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Originally posted by Richard English:

Except that Ich gehe jetzt" (I go now) does not mean the same as "I am going".

Then what does it mean? I don't mean this rhetorically; I don't know enough German to know what it means.

Keep in mind that the present progressive has a few different meanings:

1) "I am going now" - action in progress
2) "I am going next week" - future plans
3) "This week I am going to the theatre" - temporary action
4) "You're always going out drinking" - frequent action
5) "At 1:00, they're often going to the park" - habitual action at a particular point in time

I'm certain that German has ways of expressing all these meanings.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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"Ich gehe" -> "Ich gehe jetzt" adds one word to express the new meaning.

"I go" -> "I am going" adds one word and changes one word, more complex surely?

Except that Ich gehe jetzt" (I go now) does not mean the same as "I am going".

But I agree that it is easy to argue that additional complexities add additional meaning in many cases; I simply do not agree that the plethora of German genders and gender modified articles and the like, add anything but complexity.

I was keeping it simple.

If I wrote, or said, in German "Ich lese gerade" That DOES NOT TRANSLATE into English as "I read directly", though that is what the individual words mean. It translates into English as "I am reading". This is the meaning that any German would understand from it. That you have started reading at some time in the past and haven't finished yet. It's just a different way of expressing exactly the same concept. With that said ninety percent of the time it would be unnecessary. Consider the following exchange.

I'd like a cup of tea.
Make it yourself, I'm reading.

In German

Ich hätte gern eine Tasse Tee.
Machen Sie sie selbst, ich lese.

Certainly you can't tell from the two words "ich lese" whethr or not they mean "I read" or "I am reading" but from the context it's absolutely clear that they must mean "I am reading" whether or not "gerade" is added.

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Keep in mind that the present progressive has a few different meanings:

And also:

"I am going to London to see her." Statement of intent, but with no specific details.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
And also:

"I am going to London to see her." Statement of intent, but with no specific details.

That would be 2) future plans.

There are others though, for example: action that is about to take place ("I am going now") and (similar to your temporary action) temporary state with an undetermined end date ("I am working in a hotel" as compared with "I work in a hotel").

I distinguish this from your temporary action because it is usually related to your state of mind and how you view your current state rather than what that current state is.)

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That would be 2) future plans.

Only in the sense that anything that isn't in the past is in the future.

For example:

"Are you seeing her here?"
"No. I'm going to London to see her."

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Originally posted by zmježd:
Old English had grammatical gender, but only nouns and adjectives were marked.

Grammatical gender is a kind of noun classification, and modern English has a sort of noun classification. We make a distinction between human (he/she, who/that) and non-human (it, which).

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We make a distinction between human (he/she, who/that) and non-human (it, which).

That seems perfectly logical to me. What I find illogical is when languages make a gender distinction between various kinds of "it".

Languages aren't logical though, are they?

How is it logical to say "I eat", "You eat" but "He eats"?
What meaning would be lost if the "s" wasn't there?

How is it logical to have the present continuous formed by using the verb to be plus a form of the verb with "ing" on the end? It's completely redundant. "I eating" or "I am eat" would do the job perfectly well.

How is it logical that we shift tenses in reported speech? Why does "He said, 'I'm here.'" have to become "He said he was there" not "He said he is here."

All these things, and indeed everything else about every language, have developed more or less arbitrarily, certainly without reference to logic. Only the made up languages such as Esperanto have given any consideration to logic and even they are only marginally more logical than natural languages.

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Languages aren't logical though, are they?

Certainly not. But there have been many attempts to simplify languages by getting rid of some of the more unnecessary illogicalities, and getting rid of arbitrary and pointless grammatical genders would seem to me to be a prime candidate for adoption when seeking to simplify.

After all, we managed to do it with English.

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I find illogical is when languages make a gender distinction between various kinds of "it".

Why? As already mentioned, grammatical gender has no connection with sex.

I am not convinced that any grammatical feature in a language is unnecessary. I've found that most people tend to think that the language they speak is the best and most rational one in existence, while the languages that foreigners speak are weird, outlandish, and defy reason and good taste.

Take the example of case. If you speak a language with inflected case you tend to not notice it very much until somebody (usually a foreigner) puts the wrong ending on the wrong word. We anglophones tend to say that English got rid of case (or inflections in general) as though it were a disease or a box of rotting apples. But, I have noticed those same people are usually dismayed by Chinese that gets by with no inflections at all. "Oh, dear, they've gone too far" they say shaking their heads. The fact is, is that English has replaced the old grammatical system of case endings indicating the syntactic relationships between nons and verbs with one of word order. And who's to say which is more arbitrary or more difficult. While languages like Russian and Latin have more or less free word order (actually a misnomer as the order of words within a sentence still has pragmatic value), English does not enforce a strict word order, but relies on little helper words, and some patterns of inversion of phrases (as in questions, or use of passives), etc.

Also, while in some ways English can be said to have simplified its inflectional grammar, that has come at the increase of complexity in other areas of its grammar. The verbal system in English is quite complex set of auxiliary verbs, periphrasis, and particles and adverbs. And I have mentioned the difficult system of definite and indefinite articles as well as other determiners.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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Languages aren't logical though, are they?

Certainly not. But there have been many attempts to simplify languages by getting rid of some of the more unnecessary illogicalities, and getting rid of arbitrary and pointless grammatical genders would seem to me to be a prime candidate for adoption when seeking to simplify.

After all, we managed to do it with English.

Yes, but it didn't happen with English because people decided "let's make English simpler by removing some of that unnecessary gender and noun cases." It just happened. English could easily have changed in the opposite direction, and gained more cases and genders. Then you'd think it was perfectly sensible because it would be your native language.

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I've found that most people tend to think that the language they speak is the best and most rational one in existence, while the languages that foreigners speak are weird, outlandish, and defy reason and good taste.

Yes, I've noticed that here, too, but perhaps it's just the case because we know our language so much better.

There are aspects of other languages that I admire, and I imagine others feel this way, too. For example, I studied Spanish and Latin, and loved that Spanish was so easy to learn, relatively speaking, and that Latin was so helpful in learning vocabulary. While I didn't study French, I have always been enamored with its beauty. And then there are the great words that my husband and father-in-law taught me in Yiddish. And German! I love hearing about all those German words with concepts that we don't have, such as songs that keep going through our heads (ohrwurms).

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I find illogical is when languages make a gender distinction between various kinds of "it".


Why? As already mentioned, grammatical gender has no connection with sex.

Which is why I consider it illogical.

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And I have mentioned the difficult system of definite and indefinite articles as well as other determiners.

I would suggest that the German system is far more difficult. We have three definite and indefinite articles, none of which have to agree with their nouns. German has many more, all of which do have to agree.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
I would suggest that the German system is far more difficult. We have three definite and indefinite articles, none of which have to agree with their nouns. German has many more, all of which do have to agree.

I don't know, I've had to teach the English determiner system, and it's very complicated. What is the difference between "A lion is a strong animal", "The lion is a strong animal", and "Lions are strong animals"? Why can we use "a" as a generic reference, as in the first sentence, but also as a specific reference, as in "A lion walked into my back yard yesterday"?

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I love hearing about all those German words with concepts that we don't have, such as songs that keep going through our heads (ohrwurms).

Just because we don't have a word for something doesn't mean we don't have the concept. I am completely familiar with the concept of music stuck in my head, even before I had heard the word "earworm".

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Just because we don't have a word for something doesn't mean we don't have the concept. I am completely familiar with the concept of music stuck in my head, even before I had heard the word "earworm".

Yes, yes. And I have come to agree with you, z, and Bob on that (how could I not agree with such impressive language people?!). However, personally, I find it endearing and quite interesting when a language pinpoints a concept with one word. And the visual from ohrwurm adds to the delight!

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Yes, yes. And I have come to agree with you, z, and Bob on that (how could I not agree with such impressive language people?!). However, personally, I find it endearing and quite interesting when a language pinpoints a concept with one word. And the visual from ohrwurm adds to the delight!

I can be interesting, but I'd be more surprised if there was a one-to-one correspondence in words and meaning between two languages. It seems that ohrwurm was originally literal: it meant "earwig".

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It seems that ohrwurm was originally literal: it meant "earwig".

I believe it still does. Many peoples, obviously including the Germans, believed that these innocent little creatures would try to burrow into one's ear - though for what purpose I cannot conceive!

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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It seems that ohrwurm was originally literal: it meant "earwig".

I believe it still does. Many peoples, obviously including the Germans, believed that these innocent little creatures would try to burrow into one's ear - though for what purpose I cannot conceive!

Apparently to sing songs to us that we then can't forget.

Which is why the guy in that Night Gallery episode was screaming hysterically.

Tonight Shu and I had dinner with a dear friend who went to high school with Shu, but who has lived in Israel, on a Kibbutz, since his college days. Moishe and his family only spoke Hebrew at home with their kids in Israel, but he was raised in the U.S. speaking English. Therefore, he is fluent in both languages. I asked him whether there are words in English that can't be adequately translated into Hebrew, and vice versa. He didn't even have to think about it...he said "Oh yes!" I brought this up right at the end of the night unfortunately and didn't have a chance for a lot of examples, except for one Hebrew word. He has promised to email me, though.

By the way, my Chinese friend still hasn't sent me any specific examples.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I asked him whether there are words in English that can't be adequately translated into Hebrew, and vice versa. He didn't even have to think about it...he said "Oh yes!" I brought this up right at the end of the night unfortunately and didn't have a chance for a lot of examples, except for one Hebrew word.

So what's the word?

I asked him whether there are words in English that can't be adequately translated into Hebrew, and vice versa. He didn't even have to think about it...he said "Oh yes!"

Here we go again, although you did hedge with "adequately". It might be interesting to do (or read, if it's already been done) a study on code switching (link) in bilingual informants to see which sets of words are used in which contexts. I know of anecdotal evidence in my own home growing up. We all of us used English almost exclusively, except for my grandmother who would speak her Italian dialect with her sons. Even though, my father, uncles, and I would use a set of loanwords from the dialect, mainly food items, instead of non-existent English translations. Ironically, these days some of these words, or their Standard (Tuscan) Italian terms, have entered English as loanwords: e.g., focaccia, pesto, gnocchi. Some have not, tocco for example, which is a red meat sauce for pasta. One would think that the other Italian terms for this, such as ragu or marinara or English red meat sauce might be "adequate" translations. And they are if by translation you mean get the immediate sense across, but if you're talking about getting the homey, intimate, subjective connotations across, then no they aren't adequate. If you've never had a good pesto sauce (a basil, oil, cheese, and garlic paste or sauce for dressing various kinds of pasta), no amount of translation or explanation will suffice to transfer the knowledge and intimate, subjective feelings of the word.After you've had some, then you'll probably just use the term pesto.

Another anecdote: when I lived in Bonn, studying the local dialect, occasionally I would hear tell of regional food items, some that were only available at certain times of the year. One of these was Rievkochen, available around Chrsitmas time, and made from potatoes. Finally, the time arrived, my friends took me to a Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Fair, but that's not really an "adequate" translation, link), and we found a booth that was selling Rievkochen. We ordered and when they arrived, I exclaimed: "Oh, they're latkes (potato pancakes)!" The I explained that I had had this very food item while visiting Polish and Russian Jewish families. So, in this case I found an adequate translation for Rievkochen that I did not even know I knew. Of course, Rhenish Rievkochen aren't the same recipe as the Polish (Catholic) or Russian (Jewish) versions I had, and if latkes are anything like pesto, then every mother and cook has their own special and true recipe, but those Rievkochen tasted an awful lot like potato pancacks I'd had before in the States.