and do you really need all those umlauts?

[kindkit]

Dear German language,

Why is your possessive pronouns for "hers" the same word as your ordinary pronoun for the plural "you"? Do you really believe that's a good idea?

And don't you think you're just a little overcomplicated? Three noun genders? Four declensions? Other languages get by perfectly well without all that. I mean, look at your cousin, English. It doesn't have any declensions. It doesn't even have grammatical gender! But look how successful it is.

Look at your life, Deutsch. Look at your choices.

Comments

[vilakins]

Ah, but at least it's not full of exceptions - and how to pronounce words is obvious.

In italian one addresses people formally as "she" because the pronoun goes with the gender of "excellency".

[cathexys]

You are correct, though at least the formal Sie is capitalized (jut to make it more confusing :)

My favorite essay remains Mark Twain's, which you probably know, And here's my favorite part (I didn't realize how much of a pain it is until I started Latin with the weird check the verb at the end of the sentence before you do anything):

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called "separable verbs." The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is reiste ab -- which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:

"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED." (https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html)

[mllesatine]

You can totally get away with pronouncing "ä" like "e" which is what I and everyone speaking my dialect is apperently doing.

Anyway I think it's great that you learn German.