Afterthought: the post below illustrates the paucity of modern English in that nowadays in modern English no distinction is made between the second and third person 'you' whereas in other languages such as German it still is.__
I've mentioned on HN previously when discussing languages that when my father was learning German his old textbook had the English thee, thou, and thine/thy as the second person for the German second person du.
One of the faux pas for English speakers when learning German is the incorrect usage of du. They mistakenly use du instead of sie because it's more informal than sie not realizing that in German it is reserved for the closest of relationships such as family, lovers etc.
Essentially, in German du — the equivalent form of the second person English thou — is still a part of the living language whereas in English thou is now archaic.
The correct usage of du became immediately obvious to me after seeing my father's textbook. For the life of me I cannot understand why modern English textbooks simply substitute you for du, it's just crazy as it leads to much confusion.
Thou and variants are understood by most native English speakers even if the term is now archaic so it makes sense to use it instead of you in textbooks for learning German. Just one additional paragraph would be needed to explain and clean up the you/du mess.
I have been trying for years to find out why the authors of modern (current) textbooks now use you instead of thou. I'd be most grateful if someone who knows the rationale behind it would post the reason.
Incidentally, my father's textbook was published sometime around 1930, so this you substitution is a relatively recent phenomena.
__
I've mentioned on HN previously when discussing languages that when my father was learning German his old textbook had the English thee, thou, and thine/thy as the second person for the German second person du.
One of the faux pas for English speakers when learning German is the incorrect usage of du. They mistakenly use du instead of sie because it's more informal than sie not realizing that in German it is reserved for the closest of relationships such as family, lovers etc.
Essentially, in German du — the equivalent form of the second person English thou — is still a part of the living language whereas in English thou is now archaic.
The correct usage of du became immediately obvious to me after seeing my father's textbook. For the life of me I cannot understand why modern English textbooks simply substitute you for du, it's just crazy as it leads to much confusion.
Thou and variants are understood by most native English speakers even if the term is now archaic so it makes sense to use it instead of you in textbooks for learning German. Just one additional paragraph would be needed to explain and clean up the you/du mess.
I have been trying for years to find out why the authors of modern (current) textbooks now use you instead of thou. I'd be most grateful if someone who knows the rationale behind it would post the reason.
Incidentally, my father's textbook was published sometime around 1930, so this you substitution is a relatively recent phenomena.