Buchstabe vs brief

Hallo zusammen

My penfriend explained that BUchstabe has 2 meanings, but did not understand her explanation. Have tried to find an explanation, but have not.

Would anyone be able to give me more clarity.

Vielen Dank 

Sebongela

From the title of your post, maybe she is trying to explain the difference between a letter (of the alphabet) and a letter that you post. So Buchstabe can be a letter( of the aphabet) or (a printed) character. To me they seem to be much the same thing.

Perhaps if you posted her explanation?

Hi sfpugh 

Yes that must be it as she had some alphabet there.

Her English is amazing, but on occasion it is  a bit complex. My first thought was Brief, then thought I was thinking of the Afrikaans word for letter, which is brief, checked a translator and it came up with Buchstabe. Am wary of translators. As not always accurate.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Sebongela

I think that's it. If you type “letter” into the Leo dictionary, you get both “der Brief” and “der Buchstabe - character”. So they are synonyms in English but not German.

Hi sfpugh

Once again thank you. Why did I never think of using a dictionary. Have never heard of the Leo dictionary, will have a look. 

Thanks

Sebongela

I tried a number of online dictionaries and Leo seems the best to me.

https://dict.leo.org/german-english/

You can put in either english or german words. 

It took me a while to realise that if you click around the past participle of of a verb it will open up a new window and show all the conjugation.

It will also do this for nouns if you click on the plural.

Hi sfpugh

Thank you. Will use it. Have you tried Coffee Break German. The podcast are all free and some really good listening too. They have a reading club, a weekly one, you can subscribe. My German is still to basic for that, so I haven't. They have a magazine and travel diaries, all intermediate level I have subscribed to their season 1 and 2 German, as I learn different things there. I have subscibed to their Italian intemediate courses, as those have supplemented my Rocket Italian very nicely. 

Once my German gets beyond level one I will then subsribe to their intermendiate ones.

Sebongela

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.

Simon

Hi Sebongela, 

A quick glance in the Collins dictionary, "der Buchstabe" is, of course, a letter of the kind that makes up the alphabet. 

And “buchstabieren” is the verb “to spell," which is closely related. 

It can also mean “literally," as in “buchstäblich," or “dem Buchstabe nach," which has a parallel in English with “spelled out," as in “Do you want me to spell it out for you?” and  similar usages. 

I don't know if that's what your pen friend had in mind, but thought it worth a try! 

Cheers,

gottahaveajava

Hi gottahaveajava

Thank you. I really feel all bits help and different people bring different things to the table. I really feel that is how we learn a language. I need to look for a local German speaker to have coffee with and converse with. We have a Spanish teacher and a French teacher here in our valley. So I am sure there is a German one. I also use Coffee Break languages, podcasts are free. (Read previous post to sfpugh) in this thread. They have a different approach, but it does mesh together. I now remember BUchstabieren was in a conversation, just never put 2 and 2 together. 

Happy learning

Sebongela

Hi Sebongela,

I agree, lots of bits help in lots of different ways!

The only hazard, of course, is getting swamped with overwhelm.

And I also agree that, to get the most out of Rocket, it's essential to have at least one solid grammar resource. It would be pretty bewildering otherwise.

And not that I need any more resources, but I'll be taking a look at Coffee Break and the Leo dictionary, based on the conversation in this thread.

Nice to have both you and Simon here in the forum, Sebongela. 

Happy learning!

gottahaveajava