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Comment by nicara | Hacker News Reader

>However, the normal convention when stating a nationality or, for instance, saying one is from Berlin, would be to leave out the indefinite article "ein." Though JFK's intention would have been, and was, understood by Berliners, he should have said, Ich bin Berliner.

Funny how in an article about common misconceptions a myth like that gets to live on (by being replaced with a new one).. I can't speak for Berlinerisch, as I've never lived in Berlin myself, but in standard German both versions - with and without the indefinite article - are 100% correct. The version suggested in the article might be slightly more common ("Ich bin Berliner"), but for JFK's speech I'd even go as far and say his version was better, simply because it stresses that he's "ein Berliner", just like all the other people listening to his speech. As I said, though, both versions are correct, and neither of them sounds better/worse. (Sorry, no source, but I know a bit of German.)

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I'm German and you're 100% correct.

I'm also German, living near Berlin, and I had to analyze Kennedy's speech in an exam at school.

I fully agree that "Ich bin ein Berliner" was the correct variant. The alternative phrase "Ich bin Berliner" wouldn't have fit well into the context of his speech.

The alternative phrase "Ich bin Berliner" wouldn't have fit well into the context

Why not?

I think the indefinite article adds emphasis. (I’m definitly not a grammar expert but I’m German.) He not just somehow happens to be a Berliner, he affirms to be a Berliner.

(I have an alternate hypothesis: like all Germans I heard that sentence a few dozen times, saw it again and again repeated on TV. Maybe the sentence just made that usage correct by sheer force of its existence. I would say that’s unlikely, but it’s possible. What I’m sure about, though, is that everyone who listened to JFK knew what he wanted say.)

Is it perhaps the same difference as between "I am English" and "I am an Englishman"?

Presumably you'd need to be a true bilingual to tell if they feel the same, and even then, your thought processes aren't going to be the same as either type of monolingual.

> Is it perhaps the same difference as between "I am English" and "I am an Englishman"?

Yes, that's a very good analogy.

If you say "Ich bin Berliner", it just means that you live in Berlin. I doesn't put any emphasis on identifying with a certain group of people. It merely says that you belong to this group, maybe just by accident.

However, if you say "Ich bin ein Berliner", especially in the context of his speech, it means that you identify yourself with the group, i.e. with the people of Berlin.

That's why I disagree with that point of the Wikipedia article. "Ich bin ein Berliner" was a perfect formulation. I guess Kennedy got the help of a native German speaker or had a very good translator.

This is so opposite to the view that we were all taught in North America (namely that Kennedy's statement was a gaffe that made him a laughingstock) that I wonder how the misconception even arose. No one ignorant of German would have come up with the idea that JFK said he was a jelly doughnut, but from what you guys are saying, no one who knows German would have thought that either. Perhaps it was clever Soviet disinformatsia!

> Perhaps it was clever Soviet disinformatsia!

Either that, or it was the usual cause for rumors: sciolism.

It could also have started as a dumb joke, which was then taken seriously by people who didn't know better.

Aesthetically (to this English-speaker), the rhythm of "Ich bin ein Berliner" seems more pleasing than "Ich bin Berliner."

Indeed,

>I've never lived in Berlin myself, but in standard German both versions - with and without the indefinite article - are 100% correct

I find this intriguing as my German language instructor (we focussed on grammar and technical language but also did conversational German) informed me that "Ich bin ein Berliner" was simply wrong and that it was a kindergarten style mistake - as I blushed and corrected myself "Ich bin Patent-prüfer".

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