"Mark A. Mandel" <thnidu at yahoo.com> writes: > Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> asked: >> > Spelling is certainly painful in English - but have you ever tried to use >> > a comma correctly in German? > > David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: >> Well, that's an interesting question. I lived in Zurich in 1966-67, >> and then took 4 years of German in highschool (straight As), and then >> scored a perfect 800 on the SAT German Achievement test. I don't >> recall that commas were particularly an issue in German, though. >> (I've hardly touched it since, so I'm sure I don't have it all >> straight *now*.) > > It's not particularly complicated, but it's different than in > English, and it requires some understanding of grammar. If you don't > grok clauses, you can't do it right. And I grok clauses pretty well even in English (parallel structure being one of my hotspots). -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b at dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>