Aufgabe vier: Wiedererlangen
Ah yes. Recovery time.
So I had one thing on my list to do, and that was it. And I didn't even get to that. Well, two, but I did call my parents. :-) But I ready the Sunday paper. Auf Deutsch. That counts for something, right? And yeah, Angela Merkel's still a bitch.* :-)
A friend of mine (thank you!) was incredibly generous to lend me his GSM cell phone so I could use it on my trip. I had planned to get a SIM card for it, but on Sundays, all the stores are closed. So it was really just an easy day. Called the parents, gave the dish to my friends back home, uploaded some pictures, wrote in my blog, got my card reader to work, etc.
(Warning: Grammar discussion ahead. You've been warned!)
Actually, it was really for the best. I've been studying massive amounts of German, but as this is only my second time in Germany, it's like no matter how much you practice, there's always those first opening-curtain butterflies. Tom & Kay are so incredibly generous, they allowed me to practice my German with them, without letting me ever feel like I did something wrong. I did actually say "Wenn ich jemals etwas falsch sage, kann du bitte mich korregieren!" (If I ever say something wrong, please, you can correct me!) "No no, you're doing just great!" Man are they sweet. :-) Even if I'm stammering to hammer out a complicated phrase like "If I went" (Wenn ich habe gegangen... nein, wenn ich bin gegangen... nein, wenn ich gegangen bin... "Sehr gut... das ist sehr schwer!"/Very good, that's very hard, they say) Actually, I found out a little secret: They don't say it right either. :-) We got in a conversation about how Americans don't use grammar correctly either. How many times today have you ended a sentence with a sentence? I'm going to the store. Wanna come with? He told about the come-hither phrase "Willst du mit mir im Bett gehen?" (Do you want to go to bed with me?) Well, it's actually "ins Bett", because you're going towards the bed, so it takes the accusative case. (We're supposed to do that in English too, but we don't. It's "To where are we going," not just "Where are we going?") But they say "im Bett." (Morgen gehe ich die Stadt. Dann bin ich in der Stadt.... Tomorrowing I'm going into the city. Then, I'm in the city.)
English and German have a common history like that, and only diverted from it a couple hundred years ago. Serious. In German, verbs with motion are "sein" (to be) verbs. English used to be like that. In the Bible, the King James version is "He is risen." Today it's "He has risen." (I always wondered as a kid in church why they said that.) Thus why I stammered on the "If I went." But they just bob their head patiently until I get it out and then say "Sehr gut!" "Habe ich das richtig gesagt?" "Ja, perfekt!" :-)
(Oh, FYI, I had a personal request to put less German in my blogs. Jeff, just for you, I'll put in more! :-) For god's sake, either they're cognates or I translate it right after! :-) )
So they'll wonderful to help me practice. I even made a joke auf Deutsch. Tom & Kay had several friends over earlier. Since we were outnumbered, German was the language of choice. Alan speaks only a little, so Kay would translate for him. One of them brought a cake, and we told him he was a good cook. "Aber nicht heute morgen!" (But not today!) and then told this story. I'm listening to this story, and I'm thinking, I can't be translating this right. Kay translate it, that apparently the guy was making breakfast, and he had a bunch of stuff on the table, and instead of grabbing the salt, he grabs the sugar and dumps a whole bunch on the eggs. Then I say "Ahhh! Das ist was ich dachte, du hast gesagt! Ich habe es gehört, und ich dachte, das kann nicht richtig sein! Ich müsste es falsch übersetzen!" They all laughed. Ahh. Funny, huh Jeff?
Okay, for Jeff: "Oh, that's what I thought you said! I heard it, and I thought, that can't be right. I must have translated it wrong!" :-)
So we just relaxed. No drinking, Tom had way too much in Regensburg. Well, one shot schnapps when the Germans were here. "Ich könnte nicht lassen, Alan allein zu trinken!" They all laughed. Oh right, Jeff: "I couldn't let Alan drink alone!" But we just watched some TV (Will & Grace is funny in German. I think they use a guy to dub over Rosie. And Jack isn't nearly queeny enough. Well, Germans aren't really known for being queeny, Danke Gott!), then fired up the sauna and the hot tub, followed by a jump in the snow. Yeah, it feels like Minnesota, but people talk funny, and there's the Alps in the distance. When I called the folks, I said we were supposed to get 10 cm of snow overnight. "10?" dad says. "Centimeters, dad. That's like 4 inches." "Oh." :-)
So tomorrow I go "in die Stadt". I go in with Kay when he goes into work, I spend the day sightseeing, then I meet my other friend after work and stay with him Monday and Tuesday. Alan heads up to Cologne (the first of many). I come back on Wednesday, stay with Kay and Tom, they Kay and I head out on Thursday. (Kay for a work reason, but he joins us on Friday in Köln.)
Und jetzt müss ich ins Bett gehen. Bis morgen!
--------------------
* Germany's first woman and newly-elected Chancelor-"in". If you didn't know that, read a newspaper, if you're not too busy watching Fox News. :-)
So I had one thing on my list to do, and that was it. And I didn't even get to that. Well, two, but I did call my parents. :-) But I ready the Sunday paper. Auf Deutsch. That counts for something, right? And yeah, Angela Merkel's still a bitch.* :-)
A friend of mine (thank you!) was incredibly generous to lend me his GSM cell phone so I could use it on my trip. I had planned to get a SIM card for it, but on Sundays, all the stores are closed. So it was really just an easy day. Called the parents, gave the dish to my friends back home, uploaded some pictures, wrote in my blog, got my card reader to work, etc.
(Warning: Grammar discussion ahead. You've been warned!)
Actually, it was really for the best. I've been studying massive amounts of German, but as this is only my second time in Germany, it's like no matter how much you practice, there's always those first opening-curtain butterflies. Tom & Kay are so incredibly generous, they allowed me to practice my German with them, without letting me ever feel like I did something wrong. I did actually say "Wenn ich jemals etwas falsch sage, kann du bitte mich korregieren!" (If I ever say something wrong, please, you can correct me!) "No no, you're doing just great!" Man are they sweet. :-) Even if I'm stammering to hammer out a complicated phrase like "If I went" (Wenn ich habe gegangen... nein, wenn ich bin gegangen... nein, wenn ich gegangen bin... "Sehr gut... das ist sehr schwer!"/Very good, that's very hard, they say) Actually, I found out a little secret: They don't say it right either. :-) We got in a conversation about how Americans don't use grammar correctly either. How many times today have you ended a sentence with a sentence? I'm going to the store. Wanna come with? He told about the come-hither phrase "Willst du mit mir im Bett gehen?" (Do you want to go to bed with me?) Well, it's actually "ins Bett", because you're going towards the bed, so it takes the accusative case. (We're supposed to do that in English too, but we don't. It's "To where are we going," not just "Where are we going?") But they say "im Bett." (Morgen gehe ich die Stadt. Dann bin ich in der Stadt.... Tomorrowing I'm going into the city. Then, I'm in the city.)
English and German have a common history like that, and only diverted from it a couple hundred years ago. Serious. In German, verbs with motion are "sein" (to be) verbs. English used to be like that. In the Bible, the King James version is "He is risen." Today it's "He has risen." (I always wondered as a kid in church why they said that.) Thus why I stammered on the "If I went." But they just bob their head patiently until I get it out and then say "Sehr gut!" "Habe ich das richtig gesagt?" "Ja, perfekt!" :-)
(Oh, FYI, I had a personal request to put less German in my blogs. Jeff, just for you, I'll put in more! :-) For god's sake, either they're cognates or I translate it right after! :-) )
So they'll wonderful to help me practice. I even made a joke auf Deutsch. Tom & Kay had several friends over earlier. Since we were outnumbered, German was the language of choice. Alan speaks only a little, so Kay would translate for him. One of them brought a cake, and we told him he was a good cook. "Aber nicht heute morgen!" (But not today!) and then told this story. I'm listening to this story, and I'm thinking, I can't be translating this right. Kay translate it, that apparently the guy was making breakfast, and he had a bunch of stuff on the table, and instead of grabbing the salt, he grabs the sugar and dumps a whole bunch on the eggs. Then I say "Ahhh! Das ist was ich dachte, du hast gesagt! Ich habe es gehört, und ich dachte, das kann nicht richtig sein! Ich müsste es falsch übersetzen!" They all laughed. Ahh. Funny, huh Jeff?
Okay, for Jeff: "Oh, that's what I thought you said! I heard it, and I thought, that can't be right. I must have translated it wrong!" :-)
So we just relaxed. No drinking, Tom had way too much in Regensburg. Well, one shot schnapps when the Germans were here. "Ich könnte nicht lassen, Alan allein zu trinken!" They all laughed. Oh right, Jeff: "I couldn't let Alan drink alone!" But we just watched some TV (Will & Grace is funny in German. I think they use a guy to dub over Rosie. And Jack isn't nearly queeny enough. Well, Germans aren't really known for being queeny, Danke Gott!), then fired up the sauna and the hot tub, followed by a jump in the snow. Yeah, it feels like Minnesota, but people talk funny, and there's the Alps in the distance. When I called the folks, I said we were supposed to get 10 cm of snow overnight. "10?" dad says. "Centimeters, dad. That's like 4 inches." "Oh." :-)
So tomorrow I go "in die Stadt". I go in with Kay when he goes into work, I spend the day sightseeing, then I meet my other friend after work and stay with him Monday and Tuesday. Alan heads up to Cologne (the first of many). I come back on Wednesday, stay with Kay and Tom, they Kay and I head out on Thursday. (Kay for a work reason, but he joins us on Friday in Köln.)
Und jetzt müss ich ins Bett gehen. Bis morgen!
--------------------
* Germany's first woman and newly-elected Chancelor-"in". If you didn't know that, read a newspaper, if you're not too busy watching Fox News. :-)
posted by Joe Carlin at 8:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home