Among the folks I have known from Germany, I have noticed that, when they speak English, they tend to intersperse their sentences with the word “really” a great deal.
What’s the origin of this? Is there a common similar German sentence construction? Or is it just a weird youth speech mannerism of the moment (like, I don’t know, the, like, American tendency to, like, totally say the word “like” a lot?)? Or is my sample size too small and I’m hearing something that’s not common at all?
I don’t have an answer for you, but what you say does ring true with my experience.
I suspect it’s our translation of “echt”, which is used a lot in informal speech. Literally it means “real, true” but it is used as an intensifier meaning “totally”.
So you’ll get sentences like “Gestern abend war ich in dieser echt coolen Disco mit echt tollen Weibern, das war echt klasse!”, which a native German might say as “Last night I was in this really cool club with really classy chicks, that was really great!”.
Myriam (really!)
I confirm DemonSpawn’s statement. Those Germans seem to be really dependent on ‘really’. But in their defense, I’ll go and say that this native speaker of Americanese uses ‘really’ a lot, and all my friends seem to do the same.
Really.
