her german is almost accent free
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canesamo — 18 years ago(September 08, 2007 12:04 AM)
Why would anyone learn German? Maybe because it's a very interesting language. Maybe because you want to travel in Germany and not sound like an idiot. Maybe because you're a language major in college. Or a music major, like me.
I have no idea why Sarah Chalke learned German, if she did. But I can think of plenty2000 of reasons why I'd want to (and am going to.) -
jo-parkins — 18 years ago(September 15, 2007 05:50 PM)
So, because 'Fire' and the german 'feuer' are pronounced similarly, it makes it unnecessary to learn German if you already speak English? Absolute boll**ks. I speak both fluently - I mean actually to the point where I can interchange one with the other. I lived in Germany for many years, I grew up there and attended German primary and some of secondary school and I can assure you, the similarities are as many or as few as many languages have with each other. There are cross overs in many. Anyway, bluerisk puts it best, quite frankly - they must either be a fellow linguistics student or just very interested in the history, make up and accuracy of language.
Regardless, Sarah Chalke has German parentage, and probably learned it growing up (the easiest time to learn, even better if surrounded by the 'foreign' language'.) Learning any second language is extremely difficult and takes time and effort to become efficient in it. Just because languages are 'related' in a distant, geographical way (albeit very distant now) does not make it easy or 'pointless'. Do not insult me, or others who have made the effort to learn several other languages for what ever reason that may be. I speak Spanish and Italian to a certain level, they have similarities but they are separate languages, with their own rules and vocabulary - they need to be learned individually and appreciated.
Anyhoo, there are a lot of links and cross overs, but there are just as many divisions and separations making it worthwhile learning each language rather than relying on a knowledge of one 'type' of language. Trust me, I can not make myself as understood in Spanish in ITaly as I think I am. -
jones-79 — 18 years ago(September 17, 2007 05:23 AM)
Ms. Chalke might be quite fluent in German (can't tell from the few lines in Scrubs), but accent free she's not (kinda hard to understand actually), and she makes mistakes even on screen. You would think they'd double check those lines.
And yeah, German and English are Germanic languages. Whoopie. Doesn't make one of them redundant. If you don't need another language, good for you. -
flaviabrowne — 18 years ago(September 23, 2007 12:50 AM)
well i'm from australia but have my family is from7ec germany. i learn german, not because i have to, but because it gives me a link with my past that i would not have if i just spoke english.
i've been to germany 3 times (a big effort considering i'm 16) and being able to speak to my relatives in their mother tongue is something that i find really cool. i mean, they all speak english, but it's not the same!
to say that german and english are "pretty much the same" is completely stupid and devoid of any thought. i havent' been learning the language for 6 years for nothing. it's a beep hard language for those learning it. i think it's great that someone like sarah chalke would learn it, for the same kinds of reasons that i did.
people learn languages for all kinds of reasons. people may have preconceptions about german, but i think it's a great language! i would like to think that people born in english speaking countries would extend the same courtesy to those born in non-english speaking countries by learning a second language.
we expect them to learn english, but somehow it doesn't work back the other way.
well, at least that's what it's like in australia!
so, deutschland! viele, viele schoene grusse aus australien!
bad grammar makes me [sic.] -
Conney — 18 years ago(September 27, 2007 04:40 PM)
i think her german is great. i'm german and she did a perfect job. i was pretty stunned by the "schnitzel" sentence.
her german was much better than the germans' german.
their german was not understandable.
and btw, sarah chalke rocks!
Conney -
ykickamoocow — 18 years ago(January 09, 2008 06:34 AM)
I would love to learn German (its a great language) but i just dont have the time. I can however say a16d0few phrases but they wouldnt be at all useful in conversation. All i can say in German is "I am a" then i drop in another random German word.
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kugayama — 18 years ago(February 13, 2008 02:06 AM)
Yep, "Alias" is a good example - I had the feeling that Jennifer Garner put a lot of effort in her German (and French) lines but it was far from fluent or accent free (which it was supposed to be according to the plot - a CIA agent posing as a German person in front of "real" b68Germans). However, the "real" Germans in Alias usually spoke German a lot worse than Jennifer, sometimes not understandable at all.
Same in Scrubs: Sarah's German is definitely not accent free but the two "Germans" speak a lot worse.
"i'm looking for the magic"
Tobias Fncke -
definitely_maybe-1 — 18 years ago(March 17, 2008 08:32 AM)
hello there everybody.
first of all, i am german. second of all, i have studied lunguistics. so: english is not at all similar to german. the two languages are related, but there is no direct connection, really.
sarah's german is amazingly good, my boyfriend is british and his is amazing as well, but when she speaks you can tell that shes been taught the language since she was little.
i checked out the supposedly german guy from that episode (season 2?) and fou16d0nd out that hes danish, not german. so hes just imitating, it would sound just the same if i tried to talk danish!
wow, my first post ever. -
inblooom-1 — 18 years ago(March 26, 2008 09:13 PM)
i hate it when imdb board turn into 'blah blah look how much i know' competitions. i heard that english isn't derived from one language but many european languages, many of which are derived from latin. now i'm not proclaiming this to be correct, just what i heard.
in any case, who cares how good her german was on scrubs, she made a good effort and it was for comedic effect, not to prove her knowledge of the language. so i congratulate her for having a go
Sweets, you couldn't ignore me if you tried. -
Algemar — 17 years ago(August 08, 2008 05:14 PM)
You know what bugs me? When people think that Polish and German are "like the same language."
I'm Polish myself, and while I'm not fluent I know quite a bit of the language. And I took a lot of German in high school.
Yeah, definitely not the same.
Anyways, I know enough German to have gotten a general understanding of what she was saying. And like someone else, it's a comedy sitcom. You can't expect 100% accuracy. -
emagdnima — 17 years ago(October 27, 2008 08:13 AM)
There are many people in Hollywood with a German background.
Bruce Willis has a German mother and was born in Germany.
Charlize Theron has a German mother, she even tried to get the citizenship two years ago. Allison Mac from Smallville was born in Germany.
And so on.
Funny thing about the Germans, when we move to a new country we tend to assimilate pretty fast to our new home. While Russians for example keep stay russians over generations, just in a new country.
And remember it is said that they where only one vote short to vote German as the official language in the US. Because one German guy said that day he wants the Germans to forget their old home and become Americans as fast as possible and for that they should not speak German. -
schmelzer_c — 15 years ago(June 16, 2010 11:22 AM)
No, that so utterly not true, it's not even funny.
Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend
und das ganze auch auf deutsch:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg-Legende