Talk:Modal particle

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Can we have some examples, please?

Wait, let me finish what I am going to say. 80.225.15.249 23:01 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)Dieter Simon 22:58 16.1.03

Hi,User 213.253.39.27 Re your query whether the term "Modalpartikel" exists in German, yes, this is certainly the German word for the English "modal particle". See, for example, http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num3/mollering/, one of many websites which discusses and uses the term amongst other synonyms for modal particle. Dieter Simon 23:53 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)Dieter Simon

It's an interesting article. Thanks for writing it!

Article to be completed in due course. Dieter Simon 00:09 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

List now completed. Dieter Simon 23:59 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)


Words like these also exist in the Dutch language. But I don't know if they're called modal particles as well. Guaka 18:29, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Blanking this article and leaving it as a stub is better, is it?[edit]

I have seen a few actions in my experience as a Wikipedian. but this is ridiculous. Anyone can blank an article and leave it with nothing but a stub. Surely, the correct thing to do is to improve on the original, yes, take out and replace something by something better, and not just vandalise it. Isn't that the way we Wikipedians should act? Come on Mark and the anon, you can do better than this. Dieter Simon 00:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • The information that was in this article, such as a list of German modal particles, is not encyclopedic and does not belong at Wikipedia. As noted in the edit summary, the article was filled with POV (saying that German modal particles should or must be learned a certain way, etc.), misinformation (implying that modal particles do not occur in English), and this individual article is a topic that is very difficult to expand on linguistically. This article has not been blanked. It has not been vandalised. If you want to discuss a problem you have, don't resort to calling people vandals, please discuss it on the talkpage.--Node 05:54, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Anyone who just destroys without replacing it with something better gets very close to being a vandal. That's all I can say, and that is all I am going to say. The sign of good Wikipedians is that they create good articles, and if they remove something put something better in its place. It is true what had been in this article, is better off in a separate article for German modal particles, which I have now done. What I said before is that you should always put an article you think is POV on the Vdf pages and explain why you have done it and why you think it should be removed. Better still create a much better article. Dieter Simon 23:49, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Apparently you haven't been at Wikipedia very long, as if you think an article is POV, you are supposed to fix it, not nominate it for VfD. If you think an article should be deleted (usually because it is already covered in another article, or the topic is not notable), THAT is when you nominate it for VfD. Much of the text of this page was either just plain wrong, or totally unencyclopedic. You still have not responded to individual arguments about the individual problems with the article. Why is that? --Node 04:03, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Also, regarding what vandalism is... What if I add to the end of the article German language, "Also, German is only spoken by squirrels from Mars, but only on Tuesdays. It only has one word, 'vlacka', which translates roughly as 'Three days after the first full moon of the year occuring on a Friday, a spaceship which was flying from Earth to Pluto went slightly off track at 8 o'clock in the morning, but its course was soon righted by its pilots, who then shared a pint of Bavarian beer before going back to watching a DVD with a title beginning with an S and ending with an exclamation point, after all this they proceeded to have sex and when they got back to Earth they got married in Canada at 3 o'clock PM on the 3rd of December 2101, and went on their honeymoon to Mars, returning at sunset the next Wednesday'. Popular urban legend says that this language is spoken in Germany, however the national language of Germany is Swahili and it has been that way since the first written records from the area appeared, and German squirrels are forbidden from speaking the German language, instead they speak Italian except on Sunday evenings when they speak Cantonese."? What if you just remove it, rather than replacing it with something valuable? Since all of it is false, there is no burden on you to replace this with good content, just as I am not expected to replace such falsehoods and POV and unencyclopedic content as that with which you have filled this page and, after I tried to fix these problems, a page on German modal particles. ==Node 04:13, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chinese[edit]

Chinese has modal particals too by the way, not just German. [1]. ~ InsérerNombreHere (talk) 20:57, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I was looking at an old version when I typed. Nevermind. ~ InsérerNombreHere (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The bit about Chinese needing modal particles because it can't use tone of voice is completely inaccurate. Of course Chinese people can freely use tone of voice to express emotion. The language isn't robotic. EastAsiaStudent (talk) 08:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also the reference given for this doesn't mention that at all. It's an accurate explanation of some Chinese particles with no mention of them being necessary due to a lack of emotional tone in Chinese. EastAsiaStudent (talk) 08:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am deleting this paragraph, as I can confirm it is incorrect. If anyone needs a source to confirm that Chinese has tone changes across the sentence to convey mood, please see http://ling.cass.cn/yuyin/report/file/2006_1.pdf 76.118.179.96 (talk) 20:29, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

is an expletive also a modal particle? because then there would be a lot of bloody examples :) --ThurnerRupert (talk) 12:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

English[edit]

I think we all would certainly agree that German uses modal particles quite frequently. But I would not say that they are entirely absent in English. Take for example the sentence "Now this is funny!" Here, "now" is not used because it is funny right at this moment but to express a certain feeling of surprise and contrast to other things that are not funny. A German translation of it, using four modal particles, could be "Das ist jetzt aber mal echt lustig!" (instead of just "Das ist lustig!") Not sure if we should integrate such examples here to highlight that English, in some situations at least, has modal particles, too? 80.71.142.166 (talk) 13:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]