Particle Land

Hi folks! I've been thinking today about particles.

That's particles in the linguistic sense, as in the little filler words that add shades of meaning to a sentence. These are notoriously ubiquitous in German, and notoriously difficult to translate (or to learn how to use any other way than simply through the osmosis of being immersed in the language on a daily basis).

I started thinking about this after seeing an election campaign poster that read something like (I don't remember it exactly) "Mach ja doch mal!"

Now, the only "actual" word in that sentence is "mach" – the command form of "machen," or "do." Everything else is slippery particles. But saying just "Mach!" would come off as inexcusably harsh, the equivalent of shouting, "DO IT!!!"

"Doch" has a gentling effect – it makes the command into "Come on, do it" or "Hey, do this." Or even, "Why don't you do this?"

"Mal" (short for "einmal," literally "once") also softens a command – it's the difference between "Smile, NOW!" and "Hey, give us a smile."

"Ja," though, I would say, has a strengthening effect – "Just do it!"

I'm not sure I could tell you what the combination of all three at once – "Mach ja doch mal" – gives you. Something that's at once cajoling, playful and forceful, perhaps?

In any case, I started thinking: Just how many particles could one reasonably cram into one single, non-complex sentence? (German has a LOT of particles – doch, ja, schon, halt, nun, nun mal, eben, also, also doch, aber, vielleicht, eigentlich, wohl, auch, bloß, denn, irgendwie, nur, zwar... and I'm sure that's only a partial list.)

The best I've been able to create so far is "Mach ja doch mal schon!" which would be something like "Hey, come on and just do it already!" And the only actual verb in that sentence is still "mach."

Anyone want to add to that?

(Wikipedia has a good explanation of German particles here (three form systems! languages with no words for "yes" and "no"! Aaaah, the rabbit hole of linguistic fabulousness!)