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March 2003, Week 1

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From:
LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 4 Mar 2003 13:28:17 EST
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--- Forwarded Message from Lee Forester <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 08:21:16 -0500
>Subject: re: German special character
>From: Lee Forester <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]

------------------
Deanne writes:

> I am currently working on developing an exercise for German, and I 
> would like to be able to type the German words with the singular and 
> the plural as they would appear in a dictionary (or textbook), eg. die 
> Straße, -n.  This is fine until I run into a word that takes an umlaut 
> over a previous vowel in the plural form (ie. das Haus, die Häuser). 
> The way that this is to be written is das Haus, -"er, except that  the 
> quotation marks are supposed to appear as an umlaut above the dash. 
> Word 2000 doesn't list this as a special character and I have been 
> unable to find a unicode or html code for it.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions?
>

I think the reason dictionaries and textbooks adopted this convention 
was to save on paper by condensing the print as much as possible. With 
computer exercises we don't have this restriction, so you might want to 
consider simply using full forms rather than the abbreviations, i.e. 
das Haus, die Häuser. It is certainly easier for beginning students 
this way I think. When I taught Russian we used in addition to the 
textbook a learner's dictionary that has ALL the forms for all words 
actually printed out. The students LOVED it. Perhaps this approach 
could be useful in German too. So I suggest this not as a work around 
for not having the correct special character, but as possibly a better 
pedagogical approach where computers don't have the same limitations as 
print.

Lee

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