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Comment by Eric_WVGG | Hacker News Reader

“I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.” — Charles V

Just wondering what you want to express with that. Do you also equate Germans with animals or why did you share the quote? (quality discussions at HN again)

Edit: also the quote is not verified ... Seems like Charles V never said it :P

I believe the implication was most likely that German happens to sound very stern and commanding to many english speakers. Presumably the speaker would want to be speaking German because they believe it would intimidate the horse into performing very efficiently.

I would be surprised to learn that Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was an English speaker.

It's possible he learned a few words, given that the act of Henry the Eighth divorcing his aunt (Catherine of Aragón) sent shock-waves through Europe.

French was the Lingua franca of the time and probably the principal language of Henry the Eight's court, so quite possibly not.

True, although I'd be equally surprised if he said exactly that as well ;)

I guessed so. Yet, I felt quite offended by the first post (I"m German, speak Spanish, French English and Japanese).

Don't feel German is necessarily harsh. It seems the perception is mostly from Prussian German ...

the quote is a joke, you don't need to be offended

I'm german too and feel like being offended by jokes like that just proves the stereotype... I mean come on, german is truly not the "language of love".

I think Goethe, Brecht, Schiller and the rest of the German poets would disagree ;)

Couldn't you say the same for any love poet from any language?

Poetry is about rythm, contrasts, word play and many other things in addition to phonetics.

I'm afraid that doesn't change the fact that German is the most memeified language

I don't think so ... as I mentioned before the current perception of the German language has a lot to do with Prussia and Nazi Germany (first and second world war), as well as Hollywood movies. I can't find the reference, but one of the most common German sentences in movies was "Halt!" (Stop) followed by "Papiere bitte!" (Papers Please).

German was before the wars considered the language of poets and thinkers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vy9aqDPYWA

It's all about perception. I don't think there are objective measures to tell if a language is better at conveying certain feelings (or better at certain tasks). If somebody knows research around this topic I would be very interested.

For me, I prefer English for anything academic and work related. German I often fall back to when I'm talking about feelings and emotions. You might argue it's because it's my mother tongue. However, I have the feeling (subjective) that German has more words to express mind and feeling related concepts (maybe due to Freud,Nitsche etc. a lot of the terms are also used in English: Angst, ... ).

Sorry, being offended is something I cannot control. I know it's stupid. In this case (also pointed out by other commenters) it might provide proof of the stereotype that Germans don't understand humour :P

Edit: typos

don't worry, he's just helping to further other German stereotypes

Many animal trainers (be it for circus, dogs, etc) use german because (supposedly) their animals can perceive and memorize its sounds better.

Also could be a safety measure e.g. in Russia service dogs are trained with most commands in Russian except for the "Attack!" which is German's "Fass!". I figure you don't want a dog to hear a word from a conversation and execute as if it was a command.

Most German dogs are trained in German as well, so the "security through obscurity" aspect is probably more of an afterthought. My personal guess is that an influential dog trainer happened to be German and followers of the method adapted the commands without translating them. Unfortunately I couldn't find out who that might have been.

Indeed could be the case. What I find is that German is good as an authoritative language. Makes the voice expressions deeper and doesn't include "niceties". This is also a fruit of the culture, Germans very seldom (if ever) apologise.

I wasn't taken serious when arguing in German because I would apologise often (Portuguese culture) and often say: "I'm sorry, but you are wrong", just to get a rebuke such as: "So you apologize, you recognise you are the one wrong".

Even translating from German to English or other languages you see how direct the language really is. For example, to convince someone to something else we usually start with "If you wouldn't mind, can you please do (...), thanks!", while Germans will often shorten to just "Bitte machen (...)" where the bitte portion is not really heartfelt and doesn't end with a thank you.

You'll hear them replying when inquired if this isn't rude behaviour: "It's her job, no need to thank".

I appreciate this aspect a lot when I travel to germany. It's not so much that they are rude and don't apologize, it's mostly that they're very direct and to the point. no politeness decorations.

I think accidental orders are not actually a problem, it's not just a sound in a conversation that can trigger it, but also how you say it, with body language and context.

By conversation I mean the dog handler giving orders to an adversary as an example and not somebody chatting his friends on a phone. Gesture commands are also trained but to pass training the dog has to be able to execute commands entirely by voice because in situations these dogs serve the handler might be unable to move.

A neighbor's dog was trained to respond to commands in Japanese, though neither of them spoke it. This was in Washington, DC, so I guess that it greatly reduced the chances of the dog responding to somebody else's commands.

I can't remember who but we have something similar in poetry around here. Probably some old Danish or Norwegian poet:

Latin for writing

French for the women

German for the dog

and Danish for the servant

Nice quote... Very funny..

I almost died right there.

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