Language Contrasts
Information event on Romance languages
Bluntness
Languages have different effects on us – French is often considered “elegant,” while German tends to come across as ‘clumsy’ or “bureaucratic.” A popular explanation for this is that French uses more verbs, while German is notorious for its nominal style. We will use text examples to examine whether this is true.
Movement
People and animals move in France or Spain no differently than in Germany or England. Nevertheless, languages use different means to express directions of movement: directly in the verb (cf. French/Spanish entrer/entrar ‘to enter’) or elsewhere (cf. German/English hineingehen/go in). We will examine how strongly these differences affect practice using text examples.
The Institute for Romance Languages and Literatures continues to offer information events on Romance studies (bachelor's and teaching degrees) for students of French, Spanish, and Italian.
Details
- Date: By appointment
- Location: Westend Campus or at the respective school
- Type of event: Workshop (90 minutes)
- Grade level: From the third year of French or Spanish language learning
- Prerequisites: Reading comprehension in French or Spanish, word classification in German and French
- Registration: Group registration (via school/teacher)