Friday, August 17, 2007

Deutsche Tageswort

fahrplanmäßig - adj. meaning regular, as in 'timely, according to the published timetable or schedule'.

In English, we might ask, "Will we still arrive at our destination on time, despite the delay?"

In German, that looks like, "Kommen wir doch fahrplanmäßig an?"


Rufus said...

How do you pronounce ß? Is it just a b sound?

Holly said...

It's actually two SS sounds. In much the same way that vowels with an umlaut are that vowel+e (ä = ae, and so forth). It's a whatsit. That printerish styley thing. Ligature. Like double fs, fl, or fi. There are others. Germany (and to some extent Austria) had spelling reform about that and other things in the late 80s that addressed the kind of spelling that leads to having 3 ss or 3 fs in a row, inside a word, and one of the things that (mostly) got removed from things, or at least legitimated spelling things with double s instead of ß. Thus the word for street is correctly spelled Strasse or Straße.

Holly said...

Oh, and, yes, in case you were wondering, many German speakers are, in fact capable of pronouncing single, double, and even triple consonants with sufficient clarity that the hearer can interpret and spell the world correctly.

Rufus said...

Well, they've got it over the French then!