Nice to read you

Talking about languages, I got an email the other day with the phrase "nice to read you". Needless to say the person is not an English native, but I found it endearing, and actually very accurate.

In English writing the phrase would most probably be "nice to hear from you" which is incorrect, since we don't actually hear each other.

Think I might start using the phrase.

Improving?

I dunno. I used to be pretty quick in picking up things, including languages. That was before I tried to learn German. Mind you, I'm not a linguistic person, but I did all right after practising a lot.

And I know I am pretty much fluent in English, and can understand other languages, but with German I am very unsure.

Some of my friends correct me once in a while, and I don't know whether it is that I speak so good that the few mistakes I make need correction, or if I am so bad that the corrections are made to make my talking intelligible.

It's excruciating not knowing!

Shame cushion

Introducing a new word, well two if you are picky, but it basically means when you're sitting on the couch, watching a tv show that makes you squirm and be embarrassed on the peoples behalf, so much that you wanna hide your face behind a cushion. I find that I feel this more and more with the shows nowadays. Good thing I have many cushions!

Language combo

It is said that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers, but I felt a bit ignorant today when I asked a friend about languages. Friend comes from Taiwan, and I realized I don't know if they speak English there.

Not that she doesn't, but her father is visiting, and we will meet while he's here so had to ask. Turns out not only does he speak both English and Chinese, but also Spanish? I got so startled, I forgot to ask why.

Has Taiwan once been a colony to Spain, a class that I missed in school? Nah, don't think so.

Anyway, must remember to ask next time.

Bed closing in

When the phone rang this morning and somebody rattled off something in quick German, I used my standard phrase "Hoch-Deutsch bitte" (high German please). The answer was a laugh and "I'm German, that's all I speak". Haha.

Turned out to be the delivery guy for my new and fabulous bed that will be installed on Thursday. Am very excited!

Gegessen / gesessen

I hate German, I really do. Was reading 20 minutes today (that free morning paper) and there was an article about a helicopter going down. Fortunately nobody died, but it was mentioning that the only woman who got hurt was the one who had eaten before. ???

Turns out it said gesessen, meaning the woman who sat in front of the helicopter was the one who was hurt. Not the one who had eaten before (which I thought was kinda irrelevant when I read it).

German? I'm never gonna be fluent!

Zürich airport security

Went through security as you do when leaving Zürich, and while I was loading my bag and my jacket in the plastic thingie they give you, I was asked by the security guard "flüssigkeiten?" which means liquids.

It was very early in the morning and so wasn't completely awake and heard "süssigkeiten?" which means sweets.

Ok, it sounds kinda the same anyway. My answer? "Süssigkeiten? No, not this early in the morning". She started to laugh.

Translation from German

Ok, I have to lie flat on my back, paws in air and admit that my English friend is better in English than I am. Darn!

I did a draft of that brochure for the cancer fund, and she did one. Hers was better. Much better.

I probably shouldn't have taken on the task, but on the other hand it got done and "we" helped out.

Translation

I tried to translate this into understable English. I don't feel I was very successful. Any English speaker out there wants to have a go? I would be very grateful.

Unter der Leitung der Krebsliga Zürich entsteht in Kooperation mit dem Kantonsspital Winterthur ein Begegnungs- und Informationszentrum. Es dient als offene Plattform für Menschen, die direkt oder indirekt von der Diagnose Krebs betroffen sind. Einerseits lehnt sich das Konzept an erfolgreiche Vorbilder wie «Espace Mediane» der Krebsliga Genf und an das «Maggie's Centre» in Grossbritannien an, andererseits soll die Ausgestaltung des Dienstleistungsangebots auch neuen Entwicklungen Rechnung tragen. Konkret geht es auch um die Realisierung neuer Angebote für von Krebs betroffenen Menschen. Bewusst soll im Zentrum auch eine Pionierhaltung zum Zuge kommen, die es erlaubt, zukunftsgerichteten Ideen eine Plattform zu schaffen.

I should think before I talk

What was I thinking? A few weeks ago I visited the Zürich cancer fund, and they told me about a new project in Winterthur, involving a meeting place for people affected by cancer.

The brochure they had was only in German, and I might have volunteered to help them translate it into English.

Had a go at it yesterday, and realized how very very very different those languages are. I can read German without much problems these days, but the sentence structure is so far from English, you cannot imagine.

So really, what was I thinking? Neither of these languages are my mother tongue. Help!

Mother tongue

Don't get me wrong, I love Switzerland. Just in case you hadn't picked that up yet.
But I am getting pretty excited about a dinner I'm about to throw in a couple of weeks. Three countrymen and I. I cannot remember the last time I spent a whole evening just using my mother tongue.

Not that English is a problem, but sometimes with ze German speaking crowd it can get a bit frustrating at times when I do not find the words.

I may not be in love with my native country, but I do kinda like the language.

Swiss English

When I have to communicate with German-speaking people in writing I always start the sentence in German, then excusing myself not being good in writing in that language, and switch to English.

This is fine since most Swiss can read English, and they can respond in German. Today I got a surprise. Had sent an email in my traditional style, receiving an answer "yes, I lived in the US for 16 years so I'm pretty fluent". Yeah, probably more fluent than I am. Look forward to meeting him next week.

The lost joke

Apparently "Der Witz ist nicht um die Ecke". Again, spoke to this German guy and he had no clue about the saying "the joke is around the corner" and he was from Bavaria. I'm giving up. Why learn the funny things in German, when you're not sure everybody will understand it?

In fact, why learn German at all?

Spasiba

Am happy for Bro having met the love of his life, but it doesn't mean I'm gonna make her life easy. On the contrary. She told me what "cheers" is in Bulgarian (mazdrave) which I chose to immediately forget. Now every time we clink glasses it's "SPASIBA", which I'm pretty sure means cheers in Russian. Haha, sehr lustig.

Muzzle and muscle

This evening I got accused of not being able to speak English properly. Apparently I cannot distinguish between muzzle and muscle. Well I know some people who can only speak one language...most of them are called ENGLISH!

Best in class

Ran into a former class-mate from ze German course this eve. She told me I was the best in the class. Didn't think much of her before, in fact couldn't remember her name until she gave me her email, but changed my mind. I think she is great. And a bit stupid.

German sense of humour

Sometimes I think I have Alzheimers light. I thought I had written about the book summary I did about German sense of humour. Was gonna link back to it, but cannot find it. So assuming I thought about doing it, and then never did. Anyway. We were to read a German book and then write a summary about it. Considering that I did it the first month in class, I decided to wing it. So wrote about German sense of humour, which is a book with one page and an oxymoron in itself. I explained the German expression "der Witz ist um die Ecke" meaning the joke is not understood. I referred to ze German coastguard, and just made fun of ze Germans in general. My teacher is German, and wasn't 100% amused. It's great when cliches are proved! And when he said "it's a book with at least 300 pages!" I couldn't help bursting out laughing. He so proved my theory. I really rock!

Milk container

Our German teacher is quite inventive. Today we got a letter to read that was sent from a family to a museum. When there, their baby, 3 months old, started to scream and the mother flashed a boob and started feeding the little poo-machine. A guard showed up and told them that consuming drinks brought into the museum was not allowed. HAHAHAHA! They were unhappy being asked to leave and so wrote the letter. We were to play the leader of the museum and respond to their complaint. I wrote two. One very polite which was expected and one where I said what I really wanted say, namely: Any idiot would understand that a kid of that age would not enjoy an exhibition in a museum and that they should take responsibility and stay home, preferrably until the kid is 14 years old. Also recommended that flashing boobs in public wasn't a good idea. (Any hetero men reading this text may not agree). Tomorrow is the last day of the course. I think I will miss it, as strange as it sounds!

Body parts

The other day in German class we were to write an essay involving body parts. It's amazing how many expressions involve the body. I wrote something about how the man had black EYES, black HAIR and a slim BODY. Of course I managed to get my favourite German expression in there "sein Argument steht auf wackligen FüSSEN" - his argument has no bearing (difficult to translate). Often he sticks his HEAD into the sand like an ostrich. When I speak to him it goes in one EAR and out the other. He has no SPINE. He often use his HANDS when speaking. He makes me so angry that my HEAD steams (German expression). Good thing I'm thick-SKINNED and (a very German expression) I have HAIR on my TEETH. This means I'm tuff, and that nobody can take me. I like that very much. Amazing how you can get every topic into something against men...one might even think I hate'm but I don't! Really! I'm just saying: "can't live with them, can't shoot them"!

If I were

In German class we practised, well, whatever the grammatics is called, to say if I were a tree, a building, a spice, what would I be? My neighbour told me that if I was a spice, I would be chili. I choose to believe it's because it looks nice and has a surprising heat inside. If I were a building I would be the Prime Tower because it's visible. And, I'd like to add, has "appeal and technical perfection". If I were an animal I would be a female tiger, I guess because of the bite! If I were a country I would be the US of A. Probably because I'm loud and I'm free. If I were a city I would be Zürich. What better place on earth is there? All according to my neighbour...