#and then i thought

[little-pup-pip]

Playing outside!!

[brainrotcharacters]

Take Angel away from David and David will mope and be grumpy and depressed and stuff. Take David away from Angel and the entire pack will know exactly how they are the mate of the alpha.

[cygnus-is-tired]

Just a ✨normal guy✨ and his normal ✨prisoners✨ RATS

(You know, I don’t think this guy should be allowed pets. He doesn’t seem like a very responsible owner)

[roasting-aphobes]

*Obvious Neurodivergent Trait*

Me: Everyone does/feels this! There's no oportunity that I'm neurodivergent...

*In my second appointment of therapy*

Doctor: You know I usually don't make diagnoses-

Me: Oh shit--

[cosmic-seer]

Got a Lil doodle sketchbook so I'm gonna fill it with VashMeryl doots

[raylaismad]

GUYS MY ORCHESTRA TEACHER WAS WEARING GRIANS PERMIT OFFICE FIT YESTERDAY I DONT KNOW HOW TO FEEL

[likesdoodling]

Kind of spoilers? But also not really? Eh. If you've read the last volume you'll understand more of it.

*shrugs

This idea was stuck in my head, so I did something about it :D

[jennicatzies]

Get jolly with it

someone who isn't great at lighting draws something with a concept very reliant on lighting

[imaginesyphilishappy]

[guskinnie]

Website: Your order will arrive in 1 - 2 weeks.

Me: wait THEY HAVE THE GOOD OMENS BOOK

Website: Your order will arrive in 1 month.

Me: I don't care I'M GETTING THE GOOD OMENS BOOK

[flyingtacoturtle11]

Yall

ASMR artist James potter

And obsessed onlooker regulus

[german-enthusiast]

a run-of-the-mill German 6-line-sentence

1: The quote

Due to my studying the second-language-acquisition of German in university, I tend to notice complex sentences (probably more than the average reader). In the book I'm currently reading ("Sprache ist, was du draus machst!" by Simon Meier-Vieracker) I stumbled upon this sentence:

Um zu verstehen, wie Fußball in unserer Gesellschaft zu dem werden konnte, was er ist, nämlich ein für viele Menschen Identitätsstiftender, einen riesigen Markt begründender und in andere Bereiche wie die Politik ausstahlender Teil der Alltagskultur, muss man auch die Sprache in den Blick nehmen, mit der über Fußball gesprochen und geschrieben wird.

(In the book this spans 6 lines)

2: Translation

For those who don't know German or are still learning it, here's help:

In the picture, I've gone for a phrase-by-phrase translation. A more elegant translation that still keeps it as one sentence might be:

In order to understand how soccer could -in our society- become what it is, which is a part of everyday culture that establishes a huge market and for many people even identity, and which also radiates into other areas like politics, one has to take into account the language which is used to speak and write about soccer.

(I realize that there's a comma too many after "the langauge" in the picture but I can't be bothered to go back and change that now)

3: Thought One

The thing (for me at least) is: This German sentence isn't even that crazy.

Yes, even German natives will probably notice that this is a long sentence and weak readers/native Germans struggling with academic language will possibly need multiple reads to comprehend it fully

but in the grand scheme of things, this is not the worst it can be! (See for example the famous author Thomas Mann and his sentences, which stereotypically and famously span one to one and a half pages).

For additional context, Simon Meier-Vieracker, the author of the book this quote is from, is a linguistics professor BUT the audience for this book is specifically non-linguists and the writing generally is academic-ish but intentionally bridging between everyday language and linguistic topics!

4: Thought Two // So what?!

You might wonder why I even find it noteworthy as a long German sentence because, as shown above, it can be translated into an equally long and complex English sentence.

What's different between the elegant English translation and the German original is that in the OG, the definition of "what it is" is made up of participles ("identitätsstiftend", "begründend", "ausstrahlend"). I've translated these as English participles in the screenshot but you might've noticed that it's rather weird and clunky!

In English, when creating long run-on sentences, people usually go for multiple dependent clauses.

We do this too, of course! The last part of the OG ("mit der über Fußball gesprochen und geschrieben wird") is one of those.

However, we often extend sentences by adding in grammatical modifiers (in German "Attributes", which IMO is a way more commonly word already than 'grammatical modifiers') that are not dependent clauses.

Short digression: What's a grammatical modifier? Wikipedia explains, it is "an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which modifies the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball"" Typical grammatical modifiers are adjectives and adverbs (though they are not always used as modifiers!). Nouns can also be modifiers (consider: "land mines" or "mines in wartime"). Dependent clauses can also be modifiers. [end of digression]

Back to German: As stated, we like going for non-sentence modifiers (in addition to clauses as modifiers). The three participle-phrases in the German quote are great examples of this. They are not dependent clauses (since they do not have a finite verb), they're "merely" phrases - participle phrases. Again, English uses these a lot too but not as much to build huge sentences (which in general aren't as typical for English as they are for German).

5: Conclusion

Long German sentences can be a pain for both German learners and German natives, but I just love to analyze them and I think it's so fun to notice how long German sentences come about. That's it. I just thought this was neat.

TL;DR Long German sentences are often not only comprised of many (main and dependent) clauses. Instead of dependent clauses, you'll also often find pariciple phrases which largely fulfill the function of a dependent clause but are a little funkier. English doesn't do this as much. I think it's fun.

[theraccoonprophet]

[phantasmicfish]

[thenecropolix]

Listen

Sasha unexpectedly getting better at levitation because of the time he spends with Milla

He's watching her one day and his affection for her becomes so tangible that next thing you know he's fallen over because a levitation ball suddenly appeared under his feet

On the opposite hand, Milla seeing Sasha hurt during a mission and/or getting talked down by someone makes her so angry that she creates a psyblast at the offender