September 15, 2008

(The following have been deduced from The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and a German textbook, Deutsch: Na Klar!)

wachsen --> to grow (probably)

Nähe = area, region

drehen = to turn (Preview in Mac OS X in German has "rotate right" and "rotate left" as "rechts drehen" and "links drehen". The context of the usage "erdrehen" in Minish Cap was "flip" in English. "To turn" works well for both contexts.)

"wirbel" = "whirl"

Eben = field

grenzenlose = "limitless"?

Krug = pot (Krüge = pots) (this has allowed me to make another observation--plural forms of nouns either end in -e or -en; some verbs have an umlaut added to a vowel)

Have skimmed some German entries in the back of a German textbook, and noticed the nouns are preceded by die, der, or das--perhaps this refers to the gender of the noun? If that is the case, I have already been taught that "Nacht" is feminine, and "Tag", "Morgen" and "Abend" are masculine--if that is the case, then all three articles appearing in front of Tag, Morgen and Abend should be the same, and Nacht, different from those three. Apparently, it is true--Tag, Morgen and Abend are all preceded by "der", and Nacht, by "die". That leaves "das", which refers to the only gender remaining--neuter. If that's true, it means "Buch" is neuter--I have seen "das" used with "Buch". I shall watch further deductions in the future for this pattern. To sum what I have found from this, "die" indicates a feminine noun, "der" indicates a masculine one, and "das", for neuter. If they are used.)

I have finally figured out, perhaps, for the longest time, what "irgend-" is doing. Maybe. It's like "nie-" and "je-" in some ways. I've seen it in front of "wo", "wie" and "was", so it would mean "somewhere", "somehow" or "somewhat".

Hm? Ich habe so ein komisches Gefühl.
Hm? I have a funny feeling. (I have also seen komisch used with Mütze, so I think it means "funny".)

Böse seems to be more specific to evil than it does to just plain "bad". Seems there are lots of words that describe the English word for "bad". In this case, "Schlimmes" is probably "bad" in the sense of something gone wrong.

Schlafmütze = "sleepyhead" (although "Mütze" I've found is hat, so it isn't literal. But then there's Dummkopf...)

Perhaps the verb "bitten" I was looking for might be a polite form of asking. As in asking a favor:
Ja! Ich werde Magnus bitten, ein Buch zu schreiben...
Yes! I would ask Magnus to write a book...

Laden seems to mean "hut" in addition to the other meaning I found, for "load". It seems more related to the verb than the new meaning I found.

Tafel = panel, tile

Enkelkind = grandson (looks like Enkelin)

hilflos = helpless

Leiter (might this be ladder?)

Considering "wäre" as a possible form for the past tense of "ist".

Kleeblatt = clover