Prompted by JFK adviser Ted Sorensen's confession in a new memoir that he was responsible for Kennedy saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" in a speech to the German people -- an utterance often derided as a grammatical faux pas because it can be taken to mean "I am a jelly donut" -- New York Times blogger Dennis Overbye ran the controversy by Princeton German professor Michael Jennings, who finds more to complain about in Kennedy's Massachusetts-y pronunciation than his German grammar.
I told you so.
I told you so.
Comments
It amazes me how dumb people can be. Why are people ready to take anything they read in an email (or The New Yorker) as fact without doing a bit of fact-checking? I take everything I hear, or read, with a grain of salt. If more people would do that, we wouldn’t have the Democratic candidate we do!
Here is the full story. In proper German, the word “a” or “an” is omitted before a noun denoting citizenship or occupation. That is, in English we say, “I am an American,” or “I am a lawyer.” German omits the indefinite article in this case, so a word-for-word translation of the sentences above from English to German, “Ich bin einer Amerikaner,” or “Ich bin einer Anwalt,” while they would be understood by a native speaker of German, would be thought to be a bit comical.
The effect might be about the same as if a German came here and said, “I am German [meaning a citizen of Germany, not necessarily a person of German heritage]” or or “I am lawyer.” A native speaker of English would realize, not only from the accent, but from the syntax, that the speaker was not American [an American?].
It really did not make any difference with JFK; he was so beloved by the Germans that he could have spoken in Chinese, and they would have loved it.
yeah, well … I’m german and a german ^^
it can mean both…
it depends on the accent.
if you say it in the same way as kennedy did, everybody would recognize, that he imitates JFK.
ya know
Of course, another explanation for the fact that McCain is rarely personally attacked could be that Democrats find personal attacks distastful and a diversion from the issues–Republicans would be at a loss without personal attacks since they invariably are on the short end of any discussion based on logic or evidence.
In fact everything is a bit more complicated: the word “Berliner” for a jelly dounut is not used within Berlin. A Berliner (somebody who comes from Berlin) would call a Berliner (jelly-filled pastery, also known as Krapfen), a “Pfannkuchen”, while for people in the rest of Germany a “Pfannkuchen” is a pancake, and a “Berliner” is a Dounut. For a pancake, Berliner say “Eierkuchen”.
Anyway, as Berliner were adressed by JFKs speech, they would never, ever have thought of the Dounut. (Which is, by the way, very unhealthy)
Berliners… mmmmmm!!! My kids would always laugh when they saw the CNNI commercial with JFK and this famous comment when we lived over there. We are great fans of berliners. They are YUMMY! I’m sure the Germans understood well what JFK was trying to convey. It’s good for a giggle nonetheless. Ok, I’m hungry now. The jelly donuts her in the good ole USA just don’t compare.