Was Ist Typisch Deutsch?

I came across this great video while trawling for free German lessons. I am amused, slightly appalled and more enlightened about how the Germans think about their nationality. Oh, and I learnt a new word: "punklicht und ordnung"!

Accusative & Dative Definite Articles

A great way to teach yourself how to conjugate the German definite articles in accusative and dative form.



Lesson:
Das Meer (neutral); Die Stadt (feminine); Der Wald (masculine)

         Mas        Fem        Neu
 dat    dem        der        dem          (static)
acc     den        die          das          (moving)

Now to do this while I am conversing with someone without having to stop for 3 minutes to recall this table and conjugate the right verb.

Singlish for Idiots: Wait a while, OK?

Ju is coming to 10 months and is most adept at shrill yelling, cackles and wet razzing which leaves either the 

floor or the person next to him drenched in drool.  I don't know if he really understands language, i.e. when

he hears "Bye, Bye" does he associate that with waving, and hence waves, since he only waves maybe 8 

out of 10 times we coax him with Bye Bye and only after 5 to 10 seconds of exuberant goodbyes from 

everyone. He's started to ignore me when I yell at him to stop, but he does give me a knowing look before 

he about-turns and goes on his merry way into whichever room he is banned from. 

Today I will say a little more about the most frequently used Chinese words in our household: wait, and 

okay? And of course, more clues on our peculiar Singlish ways!

*****

Okay or not?

One of my frequent refrains to Ju is "Wait a bit, okay?". I would say:

等一下, 好吗？ or 等等, 好吗？ 

(deng yi xia, hao ma) or (deng deng, hao ma) 

好吗 (hau ma) can work as a tag to a statement.  The function of the tag is to turn the statement 等一下(wait a bit) 

into a suggestion or a request. Another way to say "is that okay?" is 好不好? which is literally "good, no good" but

translates also to "good, or not?"

This explains why Singaporeans like to use the Singlish term "okay or not?" to turn a statement into a question,

like this: "Each of us pays $10, okay or not?" instead of saying just "okay?" or "Is it okay if each of us pays $10?"

It totally makes sense because "okay or not" is the literal translation of  好不好 (okay, not okay). 

Next, to express consent and agreement, the response is usually 好  (hao) or  好啊 (hao a) with the 啊 in

neutral tone. [This also explains why in Singlish there is so much "ah"'s, it's because people are translating the  

啊 word into their English sentences.] 

*****

Wait a while, okay?

The other infamous singlish phrase is "wait a while". It is a literal translation of the Chinese 等一下 (deng yi xia).

The phrase 一下 always follows a verb (like 等, to wait) to indicate that the action expressed by the verb is 

informal and does not last long. Like such:

我看一下，好吗？ (wo kan yi xia, hao ma?)

Lit: I look, okay? 

Meaning in context: Could you let me have a look at it? 

So when I want to ask Ju to hang on to his horses and just wait a bit, I say 等一下 because I mean that he

should just wait a second or two, hence the  一下 which loosely translates to "a while". So the usual way we

would ask someone in the informal way to wait a sec is: 

等一下啦! (deng yi xia, la!) 

This is why when Singaporeans actually mean to say "Hang on a sec!" or "Wait, please", they instead say
"Wait a while lah!".

Multilingual Experiment: Yes, No and "Give"

Ju is 9 and a half months and for the past two months, has been hearing pretty much everything in triplicate, as our multilingual project goes into full swing. Ju reacts very reliably to "NO!", "NEIN!" and "BU KE YI!" but he also reacts to other phrases. Most important, the 3 languages are very different in terms of structure but more for Chinese. Aside from the pesky cases in German, simple German is structured very similarly to English:

EN: Give me the ball.

GER: Gib mir den ball.

But in Chinese, you would conjugate this sentence very differently, because we place the object (the ball) in front and importantly, there is no "the" since we don't use articles before nouns, but there is a term 把 "ba" which you have to place in front of the noun so that it makes sense:

CH: 把球给我 (ba qiu gei wo)

So if you wanted to tell a native Chinese speaker from a non-native one (who used the online translator for example), he/she would say: 给我球 (lit: give me ball). But this is a literal translation from English and doesn't work in Chinese. Verbs would never come in front of the noun in Chinese unless it is used in the Interrogative:

CH: 给我! (no article)

EN: Give it to me!

GER: Gib es mir!

And as you can see, again, there is no need for an article (it) in Chinese.The word 把 is a curious little word with mutiple meanings. It is an article as in 一把刀 (a knife) where 把 indicates the article associated with the noun knife. Or, as in the way I used it above when asking Ju to give me the ball, it's necessary when forming such sentences (1):

我把蛋糕吃完了

Lit: I (the) cake eat finish already

where 了(can be loosely translated as "already") is the clause that changes the sentence to the past or present perfect tense and  把 indicates that I did an action to the cake (I ate it). Or (2):

请把书还给我

Lit: Please (the) book return give me

where 请 means "please" in the most polite and formal form; 把 again indicates that an action is to be done to the book (return it); and 还给我 means "return to me" although the formation in Chinese is "return give me". Again, no articles necessary and in the interrogative form, you drop the 请 so it means "Return the book to me". As I said, the noun always comes first, but you need the clause 把. 

NEGATIVES

Unlike in the English "No" and German "Nein", Ju would not have heard any Chinese equivalent. Instead, we use different negating words depending on the context. This video is great in explaining how we negate in Chinese.

Ju hears mostly these phrases:

EN: No!

GER: Nein!

CH: 不可以! 

Bu Ke Yi (Cannot, Must not)

In Chinese, 不 (bu) doesn't mean anything on its own. It has to paired with 可以 (can) to mean cannot, and the implied of course is the action. So I would yell at Ju: 不可以进厨房 (lit: cannot go into kitchen).

To answer a question in the negative, as in "No. I don't want", in Chinese we say 不要 without having to say what it is (the article "it"). So I would ask Ju:

EN: Do you want it?

CH: 你要不要? (lit: You want don't want?)

And to indicate negative quantity, we say 

EN: There is no more.

GER: Es gibt kein mere.

CH: 没有了 (lit: don't have already)

where 有 means "to have" and 没有 negates it. So for Singaporeans, you get why people like saying "don't have!" when they mean "there isn't any" or "don't have anymore" when they mean "there isn't any left". So in Chinese, 了modifies "don't have" depending on what you mean:

没有了 no more left

吃了 have eaten

不要了don't want anymore

可以了 (now) (you) can

The best part about learning a language as a child is how you pick up these rules of grammar naturally just by listening to the phrases and sentences every day. I don't have to teach it to Ju formally and it is only when I thought about writing this post that I realised just how many rules and how complicated Chinese really is if you try to learn it with the rules of grammar!

Here is another great video which describes the rules of structuring sentences in Chinese (some of them).

Project Baby: 9th Month Milestones

The past month has been quite amazing in terms of Ju's cognitive development. He seems to understand a lot more because he responds readily now to us whenever we speak to him, usually "NO!" and "STOP!"  He had a successful run in Phuket although we had our first experience of a cranky baby in a really full diaper in a small cabin descending onto Changi Airport. I didn't know which was funnier, the fact that we had to prop him upright, stuffing his diaper with tissues for 20 minutes while our pilot found parking, or that half the cabin were strapped in by their seatbelts with nothing else to do but smell Ju's overflowing diaper.

Fine motor skills

Last month, Ju learnt how to clap and wave. The clapping is hilarious and he seems to be associating the Chinese phrase for it, as I make it a point to say 拍拍手 each time he claps. He has learnt how to use his fingers to spin objects like the swirly thing on his walker. The result is he tries to spin everything (including his lips), no matter if they can spin or not. His curiosity has got the better of him. He is attracted to anything that dangles and lately, the power sockets in the house. He can spend minutes on end fiddling with the bit where the telephone wire goes. It's not a good idea, I know, even though our sockets are "safe" in that two out of three holes are always shut with the added security of a switch which Ju has no way of flipping on. He has learnt to point at things too. He can pick up small crumbs and put them in his mouth, and move a cracker from one hand to the other.

Gross motor skills

Ju is now cruising quite steadily. He can walk as long as he is holding on to something. He can pull himself up almost anywhere with support, he can do this with a wall or someone's leg. He crawls so fast that it's actually scrambling than crawling. He is interested in steps now, and even though we live in an apartment without stairs, he likes to go over the one step into the kitchen and the balcony. He has learnt to beat a tambourine and in addition to biting everything, he spends his playtime tossing his toys around. He loves balls big and small, and would happily toss it back and forth with you. He is also obsessed with other children's balls, and would stare incessantly, waiting for them to offer him the ball. He continues to enjoy the water and got a real tan after our holiday in Phuket.

Communication

We've been singing nursery rhymes in 3 languages non stop to Ju. It seems that he not only enjoys them, he claps his hands when he hears his favourite "Backe, backe kuchen" and "Yi Shang Yi Shang Liang Jing Jing" (Twinkle, twinkle in chinese). He doesn't babble much and his verbal abilities are limited to grunting, shrieking, whining, chuckling and yelling. He does understand my sharp commands of "Fang shou!" (let go [of that]) and "Bu ke yi!" (Cannot [do that]). I've taken to using sharp corrections like "Ah!", using my tone to convey to him that he can't do what he's doing (poking and pulling wires) since I did that a lot with dog obedience training. Call it what you will, but it works. The baby at this stage is responding much more to our tone of voice than the content of our speech. Other times, we speak to him as we would to any adult of course. This is so he would get used to the languages being spoken to him.

Multi-lingualism

The funny thing is, our input has been uneven. I speak Mandarin to Ju but the frequency is not as high as the English he gets from my mother, his main caregiver during weekdays. Daniel's parents spent 3 weeks here, during which they spoke exclusively in German to Ju. There are some phrases that Ju understands in German (like "Komme raus!") but not in Mandarin since he likely hears it less frequently. His Oma also taught him phrases like "Wie grosse is der Julien?" (How tall is Julien?) to which he stretches his arm up high above his head. I tried it in Mandarin and got no reaction, but he obligingly raised his arm when I said it in German. So after that, I repeated it in Mandarin as well.

Feeding and Sleep

Ju's 5th tooth is descending steadily and his sleep pattern has only gone from bad to worse. He wakes intermittently and has to be coaxed back to sleep. The 1am waking is the worst, that one usually requires a milk feed before he would go back to bed. We dragged his mattress into our bedroom, next to our bed. We did this for two reasons: first, our bed was getting too small for the three of us and two, he no longer cries or whines when he wakes. Instead, he crawls silently out of bed, which has horrific repercussions in an adult bed. Once, I woke at 5am for some reason, just in time to see Ju at the foot of our bed, about to topple over the edge. I reacted in a split second, it must be these maternal instincts I keep hearing about, and grabbed Ju's foot just before he went over. I gave Daniel the third degree for putting him in bed with us. From then on, Ju slept only on the floor. He is also eating semi solids like porridge, banana, papaya, cereal. He loves rice crackers, the ones that melt in the mouth so it doesn't require chewing. That's our secret weapon as it keeps him busy for a few minutes.

*****

I usually give Ju lots of space to explore as he wishes, I prefer to get him to play independent of my participation. It seems to be working as Ju can play and explore by himself while I sit at my desk writing my blog post, for instance! I shout to him from time to time if I don't see or hear his hands and knees on the floor. He would come scrambling over to me whenever he needs some attention or a drink of water. Then, off he goes again. The 9th month is really a great time, despite all the sleep I am losing.