Answers
Jan 15, 2012 - 09:37 AM
The best way I can re-explain what my girlfriend said is to say that how the word sounds before the ß. For example, Weiß has a long sound before it whereas Wissen has a short sound before it. Same goes for Schließen as it has a long sounding "eee".
Jan 15, 2012 - 02:04 PM
The sz is a character on the German typewriter but not on English typewriters. Anytime in German there is a "ss" it is typed with the "sz" character. Sometimes even the Germans use ss instead but the two are now interchangeable but the Germans will tend to always use "sz" but we cannot since it would require always going to the symbol on the keyboard.
ZB
ZB
Jan 15, 2012 - 07:21 PM
hard or long sounds makes sense for ß. wissen switches to weiße because the of the long/hard "eye" sound. So now, I wonder why tschüss doesn't have ß at the end??... oh those germans sure do keep it interesting!
Jan 15, 2012 - 08:52 PM
Because tschüss for one thing has no "tschüssen" which would make it a short sound before the "ü" but instead has a long sound of "chuuuuz" just like the other words I described. And I asked my girlfriend about the "sz" and she said that's not true you just use "ss" to represent the ß. For example if I were to type out "I know" on an American keyboard and were too lazy to look up the special characters I would type "Ich weiss" and it would be understood. The same goes for special letters like in "tschüss " if I don't want to look up the funny "ü" the type an "e" like this "Tschuess" and it's understood.
Jan 15, 2012 - 11:26 PM
thanks Jonathan! it's handy having someone with a German girlfriend to answer the questions :)
Jan 16, 2012 - 10:25 PM
I've decided that I really like the ß and wish that I could use it everywhere that I see SS - simpler and neater looking :)
Jan 18, 2012 - 06:51 AM
The SS and ß are interchangeable. The "standard" German language, which you can also read as "the German language the government wants everyone to use" is moving away from the ß and trying to get everyone to use "ss" instead. In this course, they don't use the "ss", but you'll see both when in a German speaking country.
Jan 18, 2012 - 08:15 AM
Agreed with the cool look of ß, but know the powers that be in Deutschland are moving towards ss.