At last. It was about time! - English-Thread #1

[Turgon]

Hello again!
Right now I have to go a lecture, which is in english.
And sometimes I wonder, because the professor says something odd, like "so far so good" or "and so on and sofort".
To me it sound too german to be a real english phrase.
What do you think? Are these phrases common in the english language?

[La Cipolla]

"so far so good" definitely, the other one definitely NOT.

MEIN GOTT.

[Glannaragh]

Sure the second one isn't "so on and so forth"? Still sounds very 'german' to me, but would make more sense .

[BDraw]

"So on and so forth" may seem weird, but it's definitely an english idiom. Especially idiomatic stuff can sound really strange, but I guess that's due to a common origin.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" still sounds absolutely stupid to me.

[fedprod]

And don't forget as the Benedictine Monk Bede wrote (freely circumscribed):

"The English Folk are the descendants of the following Germanic Tribes an kin: The Angles (area of modern Schleswig-Holstein) who migrated their whole nation to Britain, hence its archaic name Ængla land; the Saxons, originating from Lower Saxony (in modern German: Niedersachsen) and the Low Countries (Netherlands); and finally the Jutes, possibly from the Jutland peninsula (in modern Danish: Jylland)."

There is a lot archaic german old english and even some still in modern (britisch) englisch.
Everywhere migrants are bringing their language with them. Some other more recent german examples (in this case mostly american english) are:
rucksack, kindergarten, angst, zeitgeit, blitz, alpenglow, gemütlichkeit, gestalt, gesundheit, realpolitik, etc.

[BDraw]

Hey, if you take a look at Middle or (even worse) Old English, most English have a much harder time understanding stuff than us Germans, simply because half of it (literally) sounds like German. Or even Kölsch.

I mean, hey, "cutlass" used to be "panade" in Middle English, I don't know if the word is still used today. Some schnitzel, anyone?

[fedprod]

Some schnitzel, anyone?

...

That reminds me of a funny anecdote a friend once told me. He was on a trip to Israel, if I remember correctly on a short time student exchange,
and one time the guest mother prepared Schnitzel with some roasted Potatoes and veggies for dinner.
My friend wanted to express that he liked the meal very much, especially the Schnitzel, and racked his head for a proper english word for Schnitzel,
and at least, after of some short funny discussion and word grasping, and not even coming up with something like "sliced and crumbed pan fried pork meat",
he just pointed at one said slices and the guest mother said just dryly: "I don't know how you call it, but we here call it Schnitzel"

[Turgon]

Sure the second one isn't "so on and so forth"?

...

After listening closer to my professor, I think this is, what he said. But it really sounds like "so on and sofort"

It seems like there are many german words in english, I didnt know. Thanks for the information fedprod and funny anecdote btw

[Ave]

After listening closer to my professor, I think this is, what he said. But it really sounds like "so on and sofort"

It seems like there are many german words in english, I didnt know. Thanks for the information fedprod and funny anecdote btw

...

The first time I heard, that ''kindergarten'' is used in english kind of surprised me.

[Turgon]

What really suprised me is that there is no word for Schadenfreude in english. One of my favourite shows(Community) made a joke about this and i didn't understand it until I heard that there is no word for this

[Ave]

What really suprised me is that there is no word for Schadenfreude in english. One of my favourite shows(Community) made a joke about this and i didn't understand it until I heard that there is no word for this

...

So how did they explain the word? Or tell me the joke, if you remember. ^^

[Turgon]

One of the main characters lost a game of foosball against some bad germans and then one of the germans says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGd56epac5c