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→"Ich bin ein Berliner": German grammar
And the "grammer and coloquialisms of the sector of the population which Kennedy addressed" bit confuses me a bit. "Berliner" is the common German word for "citizen of Berlin", just like "Hamburger" or "Kölner" (or in the US: "New Yorker"). And the rest of the sentence is just "I am a...". So unless the above line is just a long way of saying "German", I'm confused. (Disclaimer: I'm from Germany, but not a specialist of donuts, Berlin or Kennedy). --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 13:47, 10 April 2007 (EDT)
And the "grammer and coloquialisms of the sector of the population which Kennedy addressed" bit confuses me a bit. "Berliner" is the common German word for "citizen of Berlin", just like "Hamburger" or "Kölner" (or in the US: "New Yorker"). And the rest of the sentence is just "I am a...". So unless the above line is just a long way of saying "German", I'm confused. (Disclaimer: I'm from Germany, but not a specialist of donuts, Berlin or Kennedy). --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 13:47, 10 April 2007 (EDT)
Actually, it's the article "ein" that caused the confusion here -- ordinarily, when sepaking about people (one's self or others) one does not use an article; the normal German way of saying "I am a Berliner" would be simply "Ich bin Berliner." The "ein" article is used with things, and when used with "Berliner" would tend to imply the pastry rather than the man. "Ein" is also "one," though, so you might scan JFK's statement as "I am one Berliner". I think he just had poor translation advice; he didn' speak German and was reading from a phonetic transcript prepared for him. [[User:Russell Potter|Russell Potter]] 09:49, 12 April 2007 (EDT)
== grammer and coloquialisms ==
== grammer and coloquialisms ==