Der, die, or das?

[beige_alert]

“Test: Der, die, or das? Choose the correct article.”

*runs screaming into the night* Gah!

Also, is it OK that I tend to giggle when I see words like die Lebensmittellieferung? A “sesquipedalian” word is a long one, a foot-and-a-half long, to take the meaning literally. I guess in German one-and-a-half feet long is just getting started.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I had a few weeks of private German lessons, when I was in maybe 6th grade. One of the few things I remember from that is the word for speed limit: die Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung. One of the longest real words (as opposed to deliberate affectations like antidisestablishmentarianism, or cool chemical names like paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde) I can recall coming across in any language.

It's kind of interesting that when faced with a need to explain a new concept, French strings together a long phrase with all the little connecting words to make it totally grammatical, English strings together a short phrase by making nouns function as adjectives and such, and German runs all the needed words together into one blob.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

We also have the option, in English, of taking the French acronym and using that, even though the letters might not make a lot of sense in English.... I've never seen that sort of thing done in Spanish, I've only seen acronyms from the Spanish in Spanish, though maybe I just not seen enough Spanish yet to know.


Tee-hee, from LEO:
to break a speed limit: eine Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung überschreiten