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Comment by ivanche | Hacker News Reader

Why would anyone use "downloaden" when there already is "herunterladen" is beyond me.

The worst thing is someone trying to put it in past tense: For "herunterladen" it's easy: "herunter-ge-laden". For "download", the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"

Downgeloaded is hilarious!

> the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"

You are using an English word in a German sentence, while they are (almost correctly, downgeloadet) applying the rules for words lended from foreign languages. So unless you are doing it for some particular effect, their sentence sounds funny, but is grammatically correct, yours only shows, that you know how to correctly speak English.

Best examples of the same thing are the plurals of nouns ending in y: In a German sentence, the correct plural of Story (capital S) is actually Storys.

This looks wrong to most Germans, too. So now you basically have to guess, whether you can impress your reader more with your advanced and wrong-looking German grammar knowledge, or whether you should play it safe and not risk to look like your English is rusty.

Another great one are Deppenleerzeichen in English or English-German compounds, which basically no one gets right, even though the rule has no exceptions. Author of the article slipped one of those in, too.

Surely you mean downgeloadet? It's a weak verb. :D

I know because ich habe gegooglet.

Gegoogelt? Auf Deutsch heisst es wohl -eln, nicht -len. Zum Fische fangen gehst ja auch angeln, nicht anglen.

I think it looks weird even in present tense: "Ich loade den neuen Gamingstreamvod down".

Nobody uses it as as a separable verb

As per the article, in the past tense many people do indeed use it exactly as a separable verb.

> For "download", the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"

Duden lists both "downgeloadet " and "gedownloadet" (note the final "t"). It observes that in printed press texts, "downgeloadet" occurs more frequently, whereas in online texts "gedownloadet" predominates.

I ran a full-text search of my entire Duden library for the word "downloaded" and it does not occur at all.

<duden>

downloaden: Das Verb downloaden »herunterladen« wird sowohl als trennbares Partikelverb wie auch als nicht trennbares Präfixverb verwendet. Insbesondere beim Partizip II finden sich beide Formen: Wir tragen stylische Jacken, haben Musik downgeloadet und den Ausflug gecancelt (Freie Presse). Hallo, mein Sohn hat ein Spiel illegal über Torrent gedownloadet (finanzfrage.net). In gedruckten Pressetexten kommt downgeloadet häufiger vor, in Onlinetexten hingegen gedownloadet. Beim Infinitiv mit zu wird in Pressetexten meist die Form downzuloaden verwendet. Die finite Verwendung (z. B. ich loade down / ich downloade) kommt fast gar nicht vor, hier wird auf das Verb herunterladen ausgewichen: Er lädt sich spezielle Software aus den USA herunter (c't). Amerikanismen und Anglizismen (1.3), Partikelverb (2.4).

</duden>

I wouldn't call it weird, I think it's common in most languages to use local conjugation rules even for foreign words.

In French, even though "télécharger/téléchargé" is most common and "download" is not really used, I would definitely say "je l'ai downloadé" (and I would expect Quebecers to say mostly that). I have observed a tendency to avoid any conjugation ("je l'ai download") in younger tech workers but I don't know how representative my young colleagues are. It always sounds weird to me and sometimes leads to misunderstandings, in this case for example it's not obvious if the person is saying they "are downloading them" or they "have downloaded it".

In Dutch there is no other word than "download" and it gets conjugated like other Dutch words, "downloaden/downloadde/gedownload". And I always feel like saying "gedownloaded", I probably do it half of the time. I thought it was because my Dutch is far from good, but maybe it's just a natural thing if it happens for native German speakers as well.

> In French, even though "télécharger/téléchargé" is most common and "download" is not really used, I would definitely say "je l'ai downloadé"

I think the OP’s problem comes from “down” being used like a standard German prefix, which does sound really awkward. Foreign verbs in French are (almost?) always used like first-group regular verbs, the only alteration is the suffix. It feels less out of place.

It gets worse. I don't know who started it (personally I blame Apple talking about its app store) but increasingly I see "laden" being used instead of "herunterladen". When used with "auf", it's usually about installing an app: "lade dir die App auf's Handy". But frequently it's used without any preposition to mean "download": "lade den Gratis-Background".

I'd much prefer "downgeloaded" over this nonsense using "actual" German words incorrectly.

So, this is how the German transition to Swedish grammar begins! Not the with a bang but with a lade den gratisbakgrund.

> German transition to Swedish grammar [...] lade den gratisbakgrund.

Vilken "den" gratisbakgrund (dvs som vadå?), vart lade du den, och ligger den kvar där?

„Downloaden“ is still common because of its web context. But it is used interchangeably with „runterladen“, especially if you use it as a separable verb.

Though there is herunterladen as a verb, there is no noun for download(s). “Herunterlad(s)” doesn’t quite cut it. So because the term Download is already used as a noun why noy use downloaden as the verb.

Heruntergeladetes? (In contrast to Geschnetzeltes, it isn't served with Spätzle.)

Two syllables less.

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