattern - drink/drank/drunk vs. trinken/trank/getrunken :mrgreen:
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Heid the Ba » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:33 pm

Мастер wrote:
Heid the Ba' wrote:but still got caught out by some things like "unpossible" when I pointed this out to her she said "But that is unlogical . . ."


I hope you mentioned to her that "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing :)

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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby MM_Dandy » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:28 pm

My mom's parents were of German descent, but he died before I was born, and she never, ever spoke German that I can recall, although she passed away when I was only five. Among their siblings, German was used very infrequently. Both grandparents and all of their siblings were born in the States, for what it's worth. My grandfather's mother was also born in the U.S., but I'm fairly sure her parents immigrated, and possibly some older siblings, as well.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Lance » Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:29 pm

Why does a rocket have to be a boy or a girl? And how can you tell anyway? They don't have skirts to look up or pants to drop. :-k
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Arneb » Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:58 pm

Мастер wrote:Now, without looking it up, do you know whether someone or something is "discrete" or "discreet"?


Yes. A bit of a lucky coincidence there, but yes. I seem to remember that when I read both words in their respective contexts a short time apart, I was astonished that the spelling was context-dependent. "Yeah, that's one of those things English will do to you", I thought, and never forgot.
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Arneb » Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:30 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:I think it is virtually impossible to completely master another language unless you start young and live in a country it is spoken in and I'm always wary of people who are described as "fluent" in x number of languages.

We used to have a trainee who was Belgian, spoke Dutch as a native language, French (though she would never admit it) and very good German as her husband was German. Her English was good enough that she passed her law degree, diploma etc. in Scotland but still got caught out by some things like "unpossible" when I pointed this out to her she said "But that is unlogical . . ."

This is not to decry polyglots of any ability as I am effectively monolingual.


Absolutely. It can be very frustrating to hit the wall of not-quite-thereness, and more than once I noticed from my English friend's furrowed brows and "oh Arneb, you can do better than that" when I had been cauht again in some minor but telling mistake - especially when I was drunk (as we frequently were - meeting only so often).
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Re: Is there a German speaker in the house?

Postby Arneb » Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:37 pm

Мастер wrote:
Arneb wrote:"Ch", which can be either the ch in "Loch Lomond" or something you don't even want to know, depending on the preceding vowel, is also very tough.


Well, I say it. I don't know how correct it is. But isn't there huge regional variation in the "ch" sound? (Swiss?)

Oh, there are. The soft "ch" version I was referring to is all but unknown in Swiss German.

Of course, when I wrote "something you don't even want to know" I was referring to those here not into learning German and unacquainted with its horrors.

Мастер wrote:
Arneb wrote:I guess a good shibboleth to separate the wheat from the chaff for German would be "Streichholzschächtelchen" (little matchbox). How do you do, Mactep?


There, I just said it. How was it?


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