Mike Babel'er

I've complained in the past about my German. I've complained about how hard it is for me to pick it up because I work in an office where everyone also speaks English, willingly. I learned last week what it would be like to not have this luxury.

A colleague invited me to a meeting where external hardware sales vendors were involved. Somewhere along the way he did not receive my acceptance to attend. Everyone else who was to attend spoke Swiss German as their native language, so the meeting was announced it would be in German. I showed up prior to the meeting, and many apologies were given, but the meeting would continue in German. The first question to me was, in German, "Do you prefer High German or Swiss German?" Recognizing 50% of the question being asked, I responded in English "You can use whatever you wish because I don't know either." A chuckle or two, and the meeting continued in Swiss German, with my plea to continue. I followed along at a surprising pace of about 20% in the language, and augmenting my knowledge with the mixed English and German slides.

But my minimal grasp of the language was not the only thing I noticed about this meeting. What I noticed was that people with whom I have worked face to face for the past 7 months all interacted quite different with subtleties and nuance when using their native language than when using English. This was so amazing to me that after the meeting I googled speech perception and cross language behaviors. I found quite a bit of published material claiming different pathways through the brain for speaking and hearing in another language. It was a pretty incredible revelation for me. Not sure if non-native English speakers realize this but their personalities change to something far more comfortable and relaxed when they aren't forced to speak my language with me.

Maybe I should learn German, and present a whole new personality.

Egg nine beef

me: "Hey, Mom. How do you say 'egg nine beef' in French?"
gus: "What? Egg nine beef? What does that mean?"
kris: "Oeuf neuf boeuf?"
gus and sarah: "HA HA HA HA"

Kris had her wallet stolen today. Now we go through the process of canceling credit cards and stuff. This will be fun.

Öh Fünf

Learning a new language is one of the most frustrating tasks I have attempted. I don't learn languages well. I'm just not wired this way. My mouth doesn't make the sounds that others make. When I try to speak in German, I am constantly asked "What did you say?" but in English.

The umlaut sounds mess me up completely. The word "five" in German is "fünf". It's a funny sound for an American to try to pronounce. There are too many compressed little sounds in one word to sound comfortable saying it. To an "only-English" speaker, the umlaut u has a bit of an r sound in it, if one can closely catch it. To hear Five hundred fifty-five spoken in German gives me a giggle.

Swinglish

Expats (actually, not expats, just my wife) here are fond of apologizing for butchering the local language by adding their own words to it. They like to say "oh, please forgive my Swinglish." They are trying to be clever. Truth be told, it's not even a Swiss German and English mixture. It's more an attempt at Highglish Germanglish.

For someone like me who hardly knows a few words in German, the clever Swinglish phrasing is still lost on me. I told my son the other day, who is quickly learning German and singing German songs around the place...

me: You are speaking like a third grade German.
him: Come on, Dad, you say something now. You're supposed to be advanced.
me: Ha. I speak worse German than a little German baby.
him: Oh DAD!

Really, this is how we learn languages. Mimicking, speaking, then reading. I'm going to study this a bit more. I have two colleagues who know more languages than I have fingers. I have one colleague who can describe which language was popular during the 1700s and what the socio-economic status of the majority European population was. I am completely dumbfounded by this, with immense feelings of inadequacy.

Leave it to stupid me to read restaurant signs in mixed English and German, and ask "Why do they have special menus for 2 gang members and 3 gang members?"

Eliot Sharpener

I don't speak German. I wish I did. I've tried. I know a few little things. Enough to know when I'm making stuff up. My kids know a lot by now. They have been taking German as part of their curriculum.

Tonight at dinner while I was passing the bread, I asked my daughter a question. I was hoping to make her laugh because she was in quite a sour mood.

me: Kannst du brot? (translated, Can you bread?)
her: You're so stupid.
me: Super. Bist du brot? (translated, Are you bread?)

It started the conversation talking about what German they have learned. I was asked all kinds of questions in German. I didn't know any of the answers. They had to translate for me. Now that it was funny, the question came to me...

her: Bist du ein spitzer?
me: Am I a what?
her: If it's ein, it's a masculine or neutral word. If it's eine, it's a feminine.
mom: Ohhh, a clue...
me: What is a spitzer?
her: It has to do with something in school.
me: A pencil?
her: No. But you're close.
me: An eraser?
her: No.
mom: A pencil?
her: No! Dad already said that.
son: A pencil sharpener?
her: Yes.
me: And it's masculine?
her: What?? Dad! You're so stupid.
me: I'm just saying... Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Exactly

Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, childrens' television programming was starkly different than today's dedicated networks of mind fry and distraction. While the behaviors I exhibited then are the same as what my children tend to exhibit (unplugging from my surroundings, sitting and staring at a box), the distraction selection then was severely limited to 3 major channels, and maybe a few extra minor channels. Afterall, we kids back then didn't have a tremendous amount of expendable income, so the marketing and revenue potential was weaker. Reruns and limited programming did have a tendency to motivate us to get up and move, although a rerun of Ultraman or Johnny Socko and the Flying Robot was always worth watching over and over. For a young boy, our heroes were Speed Racer, Batman and Robin, Superman in black and white, or the Green Hornet. Our early life lessons and language teachers were mostly surreal puppets from Sesame Street, HR PufnStuf, New Zoo Review,and Gary Gnu from The Great Space Coaster. Even the Electric Company resorted to puppets now and then.

I remembered Gary Gnu recently. The memory was triggered by a word very often used here. The word is "genau". It is pronounced like "geh-now", with emphasis on the second syllable. It means "exactly". I hear it everywhere I go, often strung together in repeating phrases. "Genau, genau." Surely two exactlys together is a stronger confirmation of agreement than only one. Yesterday, I heard it strung together 3 times. "Ja, genau, genau... genau." As an outsider, I have heard the Swiss Germans lovingly referred to as the people of Greutzi and Genau.

Gross, Grosse, und "Gross"

My children are learning German. They have friends who speak German so they are motivated.

There's a large church landmark in Zurich with two towers, called Gross Münster.

gus: It's called Gross Monster?
me: No, Gross Münster. Gross means "big" in German. Grosse means "large". Münster means "minister", or maybe "cathedral".
gus: So it means big cathedral?
me: Probably. I don't speak German, so...

Later...
sarah: Gus! You're gross!
gus: That means "big" in German, Sarah. You just called me "big".
sarah: Then, you're disgusting.
gus: Well, part of that is my name, Sarah... "gus" is in "disgusting".
sarah: Gus is short for disgusting.
gus: No, Sarah. Gus is short for August.
sarah: (flustered) rrrrrrrhhhh...

Worte

I don't usually get hung up on words, labels, names, their meanings. I have a wife named Kris. I have a son named August, born in June (and although we call him Gus, it is most often pronounced "Goose" here when they see it spelled like this). I have a dog named Bear. It isn't intentional, but it is something I notice. Usually my noticeables land me in a restroom. This time, the toilet humor is still here, but minimized.

Here are a few words from my travels that make my children giggle:
Ausfahrt. It means Exit... well of course. I can't get the kids to stop saying this in public, asking strangers what does ausfahrt mean, commenting "you smell like an ausfahrt."
Manegg. It's a town in Zurich. I'll take a picture if I come across one of these eggs.
Moosegg. It's a restaurant in Rueschilikon. Most of my colleagues have eaten there, or had a nice beer on the patio.
Stonga. I don't know if I'm spelling this right. Probably not. It means a small draw of beer, any beer, just small.
Panache. I also don't know if I'm spelling this right. It means a half-and-half mixture of beer and what I would call Sprite, but my Swiss colleagues also have a brand called Citroen. They do this to limit the alcohol intake, but still enjoy the social time required to drink a whole one.
Au. It's a town. It is pronounced like "Ow." It's fun to hear the female train recording say it as we're pulling into the station. "Ow." "Quit kicking her, Gus."
And, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Chuchichaeschtli just to be respectful. Each ch sound is the back of throat ugula grinding. It means kitchen cupboard.

And an unrelated few worte... Today marks my zwanzig Jahre Hochzeitstag. Happy anniversary, Kris.

Schnecken

My posts have been getting more and more intolerable, not just to me but also to the 4 readers of this blog. So I should decide to change, or continue the pattern.

Here's a picture of a Zurich slug. "Slugs" (or "snails") translates to "Schnecken" in German. This summer, walking to work or to home has been an obstacle course. These disgusting creatures are everywhere, sliming their way to rotting on a sidewalk, or just plain rotting. I don't see them anywhere else except in my path. I'm told they eat plants, usually the ones people like to eat, so they are also a nuisance.

Bear sniffed this one on an outing because it was in the way of us getting from here to there, at which point I had to wait an extra 3 minutes just for it to extrude its eyeballs again so that I could take this photo. I'm told every creature has its place. This one tends to be more on the bottom of shoes.

Hez

I traded mz US laptop for a German laptop todaz. The US laptop needs to be returned to NZ. The kezboard on this laptop is different in too manz wazs to describe. The most obvious are that Zäs and Yäs are in traded positions, and an extra AltGr kez. The ä (apostrophe) is somewhere else I canät find. When I tzpe, it comes out looking like I donät know how to tzpe. I guess I donät.

One of mz colleagues said good luck with the question mark and the backslash. He said mz contraction of “do not”, which comes out looking like “donät” looks enough like the American word donut. I followed with a Homer Simpson: “mmmmmm donäts.” Heäs actuallz too cool to think that was funnz, but I laugh at mz own humor, and after all mz humor is reallz just to entertain me.

Another expat colleague who came before me received the nickname “Hez” because for a few weeks, thatäs how he started out his instant messaging chats to other people. “Hez”.

Itäs going to take some getting used to this. My boss said he has worked on US, Italian, and German kezboards. It takes a couple of weeks to adapt, and then I wonät have anz more problems.

Letäs hope.

Post-worthy?

Every weekday morning I walk the same path from the apartment to the bus stop. It isn't a long walk. Maybe 10 minutes. On days where I don't look at my watch, I usually have an extra 20 minutes to wait because I just missed the last one by moments. On such days, I'll walk an extra 5 minutes to the Thalwil Starbucks, and order a tall skim cappuccino. My Swiss colleagues laugh at me because it's just so American to order anything at Starbucks. For me, it's as natural as ... wearing business attire in the summer. I've done this a few times. Sometimes I'll see someone I know there, but mostly not.

Today was like any other day. Make-me-perspire-warm, a very clean and shiny morning, Starbucks cappuccino, sit out front on the sidewalk and watch the people walk by.... except today people were looking at me funny. For the most part, I kept repeating in my head they were looking at me funny because I was obviously an American, sitting out front of a Starbucks, drinking a coffee that was not European, wearing a tie in the middle of August. How stupid.

Finally, two younger ladies walked by, laughing... and laughing... they couldn't stop laughing. I kept my attention on my BlackBerry, reading my iGoogle page for what might be going on in the States... at 1am. I mean, I'm a married man. I can't be bothered by flirtatious Euro-fems.

one: (something to me in German, of which I look up like "huh?")
two: (laughing laughing laughing)
me: I'm sorry?
one: Oh, you only speak English?
me: Yes. (now I'm certain they are making fun of me somehow)
one: I asked you if you dropped something. (she points at the ground, a few inches from my shoe)
two: (laughing laughing laughing)
me: Uh... (I look, and realize in horror, I am looking at what can only be described as... a discarded condom)
one: (laughing, walking away)
two: (laughing, walking away)

Hmm. To post, or not to post.