It has been paining me for years, but patient as I am I have never, at least I think so, officially asked for it to be corrected, although I have spoken to Vera about it. She assured me at the time that you were aware of the issue.
Could we please have a miniscule beautification done on the German Open Forum script, where it says “Spreche…” ?
This “spreche” is not good German, some would say it is plainly wrong.
It ought to be “Sprich…” but the following version would make most sense in today’s informal society:
“Sprecht über ein beliebiges Thema”.
So if you next have to do any work on the “mask” or whatever it is called, could you make a sort of perfectionist happy?
“Spreche über ein beliebiges Thema. Die einzige Einschränkung ist, dass es in Deutsch sein sollte.”
Sprich über ein beliebiges Thema. (singular)
Sprecht über ein beliebiges Thema. (plural)
Laß uns über ein beliebiges Thema sprechen. (singular)
Laßt uns über ein beliebiges Thema sprechen. (plural}
Sprechen wir über ein beliebiges Thema.
Unlike in English where you can get away with murder, there are some words in German which simply look and sound better in their correct form. As I say, a beauty mark, nothing serious. For the educated ear it is painful to hear “Sprech”. I suspect lots of people no longer know “Sprich”… Sprich doch mal mit deinen Freunden darüber . . .
I read you loud and clear. It should of course be corrected to whatever is correct.
In English, my pedantry is well known. The other day, I corrected the English in a paper for a Russian colleague. Half of the corrected version was highlighted yellow with pedantic little comments about when to use the past perfect and when to use the passive voice.
Anyway, the quote in my first post is from my favourite German poem (not that I know many).
“It should of course be corrected to whatever is correct.”
As a professional pedant, I find this sentence abominable. The phrase ‘to whatever is correct’ is completely superfluous. It wouldn’t be a correction if it was not ‘to whatever is correct’ (though some ‘corrections’ I have seen on the Exchange page here could make me reconsider this last statement).
For what I can see in the Portuguese version, I’m not surprised that there are incorrections in other languages. That’s why I prefer to use the English interface.
Sprich doch mal mit deinen Freunden darüber . . .