Es ist noch kein Meister vom Himmel gefallen*

[ganimede]

Two months further on with the German course on Duolingo and its sentences continue to get increasingly bizarre.

In the other post I mentioned the random phrase, "Ich bin eine Banane" which has appeared again along with what seems to be a growing identity crisis:

Comments

[manue7a]

I don't quite get why you should be able to properly pronounce sentences you'll probably never need (or perhaps shouldn't even say again in company :D )

[ganimede]

I know, it's incredibly strange. It hasn't even touched things like numbers or how to order drinks or food. The pronunciation is difficult anyway because it's a computerised voice and not entirely clear. Trying to work out the exact pronunciation of something like 'fertig' is really tricky.

[meathiel]

Those sentences are pretry weird - but I guess they use them to make you learn certain words?

At least the translation is loosely correct.

[ganimede]

Yes, there's a whole section on animals which was quite early on and so using animals as examples seems to have become a factor of later sentences. It's so odd though. I expected it would start off with learning how to introduce yourself, give your age, where you're from and all those basic kind of things. It's taught how to say what your name is but that's it. It reckons I'm currently 21% fluent but if I was dropped into Germany right now, I wouldn't even know how to say I was lost or to order a cup of tea.

For the idiom? There was some confusion over it because some Germans were saying that it should be "Ubung macht den Meister" as that had a closer meaning.

[meathiel]

Both are valid to say.

[ganimede]

Okay, thank you for the confirmation!

[daria234]

Interesting! I have tried French and Spanish duolingo and get much less interesting sentences. I think the best was "The Elephant is blue" or something.

[ganimede]

This is the first Duolingo one I've tried. I'm not overly thrilled with it, it hasn't taught anything I could actually use in Germany yet like numbers or directions.

[hobbitblue]

I htink i prefer the Dutch duolingo which also like mice but prefers juice and turtles for the most part. Oh and rhinoceroses.. I'm more familiar with Uebung macht Meister as practice makes perfect but I'm sure there's plenty of sayings i don't know.. I googled the "es is noch..." phrase and i think that matches up better with "Rome wasn't built in a day". Which is a weird saying in itself, really..

[ganimede]

Perhaps bears and beer are more common in Germany than turtles and rhinoceroses? I think idioms are hard to get your head around if you're not a native speaker.

What does your icon say? It's quite hard to read - I got the Carpe diem bit but can't make out the other one.

[hobbitblue]

May well be :) and idioms are tricksy for sure (usually fun when you work them out too..)

Its Carpe diem, carpe citharam - seize the day, seize the guitar (or some similar stringed instrument at least)

[ganimede]

A lot of idioms don't make sense unless you know the background too which makes it more difficult.

Ohhh! I didn't know the word 'citharam' so that didn't help. It's not a great colour of text to stand out from the background :(

[qwentoozla]

You're going to be able to have some interesting conversations if you take this knowledge to Germany! :P

[ganimede]

I think I'll get a lot of blank looks and people muttering "crazy Englishman!" Good job I already know how to do the important things like order a cup of tea ;)