Deutschsprachige Überlebenden (German)

[Hrollo]

Wikipedia actually has a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives#Weak_and_strong_inflection

[kjeks]

I'm leaving this here.

It is an pdf file english-german and part of the refugee's help. For those who want to get into german it is an easy starter. They do not provide you with IPA though, because they assume that the people using this file will get taught by an external person.

There is several languages available on the website (arabic, farsi, pashto). I bet that for a lot of european countries such ressources exist. I know the greek have some stuff in arabic for example.

[JoB]

I'm leaving this here.

I note that they took liberties to have "München" be the example for the letter "Ü" but did not include the South German shorthand of, e.g., "dreiviertel sieben" in the idioms of telling the time ...

[kjeks]

I note that they took liberties to have "München" be the example for the letter "Ü" but did not include the South German shorthand of, e.g., "dreiviertel sieben" in the idioms of telling the time ...

The people whom that book got designed for might be confused enough already, you should spare them the good old "6:15 - viertel nach sechs - dreiviertel 7" discussion XD

[JoB]

The people whom that book got designed for might be confused enough already, you should spare them the good old "6:15 - viertel nach sechs - dreiviertel 7" discussion XD

On a more serious note, and since you mention confusion (to better avoid early on), I would have bolstered the "timekeeping" sections with a bit more practical information - as in, Germany (and neighboring German-speaking nations and regions) has only one timezone, observes (the EU variant of) DST, the traditional holy day is the Sunday, "Werktage" traditionally includes Saturdays though a great many businesses are nowadays closed that day, which is why bus/train/... timetables are often split into three types of days, ...

[kjeks]

On a more serious note, and since you mention confusion (to better avoid early on), I would have bolstered the "timekeeping" sections with a bit more practical information - as in, Germany (and neighboring German-speaking nations and regions) has only one timezone, observes (the EU variant of) DST, the traditional holy day is the Sunday, "Werktage" traditionally includes Saturdays though a great many businesses are nowadays closed that day, which is why bus/train/... timetables are often split into three types of days, ...

yeah that indeed would be helpfull. Well there is a lot of stuff lacking, like where to cut hair, where to get cloth to cover your hair, where to find a mosque/church/other community of service but then uh... how much can you put into a first welcome sheet made by volunteers? The one we started with was far... worse XD

[Auxivele]

Hiya! So I only recently started teaching myself German so I know very little, but grammatical gender is confusing me. How do you know what something's grammatical gender is? Is there some way to tell? Sorry if this was already discussed...

[Shine]

As far as I can tell it's just something I know, and unlike Italian I never found out about any rules, so I still have problems with distinguishing male from neutral. I've been told that at least the German part of my family  manages it partly because they memorised it, and partly by "just knowing what it is, it's hard to explain", so I'm afraid you might have to pick it up by practising.
On the other hand gender isn't that important when speaking.

[Auxivele]

All right, thanks for your help.

[JoB]

How do you know what something's grammatical gender is? Is there some way to tell?

Where whatever you're talking about has a biological gender, the grammatical one often is matching that for the adults, and neuter for the young'uns - note, however, "Junge" (boy) being the first exception right away, and male. Beyond that - memorization.

[kjeks]

Hiya! So I only recently started teaching myself German so I know very little, but grammatical gender is confusing me. How do you know what something's grammatical gender is? Is there some way to tell? Sorry if this was already discussed...

Only chance you have is learning by heart. A girl (Mädchen) is neutre (das Mädchen) until it becomes a woman (die Frau). The boy however is male from the start. Things ar especially hard, so whenever they give you a new vocab, you look up the article and learn its gender.

[Sunflower]

Hello.  I'm hoping some German speakers can help me with a piece of fiction I'm writing. 

It's an urban fantasy setting (a framework that grew out of Unwary's Shared Story thread) in which magic has recently become real in the modern world, and a few people involuntarily transform into animal or mythological forms (lions, dogs, snakes, unicorns, winged fairies, etc.).  As in the Harry Potter books, only a small minority are capable of using magic or at risk of shape-changing.  Unlike those books, magic use and transformation mostly takes place in the open; attitudes of the rest of the population range from acceptance to distaste to outright prejudice or even attempted lynchings.  (Rather like the real-world situation for LGBTQ people in some parts of the world.)

My current story is set in Berlin, involving several magic-users, both American and German.  My characters run into the fictional equivalent of skinheads or neo-Nazis, who try to attack them for being magical, yelling insults while they do.  So I'm looking for plausible German terms for:

• "Garbage person" or "trash person" ... not necessarily a literal translation, but conveying some of the scorn of the Nuremberg Laws-era insult Untermenschen.
• A parallel to the Nuremberg Laws' term "Rassenschande" or "race pollution", but "species pollution" -- or maybe "skin" or "shape" pollution if that seems a more plausible thing to say.
• "Sympathizer" or "fellow traveler" -- the kind of insult a skinhead would apply to someone who isn't the group they hate, but approves of/tolerates/intermarries with them. 
• A similar term to "skinhead", but for ignorant, violent people who hate the magical folk, rather than different religious or ethnic groups. 
• Both derisive and polite/neutral terms for "magic folk/magic people" -- i.e. the ones who have the inborn ability to learn to use magic, whether they look human or otherwise.  Would it be more common to use the term Zauber or Magische?  Or would it depend on context?  Is Zauber considered more antique and/or literary?

[JoB]

So I'm looking for plausible German terms for:

• "Garbage person" or "trash person" ... not necessarily a literal translation, but conveying some of the scorn of the Nuremberg Laws-era insult Untermenschen.
• A parallel to the Nuremberg Laws' term "Rassenschande" or "race pollution", but "species pollution" -- or maybe "skin" or "shape" pollution if that seems a more plausible thing to say.
• "Sympathizer" or "fellow traveler" -- the kind of insult a skinhead would apply to someone who isn't the group they hate, but approves of/tolerates/intermarries with them. 

One thing you'll IMHO have to make up your mind about is whether you want plausible, or distinctive. I don't see that clientele insisting, or even being prone to, inventing completely new vocabulary on the fly, but rather slightly redefining existing terms. (In particular, in the contexts given above, I'ld expect to hear the preexisting "Abschaum", "Ziegenficker", and "Volksverräter", respectively.)

• A similar term to "skinhead", but for ignorant, violent people who hate the magical folk, rather than different religious or ethnic groups.
• Both derisive and polite/neutral terms for "magic folk/magic people" -- i.e. the ones who have the inborn ability to learn to use magic, whether they look human or otherwise.

As you're certainly aware, "skinhead" is not a direct reference to their worldview but to a coincidental but highly visible feature of the group's members. If (completely made-up example) your magic users were to use wands, and their opponents chainmail to shield themselves from their magic, I could totally imagine them calling each other "Stäbchenschwenker" and "Eisenhemden" - refusal to acknowledge the other's worldview even in the terms you name them with is sort of a tool of ridicule, after all.

As for a neutral term - I guess that in the eyes of people having a truly neutral look on it, claims of magic being real have so much of a history of remaining unproven that they would want to come up with a new term for those who can demonstrate it on cue. Especially if they also get never-seen-before body shapes in a package deal.

You mentioned that there's a pronounced similarity to Potterverse magic. Would the humans in your story (still/nonetheless) have Harry Potter books, and possibly adopt something from their terminology?

Would it be more common to use the term Zauber or Magische?  Or would it depend on context?  Is Zauber considered more antique and/or literary?

I might not be up to speed with that part of German etymology, but I wouldn't think of "Zauber", "Magie", or "Hexerei" as indicating notably different things/timeperiods. I would guess that "Magie" hails from Latin, and thus stands a chance of actually being the oldest, but.

IIUC strict distinctions between these terms weren't a thing until WoC laid them down in D&D ...

[CAMIR]

Hiya! So I only recently started teaching myself German so I know very little, but grammatical gender is confusing me. How do you know what something's grammatical gender is? Is there some way to tell? Sorry if this was already discussed...

In general it is arbitrary, I am afraid just like the previous poster pointed out. So you have to learn it which really sucks because a lot of other grammatical information is dependent on the gender (article, adjectives...) but sometimes words end in a certain way and then they always have the same gender, like ending with -er is always masculine, or -heit, -keit, -igkeit is always feminine. Collective starting with Ge- as Gewässer, Gebüsch and so on are always neutrum. Maybe that helps a little?

@ Sunflower I think one needs to invent new words for that based on your setting. I'll gladly help with that, but I think I'd need more info.

[JoB]

like ending with -er is always masculine, or -heit, -keit, -igkeit is always feminine. Collective starting with Ge- as Gewässer, Gebüsch and so on are always neutrum.

Umh. I'm afraid that die Heuer and die Gewerke beg to differ ...