What do these three words have in common?
1. Kissen
2. Hafen
3. Verlängern
Hint: Many more fit the same bill.
20 August, 2011
03 August, 2011
So, you must be fluent by now?
During the opening lesson of my rookie Goethe-Institut summer school course in 2003, I was amazed I could instantly understand "Der Fisch schwimmt," "Der Ball rollt," and "Der Apfel sinkt" (if you drop it in a bowl of water).
This was the first little pearl on a string of triumphs marking my journey toward fluency. How many beads does it take to craft an artifact?
Here are a few of the milestones that followed my immersion euphoria that summer. You tell me where I became fluent. Or am I there yet?
Here are a few of the milestones that followed my immersion euphoria that summer. You tell me where I became fluent. Or am I there yet?
1. Realizing why, while shopping, store employees didn't leave me alone after I shook my head. (In Germany they don't ask, "Can I help you?" but rather, "Are you doing alright?" / "Kommen Sie zu Recht?")
2. Identifying a love song on the radio.
3. Grasping snippets of a passerby's conversation on a busy sidewalk.
4. Failing to tune out background conversations at will.
5. Successfully concealing my foreign accent from a curious stranger seated next to me on a train.
5. Successfully concealing my foreign accent from a curious stranger seated next to me on a train.
6. Identifying potential nuclear waste repositories as the topic of a radio program.
7. Holding my own in a argument.
8. Word play - on purpose.
9. Passing my statistics exam.
Goals up ahead:
1. Laughing at stand-up comedy in Frisian dialect.
2. Being a statistics tutor.
3. Simultaneous translation of the tour through the archaeological excavation under the Cologne Cathedral.
Fluent sounds so final. Once you are fluent, you can't improve. But even in your native language you are never done learning, not least of all because the language itself is steadily changing.
It is like my high school calculus teacher Ms. Perkins explained: you can jump half way to a wall until the cows come home.
The ants go marching... on vacation
A recent trip to Hamburg reminded me of a favorite German poem to share. Below a translation by the late Ernest A. Seemann, followed by the original Ringelnatz.
The Ants
There once were two ants in Westphalia
Who wanted to go to Australia.
But cursing their feet
In a Belgian street
They gave up the trip as a failya.
Die Ameisen
In Hamburg lebten zwei Ameisen
die wollten nach Australien reisen.
Bei Altona auf der Chaussee
Da taten ihnen die Beine weh.
Und da verzichteten sie weise
Dann auf den letzten Teil der Reise.
21 February, 2010
Frozen Delight
This week's thaw triggered a really unusual reaction in me: wait, winter could be over soon? I am not ready for hunting Easter eggs and donning rain gear. This winter felt like sliding down one long ice track, with a running start. (Like poor 1 1/2 year-old Lotte, above, on the frozen-over Alster River in Hamburg.) Isn't winter usually the time to be a sloth, to hibernate? I never got that rest; too many awe-inspiring distractions.So, here, before it is gone, is a small photo tribute to the fairytale-like wintery whiteness that captivated me the last few months.
First, around the New Year, there was a sledding adventure - my first time sledding in ten years. And my first time ever on a real, classic wooden sled. (Our landlords wanted to throw them away, but luckily we were there as they were cleaning out their basement and could protest.) Since there are exactly three suitably inclined landscapes in all of Bonn, the crowds here were not small, but neither was the enthusiasm - regardless of age.
In late January I spent a weekend in the best possible place to enjoy snow: a small farm with a couple of puppies and a lot of antiquated equipment, made more mysterious by its heavy, white attire.
Then, back home, on a walk over the Rhine, even the ship traffic was somehow elegant covered in snow. 
But, on shore, the thaw was beginning...
Auf Wiedersehen, Winter.
16 February, 2010
Carnival
I survived my first real bout of Carnival.
For five days in the middle of February (leading up to Ash Wednesday), the streets of the Rhineland are filled with drunk clowns, sailors, and bumble bees. In the past two years I resisted the madness, either by fleeing town, or just drowning out the music on the streets with my own living room beats. This year, I got swept into the heart of the chaos.
On Friday night I participated in a Cologne cultural ritual known as "Loss mer singe," (in proper German "Lass' uns singen," in English "Let us sing"). The setting: a cavernous brewery in the shadow of the massive Cologne Cathedral, in the heart of the old city. The protagonists: hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of sweaty bodies with preposterous headgear, crammed together belting out well-worn Carnival songs with insipid lyrics ("Give me your heart; I'll show you the world, na na na"). The purpose: local patriotism. Most of the songs are in the native dialect (Kölsch, or Colognish) and praise the "people with sun in their hearts" in that "friendly little city on the Rhine."
You have to be drunk to really enjoy it. (At least that is what I concluded from the corollary.)
Kölsch is about as similar to real German as Dutch or Yiddish, so, amusing to hear and try to parse out. But I couldn't actually understand much of anything amidst the whooping of the crowds and the thumping of the base. Even the waiters (carrying tiered trays of beer) had trouble getting anyone's attention despite the whistles they blew to part the crowds.
Carnival festivities here actually culminate on "Rose" Monday (Rosenmontag) in a parade featuring everyone and his brother. But after Friday night's adventure, I can't say I was too upset that Monday was a regular work day for me. (Hardly anyone here works on Carnival; however, it is officially up to employers, and mine used the caveat to keep us at the office.) But there is no way to duck the Carnival spirit. I had to dodge trucks unloading beer in the streets as I biked to work at 9 am. Then, at some point after lunch, I got a phone call.
"Good afternoon. I***M head office."
"Bonn Alaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaf!"
"Hello? Who's there?"
"Alaaaaf! Are you still at your desk? Alaaf!"
(A., my former colleague, rang to see if he couldn't pry me away from work with the traditional "alaaf" used as a greeting and a rallying cry in the Rhineland on Carnival.)
In the evening, nearing home, the crowds were still massive in the old town. As I dismounted from the bike to navigate my way through the sea of people, a bear and a clown nearly toppled me down: "Hey, there you are! We just rang your doorbell and no one answered. Can we stop off at your place to pee?"
I chatted with these two friends for a while and let them use the toilet while I helped myself to their bag of parade plunder. (Yes, even in times of economic crisis, it seems the city of Bonn did not skimp on sweets, or local business Haribo made a generous donation.) But even sweeter than the gummy bears: when they closed the apartment door behind them, I knew I wouldn't see another clown face until next year.
For five days in the middle of February (leading up to Ash Wednesday), the streets of the Rhineland are filled with drunk clowns, sailors, and bumble bees. In the past two years I resisted the madness, either by fleeing town, or just drowning out the music on the streets with my own living room beats. This year, I got swept into the heart of the chaos.
On Friday night I participated in a Cologne cultural ritual known as "Loss mer singe," (in proper German "Lass' uns singen," in English "Let us sing"). The setting: a cavernous brewery in the shadow of the massive Cologne Cathedral, in the heart of the old city. The protagonists: hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of sweaty bodies with preposterous headgear, crammed together belting out well-worn Carnival songs with insipid lyrics ("Give me your heart; I'll show you the world, na na na"). The purpose: local patriotism. Most of the songs are in the native dialect (Kölsch, or Colognish) and praise the "people with sun in their hearts" in that "friendly little city on the Rhine."
You have to be drunk to really enjoy it. (At least that is what I concluded from the corollary.)
Kölsch is about as similar to real German as Dutch or Yiddish, so, amusing to hear and try to parse out. But I couldn't actually understand much of anything amidst the whooping of the crowds and the thumping of the base. Even the waiters (carrying tiered trays of beer) had trouble getting anyone's attention despite the whistles they blew to part the crowds.
Carnival festivities here actually culminate on "Rose" Monday (Rosenmontag) in a parade featuring everyone and his brother. But after Friday night's adventure, I can't say I was too upset that Monday was a regular work day for me. (Hardly anyone here works on Carnival; however, it is officially up to employers, and mine used the caveat to keep us at the office.) But there is no way to duck the Carnival spirit. I had to dodge trucks unloading beer in the streets as I biked to work at 9 am. Then, at some point after lunch, I got a phone call.
"Good afternoon. I***M head office."
"Bonn Alaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaf!"
"Hello? Who's there?"
"Alaaaaf! Are you still at your desk? Alaaf!"
(A., my former colleague, rang to see if he couldn't pry me away from work with the traditional "alaaf" used as a greeting and a rallying cry in the Rhineland on Carnival.)
In the evening, nearing home, the crowds were still massive in the old town. As I dismounted from the bike to navigate my way through the sea of people, a bear and a clown nearly toppled me down: "Hey, there you are! We just rang your doorbell and no one answered. Can we stop off at your place to pee?"
I chatted with these two friends for a while and let them use the toilet while I helped myself to their bag of parade plunder. (Yes, even in times of economic crisis, it seems the city of Bonn did not skimp on sweets, or local business Haribo made a generous donation.) But even sweeter than the gummy bears: when they closed the apartment door behind them, I knew I wouldn't see another clown face until next year.
07 February, 2010
Coming up on four years
On March 8th I will have lived 4 years in Germany. If that's not an opportunity to put my two Heimats on the scales, starting with...Things I miss about the US:
1) Cultural differences are flaunted, and it shows up best in the diversity of restaurants and ethnic grocery stores. I especially miss tacos and burritos.
2) Americans are open toward strangers. In fact, Americans even like to confide in strangers. (Once a woman asked me at a craft fair: "Do you think this sweater is too baggy? Recently my daughter said I look like a hobo.") Germans, by contrast, need to down a few beers before they can make eye contact with strangers.
3) Small food co-ops, consumer-owned, where you can buy beans, grains, honey, olive oil, and peanut butter (ground from fresh peanuts) in bulk quantities. Here, a rare sighting of a want-to-be co-op in Germany:
4) The Unitarian Universalist faith. (UUism is a "religion" that draws its values and members from diverse religious traditions, and focuses on social justice here and now.) It has no equivalent in Germany that I know of. (For Germans, UUism is another example of America's love affair with à la carte: take what you like, ignore the rest.)
5) The US is smoke-free almost everywhere but in private homes. Even there, smokers don't light up around non-smokers. In Germany, smoking in public is still a widespread phenomenon, and you (i.e., kids) can even purchase cigarettes from vending machines on the street. On the other hand, here is something else you can buy on the street: bike inner tubes. That also says something about differing cultural values, leading me to...
...what lures me to stay in Germany (aside from livable/bikable/railable cities):
1) Hearty, whole grain rye bread with pumpkin seeds. (Did you notice that food tops both of the lists? For all our philosophizing, what drives us humans is really quite simple.)
2) Ubiquity of shared flats (Wohngemeinschaften). A not insignificant number of Germans live with housemates/roommates into their forties and beyond, and not just for the sake of convenience.
3) Craftsmanship. In Germany you can still apprentice in bread baking, boat building, and shoe making. In Bonn, there is even a school for organ construction. The long-held tradition of systematically passing know-how from one generation to the next leads to an appreciation for things seasoned and of high quality.
4) Sperrmüll (large item garbage pick-up). Four times a year (to specified dates) people put their old furniture, etc. on the streets - so it is up for grabs until the next morning, when the small portion of it that remains is transported to the dump.
5) Finally, I don't mean to flaunt it, but it is true: five weeks of vacation and 80% of full-time with full benefits is hard to beat.
1) Cultural differences are flaunted, and it shows up best in the diversity of restaurants and ethnic grocery stores. I especially miss tacos and burritos.
2) Americans are open toward strangers. In fact, Americans even like to confide in strangers. (Once a woman asked me at a craft fair: "Do you think this sweater is too baggy? Recently my daughter said I look like a hobo.") Germans, by contrast, need to down a few beers before they can make eye contact with strangers.
3) Small food co-ops, consumer-owned, where you can buy beans, grains, honey, olive oil, and peanut butter (ground from fresh peanuts) in bulk quantities. Here, a rare sighting of a want-to-be co-op in Germany:
4) The Unitarian Universalist faith. (UUism is a "religion" that draws its values and members from diverse religious traditions, and focuses on social justice here and now.) It has no equivalent in Germany that I know of. (For Germans, UUism is another example of America's love affair with à la carte: take what you like, ignore the rest.)
5) The US is smoke-free almost everywhere but in private homes. Even there, smokers don't light up around non-smokers. In Germany, smoking in public is still a widespread phenomenon, and you (i.e., kids) can even purchase cigarettes from vending machines on the street. On the other hand, here is something else you can buy on the street: bike inner tubes. That also says something about differing cultural values, leading me to...
...what lures me to stay in Germany (aside from livable/bikable/railable cities):
1) Hearty, whole grain rye bread with pumpkin seeds. (Did you notice that food tops both of the lists? For all our philosophizing, what drives us humans is really quite simple.)
2) Ubiquity of shared flats (Wohngemeinschaften). A not insignificant number of Germans live with housemates/roommates into their forties and beyond, and not just for the sake of convenience.
3) Craftsmanship. In Germany you can still apprentice in bread baking, boat building, and shoe making. In Bonn, there is even a school for organ construction. The long-held tradition of systematically passing know-how from one generation to the next leads to an appreciation for things seasoned and of high quality.
4) Sperrmüll (large item garbage pick-up). Four times a year (to specified dates) people put their old furniture, etc. on the streets - so it is up for grabs until the next morning, when the small portion of it that remains is transported to the dump.
5) Finally, I don't mean to flaunt it, but it is true: five weeks of vacation and 80% of full-time with full benefits is hard to beat.
09 November, 2009
The State of the (German) Nation
In the interest of bringing German talent to a non-German audience, I translated a Wise Guys hit from the nineties called "Zur Lage der Nation" ("The State of the Nation"). This song takes German nationalism to a new level: satire. At least one immigrant was amused.
The original German lyrics, by Daniel Dickopf, can be found here, music here.
The State of the Nation
I fear our country has a crumbling foundation.
Too many foreigners, an ever-present grief.
That's why I say let's put a stop to immigration!
Head scarves and minarets don't fit our leitmotif.
Today our IT branch has barely any Germans,
And for that we have the Indians to thank.
What a pity that our own kids aren't a-learnin'
How to get a pretty penny in the bank.
Listen up! The nation needs a face lift.
I've got a plan - perhaps you catch my drift:
We'll put the wall back up tomorrow,
to restore a bit of order.
This one won't cut through the middle,
but instead protect the border.
Then Oktoberfest won't be
just in October anymore
And the riffraff of the world
won't come knocking at our door.
With mashed potatoes, pickled pork,
and sauerkraut galore
We'll celebrate by clapping
to an oom-pah score!
We lost many soccer games against our neighbors
Countless shots, they flew right past our defense.
But no more we'll be denied fruits of our labours,
If we have no foreign teams to play against.
The only problem that remains: Mallorca Island.
We can't live without those sunny, Spanish sands.
But what's to stop us from importing mini-Deutschland?
In the North Sea there is plenty of room to expand!
So listen up! The nation needs a face lift
I've got a plan - perhaps you catch my drift:
We'll put the wall back up tomorrow,
...
Imagine Sushi's out and cauliflower's in.
And the Alps belong to Heidi and kin.
And even Opel might exhibit recov'ry,
In this picture-perfect, modern Germany.
We'll put the wall back up tomorrow,
...
The original German lyrics, by Daniel Dickopf, can be found here, music here.
The State of the Nation
I fear our country has a crumbling foundation.
Too many foreigners, an ever-present grief.
That's why I say let's put a stop to immigration!
Head scarves and minarets don't fit our leitmotif.
Today our IT branch has barely any Germans,
And for that we have the Indians to thank.
What a pity that our own kids aren't a-learnin'
How to get a pretty penny in the bank.
Listen up! The nation needs a face lift.
I've got a plan - perhaps you catch my drift:
We'll put the wall back up tomorrow,
to restore a bit of order.
This one won't cut through the middle,
but instead protect the border.
Then Oktoberfest won't be
just in October anymore
And the riffraff of the world
won't come knocking at our door.
With mashed potatoes, pickled pork,
and sauerkraut galore
We'll celebrate by clapping
to an oom-pah score!
We lost many soccer games against our neighbors
Countless shots, they flew right past our defense.
But no more we'll be denied fruits of our labours,
If we have no foreign teams to play against.
The only problem that remains: Mallorca Island.
We can't live without those sunny, Spanish sands.
But what's to stop us from importing mini-Deutschland?
In the North Sea there is plenty of room to expand!
So listen up! The nation needs a face lift
I've got a plan - perhaps you catch my drift:
We'll put the wall back up tomorrow,
...
Imagine Sushi's out and cauliflower's in.
And the Alps belong to Heidi and kin.
And even Opel might exhibit recov'ry,
In this picture-perfect, modern Germany.
We'll put the wall back up tomorrow,
...
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