(no subject)

[kittydesade]

Der Wievielte ist heute? What is the date today?
Heute ist der 1. (erste) März. Today is March first.

Den Wievielten haben wir heute? What is the date today?
Heute haben wir den 1. (ersten) März. Today is March first.

In German, there are two ways to express dates. Dates are expressed with ordinal numbers preceded by the masculine form of the definite article (referring to the noun Tag). A period after a number indicates that it is an ordinal. The day always precedes the month as it does in most civilized societies.

Hamburg, den 2. März 2005.

Dates in letter headings or news releases are always in the accusative.

Frank vergisst immer, wann seine Freunde Geburtstag haben. Ihr Geburtstag ist immer zwei Tage später als er denkt. Beantworten Sie seine Fragen.

1. Hat Gisela am dreizehnten Juli Geburtstag?
Nein, am fünfzehnten.
2. Hat Willi am ersten Januar Geburtstag?
Nein, am dritten.
3. Hat Uwe am zweiten März Geburtstag?
Nein, am vierten.
4. Hat Elke am sechsten November Geburtstag?
Nein, am achten.
5. Hat Claudia am achtundzwanzigsten April Geburtstag?
Nein, am dreißigsten.
6. Hat Gerd am fünfundzwanzigsten Dezember Geburtstag?
Nein, am siebenundzwanzigsten.

Okay, that looks fairly straightforward.


Ow, my head. It's been such a day. My Arabic books came! Yay! A grammar, an alphabet book, and a verbs book. Arabic is fucking scary! Boo! (Modern Arabic Standard, for those who want to know.) Anna's Arabic books came! Yay! And now we're both scared. Boo! Hey we can do Arabic for two hours on the weekend! Yay! OMFG FIVE LANGUAGES AT ONCE? Very boo. Or maybe just very frightening in that I consider five languages at once to be manageable. Holy hell. Unholy hell. This, plus looking at the reading list for yuletide_admin and realizing that, conservatively, 1500 people saw my name linked to some giant feat of pinch hittery. Plus ... well. And plus day job work which, though not busy, has not been quiet either. It's been a day. A very yoyo-y day. I want to go home.

Maybe this is gig crash. Or in my case, Yuletide crash. If that's the case, I'll sure take this over all the WOE NO ONE REC'D ME BARELY ANYONE COMMENTED GUESS I'LL GO EAT WORMS of the previous years. This is just bogglement and exhaustion.

And when I'm this exhausted I shouldn't look at how many verb forms Arabic Standard has I'll be over here in the corner of afraid now. Wow, Kiki wasn't kidding about the caterpillar brain. Fortunately we'll be taking this one nice and slow. Alphabet first. And trying to find a pronunciation guide video or audio file I can mimic.

All I managed to get done today at work was about, um. I think 5000 words plus on the behind the scenes post for Yuletide. Including six things that help me write stupidfast and the last several stories worth of actual behind the scenes stuff. So that's ready to go up tomorrow, and I guess it'll help that tonight it's mostly just outlining and all that jazz. Outlining, maybe writing some more self-indulgent [redacted] fic or just working on one of those many, many more stories I wanted to write based on my various and sundry Yuletide things. That ought to keep me busy. Plus guitar, plus writing kanji, plus figuring out some form of vaguely healthy dinner. And then tomorrow all the chicken and all the chocolate chip cookies ever. Om nom nom.

Sunday, when reveals happen, I will be immersing myself in Bon Cop Bad Cop so as not to even think about whether or not anyone still remembers how many pinch hits I wrote, let alone wants to go see which ones were me. This is definitely gig crash. Needs moar water and protein and sleep.