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The Awful German Language (1880)

faculty.georgetown.edu Essays & writing Essays & articles History & humanities Class of 2025-05 Hall of Fame
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Resurfaced independently across 3 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
5
submitters
5
observed span
2021–2025
peak thread · 473 comments
198 pts
latest 20+ return · 2025-05-16
198 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

As a developer working in a German company the question of translating some domain language items into English comes up here and there. Mostly we fail because the German compound words are so f*** precise that we are unable to find short matching English translations...unfortunately our non-native devs have to learn complex words they can't barely pronounce :D Most of the time we try to use English for technical identifiers and German for business langugage, leading to lets say "interesting"…

rawbert·198-point thread·

As someone who's had to (or maybe wanted to) learn both english and german, I'd say german has a steeper initial learning curve, but it becomes easier later, whereas english can be easy to get going, but it's difficult to master (obviously the spelling, but also the more advanced use of tenses etc). Regarding Twain's complaints, the biggest lesson I learned from learning german at an older age was: languages are nonsensical, illogical, and the sooner you stop trying to…

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
341

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
726

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2021-04-30The Awful German Language (1880)type020
2021-05-16The Awful German Language (1880)First breakout1cvmask136253
2023-10-28The Awful German Languagejamespwilliams20
2025-03-05The Awful German Language (1880)xg1530
2025-05-16The Awful German Language (1880)Hall induction · Best thread · Latest 20+ point returnnalinidash198473