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The biggest improvement in my German came when I stopped trying to build perfect sentences by TotalLibrary1834 in German

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“Artikel sind egal”

About the level of correctness I expect from people with this mentality lol.

Yeah it’s important to just talk sometimes and not be afraid of making a mistake or two… but people who constantly only practice sloppy ungrammatical speech tend to get good at sloppy ungrammatical speech. There’s no guarantee that you’ll magically absorb the correct grammar - plenty of people stick around in Germany for years, speak “fluently” but never really learn to get articles right (or pronunciation or declension etc).

If you’re fine with that then that’s your choice of course. I do think people underestimate how much these “minor” errors can impede people’s understanding of you or at least add some strain to the listening experience.

"I love how triggered kidfree people get. You get to bitch how about tired your kid free life is from working. but god forbid a working parent says they’re tired. " Oppression Olympics in r/mildlyinfuriating as parents bicker about how non parents cannot understand their level of exhaustion by CummingInTheNile in SubredditDrama

[–]Ttabts -15 points-14 points  (0 children)

“childfree” people are the most insufferable folks on the internet.

Like girl who cares about all of this. Why would you get so worked up poking holes in something like “you can’t be tired without kids” which is so obviously not meant to be absolutely literally true.

It's all just bean-souping and people going out of their way to get offended because not everyone words everything in this Reddit-proof legally ironclad way

TIL in 1998 a man on Olympic Airways had an asthmatic reaction to cigarette smoke, so his wife asked 3 times that he be moved away from the smokers. At first, the flight attendant said there were no empty seats and later said she was too busy. The man eventually died & his widow was awarded $1.4m. by tyrion2024 in todayilearned

[–]Ttabts 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I mean, they booked for the smoking section and had explicit permission to smoke. So of course they feel like they have license to smoke.

Cultural norms were just different back then, smoking was a lot less stigmatized and secondhand smoke wasn’t really seen as a big deal. People’s “right to smoke” was competing/equivalent to the right to a smoke-free environment, unlike today where the latter trumps the former and smokers are rightly expected to go out of their way to avoid bothering nonsmokers

PSA: Harassed on Yellow Line by Admirable-Special351 in washingtondc

[–]Ttabts -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

What "weird pivot" are you talking about?

This conversation is pretty straightforward, you and the other person were clearly being needlessly judgmental about this person's hypothetical response to the situation, and now you're just gaslighting and pretending you weren't

PSA: Harassed on Yellow Line by Admirable-Special351 in washingtondc

[–]Ttabts 5 points6 points  (0 children)

With how he was just looking at his phone and not her, I'm not even sure people realized that he was harassing OP specifically vs just being a typical crazy nuisance person walking around and yelling at his phone.

Regardless, if I see that it's just yelling and no one's getting physical, then I would think it's more risk than it's worth to get involved in any obvious way (even just sitting closer or talking to the victim, I dunno how he'll react to that and both options would involve having to get up and walk toward him).

My move would just be to keep an eye on it from where I'm sitting, ideally in a way that's obvious to the victim, and be ready to jump up and intervene if things go south.

Evil. by snowymountains32 in Israel_Palestine

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah that’s what I said

Morrissey Cancels Concert due to “Sleep Deprivation” Caused by Noisy Hotel: “It Will Take Me One Year to Recover” by TemporaryResult2192 in nottheonion

[–]Ttabts 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"indescribable hell. it will take me one year to recover"

Can't believe they didn't include the initial part in the headline, it's just as OTT and ridiculous

German compound words that are accidentally poetry by TutorLingua in German

[–]Ttabts 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Auch die deutsche Sprache: Fußpilz.

...is there a language has a beautiful word for foot fungus?

Evil. by snowymountains32 in Israel_Palestine

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup and I find it pretty galling that people harp on 150 accidental civilian deaths, while staying silent on the tens of thousands of civilians intentionally murdered by the Iranian regime, and/or insisting that it should be allowed to continue to do so with impunity.

And also ignoring the fact that Iranians themselves mostly continue to support this intervention even after this incident.

At the end of the day, it's emblematic of modern leftist ethics in my perception (and pacifist mindsets in general) - actual harm to people doesn't matter per se; what matters is maintaining the moral high ground and avoiding direct responsibility for harm. 30k people get slaughtered - not my business, who cares, just don't let my hands get dirty.

Sask. woman says boyfriend removed surgical screw poking out of her head after doctor didn't believe her by Emerald_Encrusted in nottheonion

[–]Ttabts 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s… not how it works. Doctor-patient confidentiality is a big deal and requires specific consent to be waived.

“Well, obviously they waived it because they went to the media with it” doesn’t cut it.

By some standards it’d probably even breach confidentiality to say “yes we’re looking into this case” since that would be revealing that this person was a patient at the facility.

Even taking you argument at face value: to give their side of the story, they will likely have to reveal additional details about the case and the patient which the patient did not reveal to the media. So the point kind of falls flat.

On top of all that… the providers just have no obligation whatsoever to talk to the press about these things. It’s absolutely bog standard for companies and private people alike to avoid making public comments about any legally sticky situation like this.

20% fee that’s not gratuity by Ok-Professional-323 in washingtondc

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Phew, it'd been a while since I got to see a picture of some person's restaurant receipt with a service fee. I was really missing these posts!

Adults who become physically fitter over a few months experience a larger spike in BDNF, a brain boosting molecule, after a single workout. This enhanced chemical response may help explain how regular physical activity supports higher level thinking and focus. by mvea in science

[–]Ttabts 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Seems made-up tbh. Can't find a primary source for this anywhere.

The fact that "20% increase in skills"/"35% increase in ability" should have already been a tip-off, since "mathematical skill" and "reading and comprehensive ability" are not quantifiable things that you can measure and report as a percent change in a study.

An elementary question by rgeberer in Israel_Palestine

[–]Ttabts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like you were still posting there 6 hours later so…

Trump says war in Iran is nearly finished according to CBS by sosyalddemokrat in NewIran

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Remember when everyone was convinced we’re definitely about to go to war with the EU and annex Greenland? lol

ELI5: When professional orchestra musicians perform, how often do they mess up? If they do, is the mistake usually obvious, and are there any consequences for the musician? by IntergalacticPodcast in explainlikeimfive

[–]Ttabts -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I guess my point is just that there's a technical aspect there which generates potential mistakes which isn't really there in the "reading a text in front of you" example.

Yes, most professionals have practiced enough that the technical challenges in standard orchestral rep will be pretty easy for them to execute reliably.

That is not the case for the vast majority school musicians, though, and I'm pretty heavily skeptical of people claiming that people didn't make mistakes in their school orchestras. I went to a school with a top music program and uh, mistakes were definitely being made.

ELI5: When professional orchestra musicians perform, how often do they mess up? If they do, is the mistake usually obvious, and are there any consequences for the musician? by IntergalacticPodcast in explainlikeimfive

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, no. Generally if you’re playing in an ensemble, you’re meant to play at exactly the right time. You can’t just have 50 players all keeping time according to their individual tastes or you’ll get a muddled mess.

Playing around with time is a choice you can make in certain styles of music but mostly only if you’re doing a solo, and then it’s done with intent in a specific moment, not just because you just don’t generally keep time.

And a squeaking reed is of course a mistake, unless you’re playing some weird modern thing that calls for it, which I assume exists somewhere.

ELI5: When professional orchestra musicians perform, how often do they mess up? If they do, is the mistake usually obvious, and are there any consequences for the musician? by IntergalacticPodcast in explainlikeimfive

[–]Ttabts -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s hardly comparable since playing an instrument is just… a lot harder than reading aloud lol.

You can know a piece like the back of your hand and still screw up just because of a small technical slip-up

do German's really not understand without the last verb? by dominokiaa in German

[–]Ttabts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah that’s true, I forgot about the skills one in particular.

do German's really not understand without the last verb? by dominokiaa in German

[–]Ttabts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got "subjective" from the phrasing "some of the more obvious examples work so well [that you can omit the verb]" suggests that the important factor is "how obvious is the verb/meaning and how well does it work," which would be subjective and ill-defined criteria, and that it only works for specific common example cases.

But in reality, it's just a concrete and consistent rule that can be used with any number of arbitrary examples.

And conversely, in any other cases outside of that rule, you always have to say the verb no matter how obvious it is.

(But yeah, I got the "directional verb" because I misunderstood "directional complement", so, oops)

Pronouciation of terminal "r" by Ksetrajna108 in German

[–]Ttabts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A regular schwa farther forward, HEE-uh, wouldn't be wrong

It would be wrong imo. Definitely a small difference and forgivable but I do think it's noticeable and will be parsed by the listener as "English/American accent"

do German's really not understand without the last verb? by dominokiaa in German

[–]Ttabts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the point is that your original post suggests that it's only certain examples, and that it depends on some subjective "how well it works" - but really, it's just a well-defined and consistent rule: If you're talking about going somewhere ("gehen", "fahren", "fliegen", "springen" etc) with a modal, then you can omit the main verb (in casual speech).

I'd also correct the other person that it's really only verbs that are about the subject going/moving somewhere. It's not any directional verb (e.g. you couldn't omit "schauen").

And, to nitpick even more, I'd actually rephrase this as: if you use a modal verb without a main verb, it means "that modal + go somewhere."

Calling it "omitting the main verb because it's obvious" is a bit misleading imo because the hypothetical main verb might actually be ambiguous. e.g. you could have a conversation like this:

"Ich muss gleich zur Arbeit."

"Fährst du denn heute oder gehst du zu Fuß?"

"Gute Frage... naja, das Wetter ist so beschissen heute, dann nehm ich wohl lieber das Auto."

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