• Johanno@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      7 months ago

      I could use german grammar to set the commas, but then I would have probably 10 to many for English grammar. So I tend to use less in English.

    • KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      Comma rules in German are logical and follow set rules. When I asked my English teacher about comma rules in English, she said she’s not teaching them cause they’re too complicated.
      When I asked my English teacher during my foreign exchange year in the US, she basically said the same.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        7 months ago

        As a native English speaker, I barely understand comma rules either. The only person I know that I would expect to always get commas right has a Master’s degree in English. The extremely oversimplified rule I was taught as a young child was to add a comma anywhere you would naturally pause while speaking. Doesn’t always work, but it works well enough.

    • verdigris@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      7 months ago

      None of those sentences needed commas, they’re just not constructed very clearly.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        I, as a German, asked an expert on that topic: ChatGPT. According to ChatGPT, there is no genocide if you don’t kill them with the intention to wipe them from the planet. So, if for example you accidentally drop poison into their water because you mixed the botox and sugar bottle at the water station, then even if they all die it is not a genocide.

        And since ChatGPT is infallible, this is the only truth.

        Six commas, colon, capitalization, word order, word choice, “infallible”. Infallible like my editing 🤓 & dunt u disagreeme

        PS: I speak zero languages (rounded), good job all who learn English and attempt to use it

        • verdigris@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          Okay, yes, those are all valid places to put commas, good job – except for the one after “So”, which actually decreases the legibility. It would be better to surround “for example” with commas.

          However, none of them are grammatically necessary. The original comment is totally fine and can be parsed unambiguously as-is. I would support the colon insertion above any of your commas.

          • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            Good point!

            Interesting, anywhere I can read about grammatically necessary vs. recommended yet unnecessary commas? (Perhaps on the first search result for that question heh)

            • verdigris@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              7 months ago

              This is a decent article, at least for the most part: I actually don’t like their examples for the “Preposition of Time” stuff at all, the versions with commas are just bad writing.

              But basically it just comes down to whether the sentence/clause can be parsed unambiguously without the commas. There is no syntactical difference between “I as a German asked…” and “I, as a German, asked…”. It’s entirely a style choice.