Even Greener Pastures

Oh, JFK could have just said he supported the people, “Ich unterstütze euch” or “Mit Rat und Tat stehen wir euch zur Seite”, or many other possibilities. What would someone say in English?

If a head of State came to New York, he surely wouldn’t say, “I’m a New Yorker” to express solidarity with New Yorkers, which is precisely why JFK couldn’t have said “ Ich bin Berliner.”

Like I said before, I think the translator was just taking a bit of artistic license, (ein bißchen künstlerische Freiheit war im Spiel), knowing everyone would understand what was intended, even if it was not grammatically correct. People play around with language all the time like that. It’s not wrong to do, but it doesn’t make it right grammatically. It’s just like what Alharacas said, if someone said to her “Ich bin ein Professor” she’d conclude the person was not a native speaker or needed his head examined. You say “Ich bin Professor.” No one would put an “ein” in there like that. This is super-basic 1st year German stuff. We talk like that in English, but never in German.