Stuttgart Christmas Market

We spent a long weekend in Stuttgart, Germany this weekend to take in the Christmas market. It was an impressive event. Much larger than I had imagined. It was a great trip to kick off the Christmas season and get into the spirit.

Most of the time was spent shopping, eating, and drinking glühwein. More about that later.

The Stuff of Dreams

I am not one to speak in public toilets. I prefer to keep to myself and go about my business. Other than a polite excuse me, I keep my vocalizations to a bare minimum.

The other day I was going about my business and there were two gentlemen in the stalls. They were also obviously, and shall I say loudly going about their business.

That is when I heard it:

'Das ist die Stoff auf Traume sind,' one proclaimed to the other. Which roughly translates to 'That is what dreams are made of.'

I would have never put that phrase together myself, but after hearing it in such a strange context I'm quite sure it is now locked in my brain forever. It's funny how new languages work like that sometime.

Das ist horrible gsi

A post about Swiss German today. I was watching Swiss supermodel last night which is nothing less than strange considering there are searching all the valleys of a country 1/3 the size of the state of Illinois to find the countries next supermodel.

The language is great. Most of the girls speak some form of Swiss German, with a few from the Italian region speaking high German because that is what they learned in school. The funny think about Swiss German is the way the English language permeates their vocabulary.

Last night I heard the following

Das ist horrible gsi.

Translating to That was horrible.

Other popular phrases included

• Tip Top - Great
• Mega Schöne - Really Great
• Separate - when paying a lunch bill individually
• Kick-Off - when being removed from Swiss Supermodel
• Photo Shooting - Photo shoot
  

Returning Home (To Baden)

The last week I have been traveling on business. It was a bit of a long trip considering I am not a fan of business travel. The trip was prolonged by the fact that I decided to take advantage of a 4 day event in Paris and stay for a weekend. My wife had decided to join me in Paris Friday evening.

The weekend in Paris was beautiful, the weather was unbelievable for this time of year. Sunny and in the 70's (lower 20's for those on Celsius). Just a really great weekend to find a plaza, some grass to sit on, and hang out people watching.

This trip I feel like the dog poop issue was really under control. I remember a few times walking down the street when my mind was wandering and all of a sudden realizing I better snap back to attention and turn on my poop radar, but miraculously I didn't have a problem. I wonder if the city has been on a campaign to clean things up. With the poop issue apparently resolved
my only grip about Paris is that wherever you go it seems to smell like urine.

But after all that 6 nights away from home is a long time. Hotel rooms, business dinners, late nights working on presentations for the next day, it takes its toll. On the way home on the high speed train (TGV) some women got on at Strasbourg and began speaking to be in German asking about the seats. I didn't panic, I understood what they asked, and replied correctly. It was a strange experience. The reason being after a week of being surrounded by French, I was actually pleased, and somewhat relaxed to hear German. I never thought German could be so calming to the soul.

And for one of the first times, when I got off the train returning to Baden I had a sense of arriving home. Surely, not the same sense of the word when you arrive at your childhood home, but it was one of the first times I felt relaxed to arrive in Baden.

I was looking forward to jumping into my own bed, making my own dinner from that should surely include some form of Cheese, Pork, and potatoes, and getting back into the routine.

Magazines, German Will Have To Do

Lately I have felt a need to catch up on the digital photography market. I haven't had a chance to really read any magazines lately and sometimes I just prefer to page through a magazine as opposed to clicking around online.

On Saturday we went to the local kiosk, similar to a news stand, to look through the titles. The Kiosk in the Baden train station has a fairly large English language magazine section carrying titles like Self, GQ, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic to name a few but unfortunately they don't carry any photography titles.

I was disappointed at first but then thought to myself, why the heck have I been taking German lessons?! I walked over the the photography sections, found about 20 titles and picked up a few to skim them so see if I could read them. Aside from a few words here and there I actually found I could follow the articles quite well. So, I chose one, walked over to the register and made the purchase.

I've been paging through the magazine and reading bits and pieces here and there. It is a challenge but the topics are things I am interested in, and it is another way to get a little German practice in. Lets see how far this goes.

More on German Certification

This morning I am headed to the first class of my new German course. The objective on the new course is to learn German to a sufficient level to first pass the Geothe Institie B2 exam and then the C1 exam. The course I just completed a few weeks ago prepared me for the B1 exam.

To explain the levels a bit the B1 exam means you can comprehend general conversation and make some small talk. It by no means assumes you are fluent. The next level B2 I understand is sufficient proof for most businesses that you could work in in German. C1 means you are allowed to take University courses in German. I find it amusing that you need a higher level of German to study than take a job, although I assume you don't need too much German to be successful at a fast food restaurant.

Which leads nicely to a recent experience at a Subway. There aren't many Subway sandwich shops in Europe, or at least Switzerland. There aren't many places you can get what I would deem an American style sub sandwich really. So when we are traveling if we see a Subway sandwich shop we will often stop in for a lunch.

I was in Berlin traveling and we spotted a Subway, it was lunch time so of course we stopped in. It was Bizarre to see that despite being in a German speaking country the entire menu was in English. Despite the fact that the Menu was in English I still felt like I should order in German. So my order came out as "Ich Möchte Turkey und Ham auf Honey Oat." My travel partners started laughing behind my back because it was more English that German, but regardless for the rest of the order we communicated only in German as she asked me what I wanted on my sandwich.

This leads to another topic of tag lines for the Olympics. I have been watching the Olympics on Europsport and German sports channel. They have a couple of evening Olympics news magazine TV shows. The tag line for the shows is "News, Interviews, und highlights."

I find it funny that things are going in such a direction that often there is more English in German TV that German. When I was watching rowing the German commentator was going on about all the starters in the rowing race, naming each country in German and some background on the participants. When he got to lane 6 he says in clear English 'Last but not least......,' and then breaks back into German.

If regular Germans speak like this, then I have now doubt I'll pass my C1 certificate exam and be ready to take a few University level courses. I'm thinking of starting with 'English as a second language'.

Using German More And More

I have been using my German more and more in public lately. My confidence level has increased quite a bit, even though my grammar skill and vocabulary have clearly not improved. I've come to a clear point where I just feel I need to speak, regardless of my accuracy, or the number of times I have to stop, take a breath and restart a sentence.

Most of the mistakes I tend to make are word order related. The German grammatical sentence structure feels like lexicographical vomit. So after spitting out the right words in the not so right German order, if I take a deep breath, pick up the pieces and put them back together I can usually get the sentence right.

Not having a full vocabulary is a challenge. I find myself always trying to describe things in a not so accurate way. As an example, I found the this description in a web application developed by a non-native English speaker at work:

The files are quite heavy and might be long to download.

I'm sure my German sounds similar. But at the end of the day, the point is clear and that is what man should understand as high priority.

Krawatten and Crevetten, Mistakes with German

I went to lunch with a coworker today to a place we frequent in Baden. The restaurant usually has 4 daily menu items. Menu 2 is always a pizza, and I order the pizza 80% of the time I visit.

Today was a Rucola pizza with Crevetten. Rucola is similar to dandelion greens. Typically the Swiss will fully cook the pizza, take it out of the oven, and then throw a pile of these greens on top. It is tolerable but definately not my favorite.

Crevetten (Shrimp) on the other hand, I can't stand on pizza. Crevetten is a Swiss German word. The high german word is Garnele. Looking at Crevetten I would bet it has French roots somewhere.

Anyway, I wanted to order the pizza menu without Crevetten.

In German a W is pronounced like a V in English. Now, my German has been broken since I returned from Berlin. I am recovering from overusage of my German brain muscle. So knowing that I ordered my pizza without Krawatten, which to a non-native German speaker with a heavy Midwestern accents sounds a lot like Crevetten. My lunch guest turned to me and said 'you want you pizza without Krawatten?!' Immediately the waitress started laughing as well.

I laughed too, and replied 'well, of course I don't want any Krawatten, and I don't want any Crevettens either.'

It's not often that you place a pizza order and ask for them to hold the neckties. But you know, neckties just aren't to my liking with mozerella cheese.

Shirts From The Gap Not Good In Airports

I got a special delivery from home a few weeks back from my Mother. She had sent a few things from the US with my wife including a few casual button down shirts from The Gap. The short sleeved shirts have been getting a lot of use in the hot weather here.

I do have one grip though. It seems that The Gap is now sewing security devices into the shirts. They are sewing the same RFID theft prevention devices that were traditional used for things like CDs, DVDs and computer software inside the shirts in a band of cloth ribbon.

The problem occurs when one forgets about this tag and doesn't cut it out of the inside seam of the shirt.

We'll today, I realized I had forgotten, as I was trying to go through several metal detectors. The first was at the Reichstag Building (German Parliment building) in Berlin. The Second was at the Berlin airport as I was trying to come home from a weekend trip. I hadn't yet come across a pair of siccors so I already new I was in for a good search at the airport. I got what expected.

Sometimes I am amazed at how far US stores will go to prevent theft. I have not done a formal survey, but if feels like there are much fewer theft devices here. I know that there are anti-theft RFID tags on electronics, but I see them much less frequently on clothing in Europe.

Schiedsrichter

Sometimes in Swiss German, a High German word will come out quite different than the intended High German pronunciation. The word for referee is a good example

Schiedsrichter

Since I have been watching a lot of the UEFA games on SF1, the Swiss network, I have been exposed to the Swiss pronunciation of this word quite regularly. Here is a link to the High German pronunciation.

If I spelled in out in English it might look like Sheets-rickter. However in Swiss German the first syllable is exactly the same as a famous four letter English word. I'll let you use your imagination for that one.

This makes for some fun experimentation on the Swiss German pronunciation. So I sadly digress to toilet humor.

"Oh man did Bob get drunk last night, he's got a bad case of the shiedsrickters this monring"

"What did you eat? That was like a 6.5 on the Shiedsrickters scale!"