In case it's the last possibilty, can anyone clarify for the novice just what these rules are, and how German and English punctuation differ?
The general rule is: opposite of the English rules. When I write in English, it's the commas that give me away as a German.
Here are some recources that you can check out.
https://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/gr/mis_01.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/german-zeichensetzung-punctuation-marks-4082218
Thanks for the suggestion, but one thing to keep in mind us that my main reason for learning German is to learn to read it -specifically classic philosophical texts. Thus understanding punction is probably a bit more needed than in the usual situation.
Also, I tend to go off the theory that people learn quickest if you address what questions they're interested in at the moment as they come up...even if, admittedly that can be a little scattered...
At any rate, thanks for the links will check them all out!
I ageee with Ramona. That said, a few things off the top of my head:
One specific difference that immediately comes to mind are relative clauses, which are always preceded by a comma in German, whereas in English you can have ones without a comma before who/which.
In general, I‘ve always felt like German is stricter or more rigid with its comma rules. Even after the spelling reform, there seems to be far less wiggle room when it comes to commas in German, whereas in English it seems like every regional variety and every publishing house and every University just make up their own rules. Enumerations are one such example German is very strict about and ”English“ isn’t (A, B and C or A, B, and C; in German it’s always the first one).
