Tag: critical role

Taverns Before Swine – The German of CR episodes 12 & 13

[Previous episode] [Whole series]

Or actually
just episode 13. Episode 12 had no instances of German words that I recall,
except for in the Twitch commercial break when they introduced this RPG and the
woman presenting kept saying “Gestalt” which is German and means, uh. A person,
a silhouette, that person’s appearance… Lots of things. It was actually used pretty
decently in the game rules, as in, the word fit, but the pronunciation was off.

See, soft “gs” aren’t really a thing in German. They’re pretty much always hard, like in “going”.
The exception is usually words based in French or English. Also, unless it’s at
the end of a word, “st” often becomes “sht”, like “sp” becomes “shp”. I
say often, because that’s no hard and fast rule, there’s several words that
don’t do that. Gestalt does, though. I also happen to play D&D with a few
people from the very south of Germany, and at least one of them speaks a
dialect that did away with the exceptions to the “st” rule and just says “sht”
and “shp” ALL THE TIME.

(It sounds odd if you’re not from the south or other areas that have a general appreciation for the “sh” sound. It’s probably normal if you grew up with it.)

The title
joke is about Lauren Schwein. A word I actually explained in a previous
segment! Like I’m some sort of diviner or something. It means pig. Of course,
the bible quote uses the word Sau, or Säue, the plural, meaning female pigs. Male
pigs are called Eber. Schwein is just a general word for aaaalll of them. It
even has the neuter article and grammatical gender, so it’s das Schwein. For
once, it all makes sense!

And while
we’re at gendered words, Caleb did indeed not call Pumat Sol an asshole. He
said “Herr Sol,” which means Mr. Sol. Today, Herr is used as a general title to
address men, but to be the Herr of someone also means to be the owner, ruler,
or lord. Our equivalent of Ladies & Gentlemen is “Meine Damen und Herren,”
so it has a somewhat polite connotation.

Dame,
however, is not our equivalent for Mrs. or Ms. You might recognize it as an
English word, specifically very British, as in the title the Queen bestows on
women as an equivalent of Sir. Dame Maggie Smith and the like.

That’s not
what it means in German, though. It’s just a very polite word for women. The equivalent
to Mrs. or Ms. would be “Frau” and then the woman’s last name. Frau also
literally means woman. We used to have an equivalent for Miss or Mademoiselle,
too, which was Fräulein, -lein being one of the many diminutive suffixes the
German language has. The grammatical implication of that word being, more literally
than in its international counterparts, that an unmarried woman is smaller,
somehow. Less of a woman. So that hasn’t really survived second wave feminism
way back when.

(It also
just sounds kinda ugly, so I’m glad it’s gone.)

…Unless you
are my mom or any annoyed parent of a girl, then you might call her a Fräulein
in a threatening manner. Or you are my grandmother and still remember the times
when school teachers, especially at elementary schools, were only allowed to be
unmarried women and just addressed as Fräulein in general. Even though you are
also aware that your granddaughter’s elementary school teacher is very much
married, because her husband has been your daughter’s teacher about fifteen
years ago, which you definitely remember because the name is a mouthful.

But that’s
just another of these very specific personal anecdotes.

So that’s
it for what I can remember right now. If I missed anything, feel free to point
it out and I’ll add it in the concise manner in which I communicate
information. If you have any questions or need someone to check the German
Caleb says or moans in your fanfiction, feel also free to hit me up.

Because I don’t know what to do with this information

Remember the “the shaft curves to the right” conversation? With Laura cracking up, Travis saying “it’s to the left, usually,” and Sam helpfully chiming in with “not from her perspective”?

Yeah, uh, so I’ve been rewatching episode 73 of campaign 1 and gotten to the part where Grog, ah, marks his territory, and, well.

“And can I just go slightly off, left, the way me member goes?”

…At this rate, unless someone informs me of a pop culture reference I missed, we can probably also safely infer that Travis and Laura do have a saveword, and it’s Oklahoma. Honestly, even if it is a pop culture reference, I wouldn’t rule it out.

I can’t pinpoint which one, but I think at this point it’s safe to say that either Liam or Caleb seriously have a thing for being threatened and manhandled. Or probably both, let’s be real.

mrsmarymorstan

replied to your post “I REALLY Wouldn’t Recommend Zemnian Porn – The German of Episodes 10 &…”

                       Okay but, very important question from someone
who used to live in Germany… Was Caleb’s treatment of the bread
acceptable or not? If it is one thing I have learnt, it is that bread is
a Big Deal in Germany. *Casually points to beloved giant depressed loaf
of burnt bread*                    

I AM A FAILURE TO MY PEOPLE! THE BREAD! AAAAH!

Okay so I have never heard of anyone German doing this, but I’m not sure there’s an explicit cultural stigma against it, other than that you don’t play with your food. And sticking your dirty, dirty hands inside of it is WASTEFUL and UNHYGIENIC. But that’s just my take on this and not necessarily “German”.

(The real question is, was it white, grey, or black bread? This is important!)

I REALLY Wouldn’t Recommend Zemnian Porn – The German of Episodes 10 & 11

[Episode NEIN] [Entire series]

(If you don’t understand the joke, I truly envy you. And no, this is the one thing I won’t explain.)

Alright, so
I know I’m really late with this, but in my defense, there was very little
German in the last episodes, so I waited a while to compile it all. Here we go!

At one
point in episode 10, when Caleb has to say a name, he says “Schmidt”. It’s one
of the most common German last names, and literally means Smith. Well, Smith
the last name, not smith the profession. The word for that is Schmied. But it’s
literally the same word, or at least was a few centuries ago before some monk
decided the best way to speak German, the pure accurate way, was the way they
did it around Hanover. Most of the country chose to ignore that until this day.

The most
common surname in Germany is Müller, btw. Literally Miller. Both the name and
the profession.

Caleb also
asked “Was?” for clarification at one point. It means what, plain and simple.

On the last
real, on-set Talks Machina episode, Liam also said there was a lot of “Sturm
und Drang” around the argument between Caleb and Jester. Sturm und Drang is a
literary movement of the 1760ies – 1780ies. German teachers love it and will
make you interpret poems in class from this period a lot. And then you have to
read Goethe or Schiller.

Goethe, by
the way, is probably the only thing that will mean anything to an international
audience. He’s the one who wrote Faust, of Faustian Deal fame. Sell your soul
to the devil fuck a 14 year old after your poisoned her mom. Yes, that is the
basic plot, there’s a reason all you’ve (probably) heard about is the part
about deals with the devil.

(The link is to yet another Jan Böhmermann video. It has no English subtitles, but if you happen to be one of the German critters reading this, or in any way capable of getting a kick out of something in German, treat yourself.)

(Also, Faust was written a liiiiittle too late to reeeaaaally count as Sturm & Drang. But it’s where the author got started.)

I’m being
flippant about this on purpose, of course you can do serious research and all
that on your own if this is too dismissive for you, but in general, Sturm &
Drang was a movement of young, educated men who didn’t like authority and
conventions and had a lot of feelings they wrote poetry and plays about. The
hipsters of their time. Also, isn’t it fun how people literally always stay the
same?

In that regard,
I couldn’t think of a better way to describe fandom discourse. Kudos, Liam,
kudos.

(Sturm
& Drang is also what the school name Durmstrang was based on. I have
thoughts about this entire shebang, but, like… A school in Russia, attended by
Bulgarians, home of wizard Hitler the first, named after a German literary
movement… Riiiight.)

Episode 11
then featured a building which I think had the word “Zauber” in its name, but
everyone insisted on calling it “sauber”. The z in German is pronounced like a
ts. Zauber means spell. As in, to cast a magic spell, which is probably what it
was supposed to mean.

There are a
lot fewer words for magic and magicians in German, by the way. My first
instinct would be to call Caleb’s class Zauberer – the same way wizard was
translated in Harry Potter. However, official D&D books in German call the
wizard a Magier, which is closer to mage, technically. Zauberer is used for sorcerer,
but those terms are pretty synonymous, usually. I’d switch it, personally, but
I too can’t really think of a more appropriate word for the sorcerer class.

Warlock has
been translated as Hexenmeister, by the way. Literally witch master, and close
to the Witcher, at least in language. I don’t take issue with that, but then
again it’s what I’ve been used to since early WoW days, so hey.

Pronouncing
the Z like an S, aka saying “sauber”, turns it into a different word entirely. Sauber
means clean, which, you know, is also appropriate, given that we’re in the
fancy part of town.

And
speaking of fancy parts, there’s also the High Richter. I posted a little PSA
last week to make y’all aware that it most likely supposed to be spelled that
way, not Rickter or Ricter or whatever else you can come up with. Richter means
judge, the profession, which seems accurate – though I’m not entirely sure on
how the Wildemount legal system works. They way they talked to the woman made
her come off as more of a state prosecutor? Or something like an Inquisitor?
The campaign guide did state that the outer parts of the Dwendalian Empire were
inspired by Spain. Albeit 14th century Spain, which is one century
shy of the actual Spanish Inquisition. The one no one expects. Yes.

And because
this is kind of going to be my job, I can confidently tell you that we don’t
have any appropriate German term for a High Richter. There’s, of course, a
court hierarchy and all that, and you can rise within that hierarchy as a judge,
but your title just becomes judge of this and that court. And the word high is
not included anywhere.

So this is
it for the time being. Depending on the amount of German coming up in, like,
one hour from now, I might write the next post after Easter (which at least my
family soooort of celebrates), or wait until after episode 13.

Until then,
everyone remember: Taliesin Jaffe lied to you. They’re the Mighty Nein. N E I
N. Please. And yes, using a bunch of German automatically means you invite our
pedantic asses over to correct your spelling. Which just about every German I
have met in this community is happy and willing to do! Please consult us if you
plan on including any German in your fanfiction or fanart. None of us will be able to
agree on whether a certain phrase is appropriate to be used during sexytimes,
but at least it’ll be grammatically correct, and isn’t that what REALLY
matters?