A solid 30% of posts in my feed are German memes. I don’t understand the language, but I love the memes that I can’t read.

            • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
              0·
              1 year ago

              “im” is often used as an abbreviation of “in dem” which is the direct translation of “in the/this” but it is also used as an abbreviation of “in einem” which directly translates to “in a” and somtimes “im” is just translated as “in”

              Let’s take “Der Saft ist im Glas” as an example.

              If you are trying to say that it is in a specific glass that you could point to, you would use “in dem”. If you are just talking about the general method of storing juice you would either use “im” or to be more precise “in einem”. Using “in einem” tells you that it is in a glass but the actual glass isn’t really specified or relevant right now.

              “Der Saft ist in einem Glas” is basically the same as “Der Saft ist im Glas”. But it is very different from “Der Saft ist in dem Glas” which is also basically the same as “Der Saft ist im Glas”.

              To translate these:

              “Der Saft ist in einem Glas” => “The juice is in a glass”
              “Der Saft ist in dem Glas” => “The juice is in the/this glass”
              “Der Saft ist im Glas” => “The juice is in the/this glass” or “The juice is in a glass”

              As a bonus:

              “Das passiert im echten Leben” => “That’s happening in real life”

              Always fun to think about the weirdness of my mother tongue :)

              Edit: These abbreviations are mostly used when the context already makes it clear which it is going to mean. Otherwise they are just confusing.

  • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    If you could read them, you’d realize they’re all just the same banal pun.

    The Germans have one sense of humor, spread across the entire nation.

      • wgbirne@feddit.de
        0·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, funny story:

        I work for the government and once during an inspection they noticed that a light on the roof our building needed to be replaced.

        What should be a 5 minute task took many months. Why? Safety rules state that only roofers are allowed to enter the roof, but only electricians are allowed to work on anything that has to do with electricity which includes changing a light bulb. So we had to wait a couple of months for one of the electricians to get certified as a person that can enter the roof.

        • Jesus_666@feddit.deEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          Last winter, in order to protect the dwindling completely full strategic gas reserves, the government issued an order for all govenment-owned office buildings to limit the central heating to no more than 19° C because that seemed to be the most pointlessly bureaucratic solution at the time.

          This included buildings that don’t even use gas for heating. Remote heat? Geothermal heat? Free waste heat that you have to actively vent to the atmosphere in order to lower the room temperature? Yep, all required to not exceed 19° C. The building I worked in at the time (for a company that rented some excess floor space) actually wasted energy adhering to this well thought-out rule.

           

          So yeah, I’d say that in order to change a lightbulb you need at least 1000 Germans. You need both chambers of parliament to create and pass a new ordinance that applies specifically to this lightbulb (and several other contexts it has no business applying to but does because it’s too vaguely worded). Then you need at least three different expert panels to advise the government, regulatory agencies to make sure the ordinance is adhered to, licensed trainers to make sure the people executing the job are formally certified to do so… Actually, we might have to get the European Parliament involved; the new ordinance might benefit from being propoted to a European standard.

          I’ll get back to you about this in about three to five years; we need to get this figured out.