On learning German

As a native English speaker, it can often be frustrating and discouraging learning a foreign language abroad. See the thing is, pretty much everyone these days knows at least a little bit (but usually a lot-a bit) of English, so it's not uncommon to encounter English on a day to day basis no matter what country you're living in. 

At first it can be really disheartening to keep getting responses in English when you want to speak German and it's quite easy to misinterpret this as an insult or some sort of negative commentary on your language abilities. Now, I can't say that I don't talk to people who really probably think "seriously, do you even know German?!" but over the past 18 months, I've learned that 9 times out of 10 an English response isn't usually a sign of your poor German, but rather the other person's interest in English. 

So, for those of you fighting the same battle and feeling increasingly more insecure about your language abilities, I've put together a little chart of some of the most common discouraging English responses, how I sometimes interpret them, and what the speaker's actual intent usually turns out to be. 

As you can see, and as I've learned (and still have to remind myself) a lot of people are excited to be able to show that they can communicate in English, or excited to have the chance to practice speaking with a native Speaker. Of course, some people really are jerks, but then you can just use big words at them. And I have to think, if the tables were turned and I was in the US and met a German speaker randomly, I would absolutely jump at the opportunity to speak German with them! 

Of course, I guess now I might be a little more sensitive to how I approach the situation, or at least preface my language switch with an "OMG! Can we speak German PLEASE! I'm really lame and love it!"

p.s. "sorry" is pretty much a legit word in German these days. People say it all the time, and it took me forever to figure out they didn't just magically know I was an English speaker! 

The Island of Misunderstood Christmas Songs

As with 90% of the songs played year-round in Germany, 90% of the Christmas music played here is in English.  They don't have quite the repertoire of American radio stations, but the range is quite diverse. The two that I've noticed to be the top dogs of the Christmas genre in Germany are John Lennon's Happy Xmas, War is Over (which I hear more often pronounced here literally as "x"-mas instead of just saying "Christmas", which I enjoy) and Wham's Last Christmas. 

I realized this Christmas, though, that there are a couple American Christmas classics that could easily lead to a couple misinterpretations in Germany. 

via

The first, and probably less severe, is Blue Christmas. 
In the English-speaking world, to be "blue" is a commonly used term to classify someone's mood as sad. It's common enough that I feel confident about 99% of English speakers would understand the meaning if someone just randomly said "I'm so blue" without context clues or anything. So the title "Blue Christmas" is generally pretty self-explanatory. 

In German, however, the word for blue (blau), when used to describe someone, carries a completely different meaning. Over here to be described as "blau" would mean calling them wasted, hammered, fall-down drunk, etc. Not quite the same meaning. But, I do think it gives the song a pretty good twist when you listen to it to mentally replace every "blue" with "drunk". I had a good chuckle, anyway. And oddly, it still kind of makes sense :-p

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, on the whole, is actually ok. It's just one little line in the often-overlooked introduction. To be more specific, it's another reindeer - you know, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. Although the last two are the actual German words for "thunder" and "lightning," respectively, they are not the magical beasts I'm referring to. The reindeer in question is dear old Vixen, whose name has much cruder meaning in German. 

By "name in German," I don't mean the German version of the reindeer's name (they only have Santa and his reindeer from the English speaking world, so they all have the same names over here). The problem the word "vixen" in English is pronounced exactly like the German word "wichsen." Now, since I haven't completely overcome the standard American bashfulness/awkwardness when talking about sex, you can click the word for a link to the definition (I promise it is just a link to a dictionary!). Or we could just say if this reindeer's name in English was the same as the German meaning he would be Mr. and Mrs. Off's youngest son, Jack. 

This really puts a kink (LOL! I did not even plan that, but I can't change it) in the plan when teaching this song to 5th graders. So, when the giggles wouldn't stop I had to give a little lecture: "In English the word is a reindeer's name, and since this is English class there are no other meanings right now!" It didn't totally work...

So be careful the next time you go caroling in Germany, make sure to double check your song choice before heading out. 

A Very Brief and Not Particularly Helpful German Lesson, Lektüre 2

While the first installment of A Very Brief and Not Particularly Helpful German Lesson focused on a few of my favorite words the language has to offer, I would like to spend part 2 on an often over-looked part of learning a new language: Handwriting.

Of course, German uses the same alphabet with just a couple new letters: ä, ö, ü and ß - but nothing too wild. And of course everybody has different handwriting even when they speak the same language. So how could "handwriting" actually be a part of the German language? 

Well, even with a world of varying handwriting, some differences that exist and may be quite normal in Germany can be completely unrecognizable to an English speaker.

The number one.

It is my completely unprofessional, unqualified opinion that most prevalent difference in terms of handwriting is the number one. I always think the German 1 looks a little bit like a teepee (but hey, Indians Native Americans are pretty big in Germany, so maybe there is a connection!) Because of this difference, though, many English 7s get confused for German 1s. So whenever I am filling out official documents or anything I know has to be read by Germans I generally right my 1s like a teepee and cross my 7s to avoid any confusion or misunderstandings! 

The number nine.

German 9s have a hook on the bottom, making them completely indistinguishable from lowercase Gs. Fortunately a little common sense will tell you that 4+5 equals 9 not g, or that that word says "gehen and not 9ehen". But sometimes when you're living with a teacher whose address is 2g, you might accidentally tell the bank it's 29 when she writes it down for you. Not that I did that... often. 

The letter s. 

This one isn't always different, and in fact, I see it most commonly written like this with the younger students. It's obviously a cursive s, but it catches me so off-guard sometimes I really have to think about what I'm seeing. 

The letters h, m, and n.

These get me every time. I usually read Ns as Us and Ms as Ws at first glance. Just take a look at this German writing sample of my name:

Sometimes I've seen Ns and Us differentiated by using a line above the U.

Of course, this becomes even more confusing when we get to...

The Umlauts.

You know those funny dots above some letters? They have a name. And they're called umlauts. In German, they only exist for ä, ö and ü. Sometimes people get lazy when writing their umlauts and just draw a straight line instead of two dots.

So now that u with the straight line above it could either be a U with and umlaut or a U without an umlaut just being differentiated from an N (and that umlaut just might mean the difference between calling the weather humid or gay).

Is your head spinning yet?

So now you know, don't discredit the importance of learning the handwriting of a new language as well! 

I got 99 problems, but the britch ain't one.

Let me preface this post by saying that I love my school in Forchheim. And, except when they're really horrible, my students are really great! 

Oh hey, that's my school! ^

I had an 8th grade class today, and there is one kid in there who is super enthusiastic and always excited to participate, but (bless is heart) he just can't spell! Now, I can't fault him at all here (let's not even talk about how many spelling errors I have in my blog), compared to German - in which everything is spelled EXACTLY how it sounds, English probably seems like the most ridiculous language ever when it comes to spelling (take a moment, reflect... you'll realize it's true). There are absolutely no spelling rules, or any rules there are probably have more cases that are the exception than the rule. 

Anyway, he was writing out some questions for an activity they were doing, so I came to his group to read them over for mistakes. In the middle of the stack I catch a glance of a question that appears to say "how many bitches are..." whoa. Whoa.  Now I've had students curse in class before (pretty much all the time), and I've had students write inappropriate things before, but this struck me as really strange for this kid! So I calmly go through the stack of questions waiting to get to this one and see if it really says what I think it says. Finally I see,

"How many britches are in New York City"

I'll be honest, I still had to double take (I'm sorry, how many whats are in NYC?!), then I had to think... britches? Pants? britches, britches, britches, britches?? OOOOH! You mean "bridges"! 

Go ahead, say it out loud, you'll see where he's coming from.