More fun with verbs

I'm going to geek out on y'all again in this post. I continue to be fascinated by the differences in languages.

You probably don't spend most of your time thinking about verb tenses, but take a second to ponder the many and confusing verb tenses that we use in English. Here are some examples: "I go swimming." "I will go swimming." "I am going swimming." "I went swimming." "I have been swimming." "I would have gone swimming." "I would go swimming." Each of those tenses conveys a slightly different meaning, but the differences can be subtle. "I go swimming" and "I am going swimming" don't mean quite the same thing.

German, by contrast, doesn't use that many tenses. The structure of their verbs tenses is simpler, and you have to pick up the meaning from the context, not from the actual tense.

Here's an example: When we first moved here, we were talking with one of our German friends, Ruth, about a nearby swimming place. She said to Stacie, "We are going swimming there." Stacie replied, "Oh, tomorrow?" But that's not what Ruth meant. What she meant was that's where her family goes swimming; she wasn't expressing an intent to go at any particular time. It's tricky for non-native English speakers to pick up on the slight differences in how we express our verbs.

Here's the example that got me thinking about this. It illustrates a tricky translation that I see all the time here. Stace took the kids to rent their skis the other day. The website for the ski shop we use has German and English. Here's what it says in English: "Sport Vock Thalwil was founded in 1937 and is owned by Fredi Vock since 1980. Since 1994 we are specialised in ski equipment rental." In English, though, we really say this as, "Sport Vock Thalwil was founded in 1937 and has been owned by Fredi Vock since 1980. Since 1994 we have specialised in ski equipment rental."

So, next time a native German speaker says to you in English, "I am living there since 2008," you'll know why.