More things I will probably not say in German class

[highlyeccentric]

We have to talk about three things we like (to a formula of different degrees of enjoyment):

Ich dekliniere gerne die Substantive de Angelsachsen. (Thank you, F. Liebermann, for teaching me to spell 'Anglo-Saxons' in German. Bloody Gesetze, how I loathe and yet miss that book...)
Ich lese sehr gerne die mittelalterlichen französischen Liebesgeschichten. (Someone on this flist is just dying to help me with adjectives, aren't you? My dictionary blathers about 'when an adjective precedes the noun', but hasn't told me HOW TO TELL when it does or does not precede the noun. Examples of not preceding the noun were all constructions with "is" in them, so possibly it's simple like that? Also, am I right that I need die before the objects of these sentences?)
Ich spreche liedenschaftlich gerne der Liebesgechichten von Gawan.

Liebesgeschichten is a bit of a guess. I don't think it's the word I want, I know i've heard the German word for "courtly romances" kicking around somewhere, but obviously my dictionary is no help to me with that one. Anyone happen to know it?

Comments

[simon-stylites.livejournal.com]

You've got the "adjective before the noun" thing correct. They always go before the noun when they're simply modifying the noun (it's not like, say, French, where some go before and some go after). They behave differently when they're used predicatively (or whatever the term is, I'm too lazy to look it up) after "is" or similar verbs.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely. I adore Germanic languages. Very sensible things.

[simon-stylites.livejournal.com]

Right. Have you checked out the overloaded adjective construction yet? Have you noticed how they make adverbs yet? Have you at least explored the exciting world of separable prefixes?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Nope, I don't yet know how to do any of these things!

[metaphoroflife.livejournal.com]

Höfischer Roman slash Höfische Dichtung are the only things I can find. Do either of them sound right?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Neither of them are the one I was thinking of, but they could be right... Probably the Roman one. Hmm.

[kishnevi.livejournal.com]

I think Hof--refers to courts as in those places where princes and kings tended to hang out, whereas "courtly love" and associated phrases used "courtly" more in the meaning of "courteous" or "polite". But I've forgotten what the German word for courteous is, if I ever knew it.
And I think what you want is not Roman or Geschichte, but Zahl instead--if I'm thinking of the correct word. It's the one that means "tale" in English.

And you will -joy separable prefixes when you get to them, especially whenever you -load a song from the Internet down- en.

Have I ever told you to read Mark Twain's piece on the "Awful German Language".

[metaphoroflife.livejournal.com]

How about Minne? Although that's more the concept than the literature.