"You" versus "you" and other language issues

Ahhh, the German language.  I have, of course, never thought so much about language as I have this year, nor fully appreciated my native-tongue proficiency:  in English I simply have a vague notion in my head, I open my mouth, and out it comes, fully formed and usually comprehensible.

While it's exciting and rewarding to be able to (more or less) communicate and converse in a language I learned only in the second half of my life, I miss the spontaneity and humor of being able to just speak without thinking... Possibly I'm sort of slowly getting there in German, but here is a partial list of what slows me down!!

Sie vs. du:
OK, this shouldn't be so hard, since I did learn French as a child, and second person singular has the same choices as in German.  Formal "you" is Sie, and informal "you" is du, but I realize I never really spoke much French outside a classroom, where it was abundantly clear who was "vous" (the teacher) and who not.  In real life, of course, it's not so clear when and if to use the formal or informal case, and at what point you can change.  To any stranger older than 16 or so, it's generally Sie.  But actually not so clear... since in my gym everyone calls each other du whether they've ever seen them before or not, and in my choir all the singers call each other du, but the director is definitely Sie (and he uses Sie for most of us, but du for some he seems to know better...)

by Dale Askey, from http://bibliobrary.net/2010/01/04/when-to-use-du-and-sie/

This chart is only partially a joke.  Other than maybe the last choice box, it's actually pretty relevant.  For example, the blood-relations/saying-du-to-the-spouse thing was a bit weird for me last weekend when I met a bunch of Thomas's father's cousins (without Thomas there, he's in India), all in their 70s or so, whom I'd never met before.  I tried very hard to avoid saying "you" in any form before I figured out what they were calling me, and that was also not clear.  I think they didn't really know how to address me either.  Argg.

[I have a theory related to this:  I think the language differentiation in the forms of "you" may explain the initial reserve of most Germans upon first meeting you, at least compared to the (possibly excessive and sometimes insincere) early friendliness of North Americans.  If one is used to keeping people at a distance with Sie, and only switching to du upon getting to know a person quite well, maybe that  translates into holding back on the heart-to-heart small talk until one qualifies as a quite familiar acquaintance, if not friend.
My choir experience supports this.  In the first few months of rehearsals, the other singers were cordial but mostly ignored me.  Only after the intensity of Christmas rehearsals -- and maybe also due to my German getting better -- did people start joking and chatting with me.  Now, I banter
(as well as I can) with many of them and feel like I have made several good friends there.  It's great, but it took longer to feel part of the gang than it would have at home, I think.]

Gender of nouns:
My father-in-law used to have a joke for me when I would continually confuse the three genders of nouns:
"Das(s) die der Teufel hole.  Ein Wort, drei Artikel!"
The first sentence roughly translates to "May the devil take them" but it sounds like, as the second sentence says, "one word with three articles!"... (For those in blissful ignorance of gendered nouns, the three forms of nominative "the" are das [neutral], der [masculine] and die [feminine].)

from http://mosaicmercy.org/german-articles-chart/

It's hard enough trying to remember the gender of words, but then you throw in the case usage on top of that and I really have to (or used to) think hard to get the simplest articles or adjective endings correct.  For example, take a word I use all the time, like the U-Bahn.  If it's the subject of my sentence, say
Die U-Bahn ist grossartig  ("The subway is great")
then, being feminine, there is a die in front of it.
However, people usually end up talking about the train in the dative case since it often follows the word mit, as in
Ich fahre mit der U-Bahn ("I'm taking the subway" or literally, "I'm traveling with the subway")
and then there are the bazillion people talking on their phones while riding the train, and often saying something like
Ich bin jetzt in der U-Bahn ("I'm in the subway now")
both of which put a der in front of U-Bahn because UNFORTUNATELY the dative form of die is der!  Which gets me very confused since then when I'm trying to speak quickly I remember hearing "der U-Bahn" a lot, and think it must be a masculine word, so I over-correct and say something like
Ich fahre mit dem U-Bahn (wrong) because the dative form of der is dem...  Arrrg.
 (I won't go into more details of grammar -- enjoy looking it up if you want...)

Separable verbs:
For the most part, I've made my peace German grammar -- most rules of gender, case, and the various adjective endings which depend on them are reasonably logical.   (Although I have to say here that "n-nouns" drive me crazy -- those are the masculine nouns that decline according to case, usually with the same ending that would also make them plural...)
BUT, really: I de- verbs that separate, delaying the prefix that contains all the subtly important information, leaving the root of the word dangling precariously by itself with no meaning of its own, until you finally come to the very end of the sentence -test!
 [With apologies to Mark Twain...]

Prepositions:
These are not so surprising, probably.  Listen to any non-native speaker of English and you are also likely hear mixed up prepositions.  They're very specific to each verb they accompany in each language.  Here, for example, are a couple literal translations of some German verb-preposition combinations:  "I'm happy over the gift", "He's interested for modern art", "Her house lies in Maple Street" (which does not mean it's blocking traffic).  Similarly to English, there are no rules to clarify which preposition follows which verb, so you just have to memorize the combinations if you haven't grown up with it.  Ugh.  It's humbling to know I sound this funny when I'm speaking German but I just can't think of / about / over the right word fast enough.

Long words:

The Jack Daniels ad has a 21-letter word warning you
to drink responsibly

So much has already been said, and made fun of, over German compound words I won't elaborate here.  (Although did you see the news story a couple weeks ago about Germany dropping it's longest word?  They thought 63 letters was pushing it.)
In some ways I see now that compound words make a lot of sense, and allow for very specific descriptions.  However, for reading, it's slow work (although sometimes amusing) to try to figure out where one word stops and the next begins.

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I could go on (and on...) but these are my main stumbling blocks.  Every so often, especially when I get frustrated, I read again Mark Twain's essay called "The Awful German Language", which is a fabulously funny treatise on his struggles with the language when he studied in Heidelberg.  I can only be a pathetic echo of his wit, and his writing is all the more funny for being so true.  (When Thomas first gave me a printed copy of the essay, I literally fell to the floor with tears rolling down my cheeks.)

Here is my favorite quote from Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language":
Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.


I hope this little riff of mine has not offended anyone, and my apologies if so.  Writing in my native language provides here a bit of a release valve to the obstruction of often feeling tongue-tied in German.  But... I'm not so bad as all that, and indeed in the right circumstances I can even have a roughly normal conversation!

Ehrlich gesagt, (truly said), it has been a delight and a privilege to learn to speak German here in Germany.

Blitzbesuch to Berlin

We spent a blitz-visit in Berlin of one and a half days last week.  The Humboldt foundation had invited us (and a few hundred other prize winners) to their annual meeting there from June 5 - 6, and again treated us very well. 

The new Berlin train station is very cool, with many
levels -- two of which are for trains traveling
 in perpendicular directions.

We had hoped to take a night train from Munich to Berlin on the Tuesday night before the meeting, but as all sleeping cars were booked, we got up early Wednesday so that the 6-hour high-speed train ride would get us there by early afternoon.

When we arrived, the weather was (finally) spectacular, and we enjoyed an hour or so walking from our hotel on Alexanderplatz (center of former East Berlin) down the famous Unter den Linden avenue.

The Berlin Fernsehtrum (TV tower),  near
 the Alexanderplatz, is the tallest structure
in Germany, at 368 m.   [Photo by Julia]

The Berliner Dom (cathedral) on the Museumsinsel in the
Spree river, is impressively huge.

We didn't get as far as the Brandenburg gate before we had to turn back, but we saw the famous Museumsinsel area (the museum island, in the Spree river) with a refreshing mixture of beautiful old architecture and lots of new construction.

Many holy buildings have been built on this site:  originally Catholic in the mid-15th century, since 1539
it has been Lutheran, Calvinist, and now Evangelisch  (protestant).   The current cathedral was built in 1905.

The Museumsinsel has lots of history.  This construction
zone is the Schlossplatz, where the former seat of
East German government (the Palast der Republik)
was torn down in 2008.

The Humboldt buses picked us up at 3 pm for a reception and meeting.  (The talks frankly lasted too long... they fed the kids while we were inside, but we didn't get any food 'til after 8, which made it even more difficult to stay awake-- especially after getting up at 5:30 a.m.  Ah well.)

Julia made a new friend, Kayla.

Benjamin did well at amusing himself.

It stays light very late in Berlin, in June, so we saw some of the city even during the bus ride back to the hotel at 9pm.

Potsdamer Platz: The wall went right through this area during the Cold War
segregation, so it's only recently been developed from a wasteland to an
impressive modern square.  (There are many colorful above-ground pipes in
Berlin, like the pink one here.  I think they are for pumping water out of
construction areas, since Berlin is essentially built on a swamp.

This Coca-Cola sign just reminded me of my favorite
German movie: " Good Bye Lenin" (See it, if you haven't!)

View from our hotel window
(on the14th floor of the 40-story Park Inn)

The Park Inn is the tallest hotel in Germany

I'm sorry this is going to be a long post, for a short trip, but the next day was pretty exciting:  we got to meet Bundespräsident Gauck! (Not quite so famous as Chancellor Angela Merkel, but almost.)

Gardens of the Schloss Bellvue

Our buses left the hotel early, for the morning reception at Schloss Bellvue, the official residence of the president.  With only a quick pass through security, they let 500+ Humboldt prize winners and families into the beautiful grounds.

Thomas the Humboldtian

President Gauck gave a relatively short and eloquent speech about the benefits of international research cooperation to all the assembled "Humboldtians" and then was very patient about dealing with the crowds as everyone tried to meet him afterwards.  (I had assumed that the the bodyguards might organize a queue but apparently not -- and it was interesting to see the cultural differences between those of us used to lining up patiently versus people from Asia and the rest of Europe who just elbow their way to the front...  we nearly gave up, but managed to briefly meet him after all.)

He didn't seem to mind all the crowd pressing
in on him.  (I'm surprised his bodyguards didn't...)

I had a view of President Gauck
throughthe crowd after his finished
his speech.  He seems to be a very
thoughtful and compassionate person.

Julia, and her friend Kayla managed to get a photo with Gauck early on.
(That's Kayla's dad on the left, and the man with all the white hair is
Prof. Schwarz, the president of the Humboldt foundation.) 

Our 15 seconds of fame.  Prof. Schwarz, President Gauck, me, Thomas...
My choir friends in Munich were highly impressed with this picture!

The Humboldt people had organized at least a dozen tour boats to take us all on a river cruise after the presidential reception.  We had really been looking forward to seeing the main parts of downtown this way, but the water was so high on the Spree river (you must have heard about the terrible flooding in eastern parts of Germany) that the boats couldn't go under the bridges downtown, so we were taken out of town, south east. 

"Molecule Man" is a sculpture of three bodies
with holes, 100 ft high, seeming to walk
on the river.

I had the top deck to myself, as people ate lunch below.

Although somewhat disappointing not to see downtown from the boat, we did get to see one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin wall, along a section where the river was the boundary.

This is the west side of the Wall.  On the east side is now the 1300 m
East Side Gallery with many famous "graffiti" paintings from 1990
(on what was until then the blank east side of the barrier).

After the boat ride, we had less than two hours before the next Humboldt session, so Thomas and I (leaving tired kids in the hotel watching Sponge Bob in German) hopped on an S-Bahn into downtown.  We mostly wanted to see the Reichstag building and the architecture of new government buildings nearby.

The glass dome of the Reichstag building is visible along the river

Some of the new government buildings to the north side of the Reichstag
building are very modern, but fit in very well I think.

The Reichstag building, opened in 1894, is probably most know for the 1933 arson attack that provided the
Nazis with the excuse to invoke strict martial law, essentially leading to a one-party state.
Since 1999, the building houses the German parliament (it was not used between WWII and reunification). 

We had enough time for a quick walk to the Brandenburg Gate, which is massive and impressive.


















Then, another ride on the Humboldt buses (they must have spent thousands on busses alone, for all of us) to dinner and an award ceremony at the Charlottenburg Palace.  Luckily, a double-decker bus is good for sightseeing along the way!

The Siegessäule (Victory Column) from 1873 is over
66 m high, including the 8.3 m bronze statue of "Victoria"

Schloss Charlottenburg, from 1699

Going in to dinner.

With the full Humboldt itinerary, we hadn't seen nearly as much of Berlin as we'd hoped, so we got up early the next morning to specially see the Holocaust Memorial.

Thememorial looks like a sea of uneven concrete  slabs.  The ground dips and swells, and the center is remarkably deep -- from the edges you'd never guess there were so many people in the grid.  The whole place is designed to make you uneasy, since it seems like it should be an ordered and regular atmosphere, yet the ground and blocks are all slightly askew, making it feel confusing.  Very effective and imposing.  Below ground is an information center, which we didn't have time to see.  (For the kids sake, at this age, maybe that was for the best... they know about the Holocaust, but haven't been confronted with details yet.)

We saw a lot of flooding between Berlin and Munich.

We were lucky that our train back to Munich left on time, since some were cancelled due to all the flooding.  We had to be rerouted, and it was almost amusing (although frustratingly slow) to have our high speed ICE chugging slowly along the winding single-tracks out in the middle of nowhere.

It was really too bad we couldn't spend longer in Berlin, but the kids were already missing 3 days of school (which the German system is pretty strict about) and then Thomas was flying to India the next day.  It's really an impressive, cosmopolitan city -- with a very different feel from Munich!

Switzerland, still in the clouds (and snow)

While the kids had May vacation, and my parents were here, we planned for three days in Switzerland. The hope was to enjoy a beautiful, alpine, sunny, spring holiday.  So remove the word "sunny" (and even "spring"), and we actually succeeded remarkably well.  The forecast before we left was for snow and rain all three days, but despite this we were lucky...
(Cf. my earlier post on our first Swiss visit, when I said I'd like to come back when it's sunny...)

Rest stop by the Sarnersee.
(No, Benjamin is not taller than Julia, yet...)

May 23 we left Munich in our rented VW van and headed for Wengen, a gorgeous holiday resort village in the heart of the Swiss Alps.  We had some sunny breaks in the clouds while we were still at low altitudes, which got our hopes up, and made for some enjoyable picture opportunities along the way.

No cars are allowed in Wengen:  you park in Lauterbrunnen (in the mountain valley that runs south from Interlaken) and take the cogwheel train up the mountain to the village.

Thomas and Benjamin on the
mountain train to Wengen.

Not surprisingly, it got cloudier on the way up, and by the time we reached our chalet apartment, it was starting to snow!

View from our chalet, shortly after arriving.

After finding a fondue pot on the apartment, we bought some Gruyere and wine at the local grocery and enjoyed a fitting cheese fondue for our first evening in Switzerland.

Of course, being the end of May, it stayed light out until past 9 pm, which seemed weird with the snow making it feel like Christmas, but it allowed us to go for a nice walk in the snow after dinner.

Morning dawned... with more snow.  BUT at least the clouds looked less solid.  In fact, they even started to break up by noon with patches of sun.

View uphill from our chalet at 8:30 am.

Same view, 12:30 pm.

We walked around Wengen for a while in the morning... for Thomas this was a bit of a trip down memory lane, since he came here a few times with his family for ski vacations when he was young.

This church sits on a lookout over the valley, which would afford great views if it weren't foggy.

View south down the Lauterbrunnen valley.  Spectacular, even if misty.

The snow/rain line from overnight was easily visible on the mountain sides. 

By mid-day, the clouds were breaking up enough that we decided to take the mountain train up to Kleine Scheidegg, a high mountain pass (at 2061 m) at the base of the Eiger mountain (whose "North Face" is infamous as one of the most difficult and deadly rock faces in the world to climb).

The Wengen train station (at 1274 m)

Julia is excited to be going up the mountain.

It was cold enough in Wengen, maybe 5 C, but a 20 minute and 800 m altitude ride up brought us to winter wind and -1 C.  Brrrr.  We were wearing all our layers (which did not include winter coats, having thought this was "spring"...)  

The north face of the Eiger.  The mountain train in the foreground is going up to the Jungfraujoch, a saddle between
the Jungfrau and Mönch mountains, which is also the highest train station in Europe at 3454 m (that's 11,332 ft!).

We arrived just in time for a hole in the clouds to give us a great glimpse of the infamous North Face.

The train station at Kleine Scheidegg, base of the Eiger.

Julia, very happy to be there!

We didn't get to see the top of of the Jungfrau, but here is the top of
the Mönch, peaking through the clouds, right beside her.

We decided to hike back down, since the weather seemed to be holding and it was beautiful to simply be up there among the snowy peaks.  Many hiking paths around here were closed because of the recent snow, but this one back to Wengen was apparently open, and there was also the option to hop on a train a third of the way down (an option Dad took because of his knees).

Julia loves the mountains.

The paths were a little muddy up top, but passable.  It was actually halfway down that we hit a field of snow across (what we thought was) the path...  Funny, wading through foot-deep snow at the end of May.

We were lucky with the weather on the way down.
Changeable, but no snow or rain!

Yes, that's me (with five layers of clothing).  We had gorgeous views
on the way back down, looking over the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

The town of Wengen, nestled on the side of the mountains.

Even though it was a good 2-hour hike down, after dinner we walked around the village a bit more, simply enjoying the beautiful setting.

Three generations on a bench...

The next morning we woke up early, hoping to see some sun, but our luck seemed to have been used up with the bits of blue sky the day before... Ah well.  We'd seen some beautiful views already.

On the way back down, Thomas ponders his dream job
as a mountain train engineer.

Arriving in Lauterbrunnen, in the valley.

We retrieved our van at the Lauterbrunnen train station, and headed for Thomas's sister and family, outside of Zürich.  On the way, though, we had to stop at one of our favorite cities:  Lucerne.

The wooden bridge in Lucerne 

Steffi and family fed us a wonderful Raclette dinner (normally a winter dish, but it felt great in the gray, rainy 7 degreed Celsius...) and then the next morning we headed back to Munich.  

One more stop: Lindau on an island in the Bodensee (Lake Constance).  It's a beautiful, medieval, town, and I could spend hours there, even in the gray weather... which gives a good excuse to sample the goodies in the fabulous Theater Café.

We really had a great trip again, despite the clouds.  If we inadvertently had made some bargain with the gods about good experiences in Europe or good weather, we still got the better end of the deal.