Deutsch and magyar

[Dagane]

de

Gestern habe ich eine überraschende Entdeckung gemacht: ich habe den Klang des Buchstaben "g" immer falsch ausgesprochen . Ich habe "g" nach einer Vokal wie "ch" gesagt, immer wenn eine Silbe mit "g" endet. Gestern habe ich bemerkt, dass diese Aussprache falsch ist, und ich habe meine deutsche Freunde darüber gefragt. Sie haben mir erklärt, dass "g" regelmäßig wie "k" klingt. Nur wenn eine Silbe mit "ig" endet, spricht man "g" wie "ch" aus. Überraschung! Natürlich gibt es Dialekte, die immer "ch" benutzen.

Niemand hat mir diesen Fehler bemerkt, und meine Freunde denken, dass er unwichtig ist. Trotzdem bin ich ein bisschen böse darauf, dieser Fehler weiterzumachen. Ich erinnere mich an einen Abend 2013, wenn ein Bekannte mir den gleichen Fehler auf Englisch korrigierte. Er bemerkte, dass ich das Wort "egg" ständig falsch sagte. Seitdem habe ich ähnliche englische Wörter sorgfältig ausgesprochen. Ein paar Wochen früher hat mein Freund mir den falschen "g" Klang in Ungarisch bemerkt. Aufgrund dessen bin ich meine Aussprache auf Deutsch noch einmal durchgegangen.

[Dagane]

en

I spent the last couple of weeks on holidays in Spain visiting family, hiking with friends, cycling, sunbathing and reading. In short, there wasn't much time left for languages. While I didn't put them aside completely, I reduced my study time to the bare minimum. I mainly reviewed vocabulary. I also watched one film and read a short book in German, and I read *half* a short story in Hungarian.

It's worth mentioning that I learnt some English. English isn't a language I actively learn anymore. After all, it is the language I use for love, work and many leisure activities. I'm an avid reader and some 40 or even 50% of the books I read every year are written in English. Apart from the odd unknown word every few pages, I don't find it different from reading in my mother tongue. I do find unknown words in my mother tongue too.

And then I read Catch-22. It's brilliant, I loved it! Somewhere in the middle of the book I noticed that there were too many words I hadn't come across before or which meanings were obscured to me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book very much and context provided enough background to guess most of the words. I decided to make a note of some of them nonetheless. I have marked the words which I think I had read before but still didn't understand with an asterisk (*). Now, seriously, is my English so bad or Heller's lexical choices are odd?

Sere
Foppish
*Lackadaisical
*Dour
Afflatus
Embezzlement
Smart aleck
Asinine
*Lewdly
Otiose: I didn't know the Spanish equivalent
*Lissome
*Oafish
Boor
*To inveigh
Cantankerous
Diffidently
Vim
Fustian: : I didn't know the Spanish equivalent either
To excoriate: Same
Fulcrum: Same
Insouciant
Obstreperously
Affidavit
*Alacrity
Bilge
Bedraggled

[tungemål]

en

Now, seriously, is my English so bad or Heller's lexical choices are odd?

Sere
Foppish
*Lackadaisical
*Dour
Afflatus
Embezzlement
Smart aleck
Asinine
*Lewdly
Otiose: I didn't know the Spanish equivalent
*Lissome
*Oafish
Boor
*To inveigh
Cantankerous
Diffidently
Vim
Fustian: : I didn't know the Spanish equivalent either
To excoriate: Same
Fulcrum: Same
Insouciant
Obstreperously
Affidavit
*Alacrity
Bilge
Bedraggled

Interesting. These are definitely low frequency words. Like you I've read a lot in English and I think my vocabulary is good, but of course not on the level of a well-read native. I only knew these words: Lackadaisical, dour, lewdly, Cantankerous, and boorish.
I've heard before embezzlement, Asinine, Fulcrum.

Btw did the phrase catch22 originate from this novel?

[Dagane]

Btw did the phrase catch22 originate from this novel?

According to a friend who studied English at the university, it does! It is definitely a novel worth reading.

[coldrainwater]

I actually really liked that word list from Heller and due to your comments Catch 22 just moved up on my reading list. I am sure it was assigned to me in school, so I of course did not read it. How many great books meet a similar fate? I made some highly subjective, 'native perspective' notes about the list, partly since I thought a few English learners might benefit from them. It is hard to get that perspective when you have only seen a word 5-10 times maybe. Feel free to ignore if not useful. I am overly wordy often.

Learn actively
Alacrity - Many things are done with alacrity (I often also use afán in ES), most usable term on this list. Know it actively. Learned it in the 90's as an SAT test term.
Lewd - I would consider this high frequency and group with libidinous, lecherous etc. Must know since conversations invariable devolve into baseness.
Smart aleck - Likely the most recognized word on this list. Old school but most natives will know in every day speech.

Learn passively
Affidavit - Legal, domain specific. Need to recognize it passively.
Boor - Pejorative, had a friend lose a friend over this term once, so it is not in my vernacular. Compare to boring, but applied to a person as a whole all the time.
Cantankerous - Good word to use in joke phrases when someone is in a cranky mood. Easy word for a native to pick up due to phonetics.
Embezzlement - Legal/news/political term, a must-recognize term.
Oafish - Always makes me think of oafish behaviour, very course and unrefined, like 'ya big lout, oaf'. Literary.
Diffident - Good synonym for shy or timid in the hesitant/modest sense. I use it actively in writing.
Dour - Great facial expression, mainly literary for me.
Lackadaisical - Too close to lazy, nonchalant for me and long orthography. My natural mien would keep me from penning this one, even for most literary purposes.
Excoriate - Think abrasive, but less useful term than abrasive.
Foppish - Should know what a fop is like and compare to 'dandy'. I think of it as old-school 'gentleman escort' duellist type, ladies man. Literary use mainly.
Fulcrum - Metaphoric and construction term, well recognized but I don't find practical use cases for it often. I prefer to leverage other terms.
Obstreperous - common but I never use it. Often paired with cantankerous
Asinine - there has to be one word on the list where I just don't have a comment over. Nothing against it.
Bedraggle - I associate with put through the wringer (wetness) and think of it more like washed-up or run down in practical use-case scenarios.
Bilge - Learned it as the 'bilge water' collocation
Lissome - Learned it as 'smooth, flexible'. Word has a narrow use case, possibly corporal or describing sleek forms.
Inveigh - Always makes me think of invective.

Huh?
Otiose - I like using this term with language exchange partners since it is uncommon in both EN and ES.
Fustian - Textile fabric term, a weak area for me. I did not even recognize the word.
Insouciant - I only put this one low on the list because I don't know French.
Vim - Only knew this one as vi Improved, modal text edit VIM and had never seen the Webster's version.
Afflatus - Gap in my English vocab, I should have done more than barely reognized this and definitely did not know a definition for it.
Sere - Cheap shot if author was intending 'sear' which is way more common

[tungemål]

Boor - Pejorative, had a friend lose a friend over this term once, so it is not in my vernacular. Compare to boring, but applied to a person as a whole all the time.

The reason I remember this word, is that I know some Dutch, and the word actually comes from the Dutch word for "farmer". Something that is rather insulting to farmers.

[Saim]

Embezzlement, smart alec, asinine and lewd are all fairly well-known words that could potentially come up in conversations. I wouldn't be surprised to hear someone say dour, either.

Affidavit is a word everyone will have heard and associate with politics and law but not necessarily know the exact meaning of.

Oafish, cantankerous, lackadaisical and boor are quite common in fiction writing (even in say, Young Adult novels), not so much in speech. Foppish is a rung or two more literary than those.

I've never used the word alacrity. I'll have to admit that before I looked it up now I didn't really know what it meant either.

The rest of your list is quite rare, some of it arcane.

[DaveAgain]

I decided to make a note of some of them nonetheless. I have marked the words which I think I had read before but still didn't understand with an asterisk (*). Now, seriously, is my English so bad or Heller's lexical choices are odd?

Sere
Afflatus
Otiose: I didn't know the Spanish equivalent
*Lissome
Inveigh
Fustian: : I didn't know the Spanish equivalent either

I had to look those ones up too , lissome and fustian I guessed correctly, but I wasn't sure.

I remember Catch 22 being a very confusing book. I think I had two or three abandoned attempts before reading the whole thing.

EDIT
I think I would say and write 'lissome' as 'lithesome', but the dictionary tells me I'd be wrong.

[Dagane]

en

Quite a lot of discussion! @coldrainwater and @Saim, I found your opinions are native speakers very interesting.

I believe I would have known the most common words in the list should I live in the States or learned American English. However, I learned British English and live in Britain. At the same time I noticed the use of American slang and the lack of British slang. The book lacks words that I hear around all the time and "should" have made it into such a funny book like: dodgy, tacky, knackered, mate, bloke, tad, faff around, chap, bloody, chuffed, bonkers, naff, easy peasy... You get the point.

I often read American books in the original, but I'd say the ironic tone and the dialogues of "Catch-22" are different to most

Then you have the legal (specialised) words for which you need a background that I lack. After that I'm left with the odd literary word here and there.

[tarvos]

I've heard most of these words, and definitely used a fair amount of them, but there were a few that escaped me because they're too arcane even for my tastes. Some of them I had to check (like bilge or alacrity), even though I definitely have seen them before. Embezzlement is common in legal circles (to embezzle funds for example), and affidavit is definitely legalese, but probably something most people have come across at least once in their lifetimes.

Lewd and asinine are words I definitely use, dour too. Bedraggled is something I would associate with, say, a cat left out in a thunderstorm (the poor thing came home totally soaked and bedraggled).

But some of these words would definitely be on the list of any native speaker (boor or boorish almost seems to merge into "stupid, with almost troll-like intelligence" to me and I definitely wouldn't use that to describe somebody unless I was intent on offending them).

That's my two cents as a native speaker of (Canadian) English.