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FLX posted:I just googled this and apparently there's also "Tschüss mit üss" hahahahah  Edit: The best thing to say is clearly "Servus!". It's a greeting and a goodbye. No wait. Even better: "Habe die Ehre" or as you would pronounce it: "Habedere" bronin fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jan 28, 2011 |
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Jan 28, 2011 23:06
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Hungry Gerbil posted:Within 10 years? More like 2 years ago. About 7 years ago we already knew Coffeeshop to be more related to smoking pot than to enjoying hot cocoa in vienna. But that might just be NRW for you. Other than that, the Berlin waste removal (aka BSR or "We kehr for you") just recently started advertising their electronics recycling program as "Orange Box" - I wonder if the guys who thought that up played Half-Life 2 or Team Fortress 2...
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Jan 29, 2011 00:31
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bronin posted:I don't know in which region/dialect this originated, but even I have said it once or twice... "tschö mit ö!" Do you actually say "tschö mit ö" or just tschö? BecUse the former just sounds so strange.
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Jan 29, 2011 01:47
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Ziir posted:Speaking of laziness, something I've picked up here is saying tschö (no I'm not mishearing for ciao) instead of tschüss. Is this some kind of laziness or another dialect thing? It some extent laziness does create a significant amount of language change. But to say this is wrong or bad is just silly. It's a natural process that happens to all languages around the world, and it would be incredibly bizarre if this process didn't happen in a specific language. It's like saying English speakers are lazy because they don't pronounce the "e" on the end of the word "name" or "came" or something. Or if someone called you lazy because you used the "gonna" or "wanna" construction instead of "going" and "want to," when in fact, not using those forms usually marks you as a foreigner or as really, really weird. Speaking of the hab' vs. habe, my girlfriend and her family leave off the final e vowel sound off the verbs like that so much that it sounds weird to me now to actually hear that final vowel pronounced at the end of verbs.
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Jan 29, 2011 03:46
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quote:lol saying "hab" or "hab'" is a dialect thing; not laziness. Yeah, when talking. When writing, though... but maybe "pointless" fits better, unless you're accurately trying to portray a dialect, like in dialogue. But my dialect is hosed up anyways, because I lived in Thüringen for a year, moved to Ostfriesland for a year and a half, lived in the Wesermarsch for another year and a half and spent two and a half years in Baden before moving to Berlin four and a half years ago. I will throw in Badisch in the same sentence while using "moin" and I constantly leave "e"s off of my verbs when speaking.
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Jan 29, 2011 04:19
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Zwille posted:Other than that, the Berlin waste removal (aka BSR or "We kehr for you") just recently started advertising their electronics recycling program as "Orange Box" - I wonder if the guys who thought that up played Half-Life 2 or Team Fortress 2... What's odd is that you are supposed to put your mouse, keyboard, printer and the orange box cd itself in there, but the monitor and the computer have to be recycled separately. The whole concept seems rather random to me, it's ok to put old clothing (no shoes), wood, pots and small electronic devices in there... what do those things have in common and why no shoes? Just a reminder of the stuff we already have: black: plain garbage yellow : wrapping brown/black with "bio": anything that used to be alive blue: paper white : clear glass green : coloured glass with the exception for brown glass if there is a container for brown glass nearby brown (other lid than the other brown one) : brown glass Batteries: Go to your nearest store that sells them and hand them over. Everything else: Time to fill your car with stuff and pay them a visit. Maybe they are just running out of colors.
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Jan 29, 2011 04:35
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It's particularly odd (or just convenient) if you consider that orange is already the BSR's signature color. As for monitors and bigger electronics - I think the chance is a tad higher that those might actually still be working. Maybe they don't want to cause an uproar among the Eastern Europeans/Arabs/whathaveyou that camp outside the removal facilities in order to grab leftover monitors that might work given a bit of an overhaul. Shoes might just be dirtier in general. Imagine you've got a heap of relatively clean clothes and somebody throws their Deichmann sneakers in there because he/she stepped in dogshit. Also: quote:brown/black with "bio": anything that used to be alive Animal carcasses though have to be brought in and you have to pay a fee. Goes for anything bigger than bunnies, I think. And if your pet is missing you can call the BSR because they keep a registry of when they cleaned which carcass of what street. No specifics though, just what species it was. So if your cat gets lost, the BSR claims it scraped a cat off a street near you recently and it doesn't turn up at any shelter, you can assume it got run over.
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Jan 29, 2011 09:12
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Speaking of greetings, there are also all the variants of "Grüß dich / Grüssi / Griaß di / Grüß Euch" and so on. Also, at least in Austria Starbucks seems to have a hard standing. The only one I've been in has since been closed and replaced by a regular Kaffeehaus.
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Jan 29, 2011 09:56
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I don't even know if there's a Starbucks anywhere here. I can't remember seeing one but then I wouldn't have paid attention if I did, since I'm not terribly interested in coffee. They certainly aren't nearly as ubiquitous in Germany as pop culture attempts to convince me they are in America, though. Instead we have four or more different chain or local bakeries on every major street and in every shopping center.Default Settings posted:Speaking of greetings, there are also all the variants of "Grüß dich / Grüssi / Griaß di / Grüß Euch" and so on. "Grüezi", say the Switzermen. "'n Tag"/"Tach auch"/"Tachschön"/... yeah, there are unsurprisingly lots of options for this sort of thing, not all of them regionally incompatible. (The best goodbye, of course, is "Denn! *tongue click*") I've never had that happen, but then I live well north of the Weißwurstäquator, where people aren't terribly confused if they hear "Moinsen!". vvvvvvvv Hamiltonian Bicycle fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 10:14
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I hate people thinking that 'moin' is a short version of 'guten morgen'/'good morning'. Person A: 'Moin!' Person B: 'What? It's already 6 pm! How long did you sleep? Hahaha, me so funny.'
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Jan 29, 2011 10:33
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Well it is only really an universal greeting in northern Germany, so there's that. Everywhere else it is sort of considered an abbreviated "Guten Morgen", at least that's what I heard. Wikipedia, however, claims it's even only used in the morning in certain regions of northern Germany. As far as coffee goes, that varies from city to city - we do have a few Starbucks in Berlin, but in Hamburg, for example, Balzac is far more ubiquitous, almost like Starbucks seems to be in the US. It's about as pricey too.
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Jan 29, 2011 11:01
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Allia posted:But my dialect is hosed up anyways, because I lived in Thüringen for a year, moved to Ostfriesland for a year and a half, lived in the Wesermarsch for another year and a half and spent two and a half years in Baden before moving to Berlin four and a half years ago. I will throw in Badisch in the same sentence while using "moin" and I constantly leave "e"s off of my verbs when speaking. Man I thought I had it bad. Native American English speaker, spent a month in Thurgau/Zürich, Switzerland and learned some "German" (Züritüütsch), then took a few semesters of German in the US with a native German teacher on exchange from Bavaria, now I'm in NRW and picking up some of the local dialect here. The biggest thing is when I was in Switzerland I had it drilled in my head that 'ch' should always be pronounced hard, now here 'ch' is somewhat soft so natives pronounce Kirche and Kirsche the same way. I think some words that I learned back then I pronounce with a hard 'ch,' and newer words I don't. But at least I can pronounce Chuchichäschtli. Do y'all say zwanzig (hard stop) or zwanzisch? A store clerk said zwo the other day when she counted back money to me, never heard that one before. Ziir fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 12:27
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^^^^^^^^^^^^ My father says "zwo" from time to time. Around here noone says "zwanzich". It's always "zwanzig" or even "zwanzik". When people say "Kirsche" instead of "Kirche" I always get the urge to shoot myself, or the person who pronounces "ch" that way. That's just me though. Ziir posted:Do you actually say "tschö mit ö" or just tschö? BecUse the former just sounds so strange. Yeah, if you wanna be super funny i.e. retarded you say "mit ö". bronin fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 12:39
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There's three main ways to pronounce "ch" - the two "standard" High German fricative ones are velar (back, after aou - as in "Knochen") and palatal (a little further forward, after consonants and every other vowel - as in "Knöchel"), both voiceless. (I'm not counting the contexts where it's pronounced as a plosive, as in "Fuchs".) Most Swiss German dialects (and some other German dialects in the area) almost exclusively favour the velar (and additionally tend to use the corresponding affricate where other speakers would use a plain "k"). Thirdly, the palatal variety is in some dialects replaced with a postalveolar one, which is what "sch" normally stands for. You probably know this stuff already but if you're coming from Switzerland it might be worth pointing out the difference between the palatal and postalveolar fricatives. ("Zwo" is really common. I've never heard "zwanzisch", it's either "zwanzik" or "zwanzich" (palatal) - perhaps there isn't much overlap between ch -> sch and g -> ch people, or perhaps my experience isn't representative.) Hamiltonian Bicycle fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 13:02
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What is more difficult to pronounce for an English speaker: 'Chäschüechli' or 'Oachkatzlschwoaf'?
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Jan 29, 2011 13:27
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Hungry Gerbil posted:What is more difficult to pronounce for an English speaker: Hahaha I had to look the first one up. I bet it's the first one. The second only has one "ch" in it after all.
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Jan 29, 2011 13:31
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First one also has an ü.
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Jan 29, 2011 13:41
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I'm having a harder time trying to pronounce Oachkatzlschwoaf. This requires tongue gymnastics or something.
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Jan 29, 2011 13:45
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I personally think that the 'tzlschw' part in 'Oachkatzlschwoaf' makes it more difficult to pronounce. But I'm really not sure.
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Jan 29, 2011 13:52
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Ziir posted:Do y'all say zwanzig (hard stop) or zwanzisch? A store clerk said zwo the other day when she counted back money to me, never heard that one before. Zwanzich http://www.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/lehrstuehle/germanistik/sprachwissenschaft/ada/runde_1/f14a-c/ Zwo is used because it's hard to hear the difference between zwei und drei.
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Jan 29, 2011 14:08
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Hungry Gerbil posted:I personally think that the 'tzlschw' part in 'Oachkatzlschwoaf' makes it more difficult to pronounce. But I'm really not sure.
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Jan 29, 2011 14:16
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So people do say "-isch" for "-ig" in the relevant region, huh. Hadn't actually encountered that one. Here's a mildly interesting thing about German phonetics, while we're on it: the "pf" is apparently a really really rare thing to have in a language. This seems strange to me because it's not something that learners of German ever appear to have much trouble with - unlike, for example, the difficulty English speakers stereotypically encounter in producing the "ch"s and the uvular "r", or hearing the difference between "u" and "ü". But it seems that other than German, only a couple African languages regularly have it or a similar sound, unless Wikipedia lies.
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Jan 29, 2011 14:48
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Zwanzich for me personally, I think. If I'm speaking very slowly I might use "zwanzig", but in conversation I definitely do the "ch". Zwo seems really common to me. I use it, friends use it, I go out in the city and people use it. And I know that it was used in Baden as well, not entirely sure about Niedersachsen. How is it hard to hear the difference between zwei and drei? I have a (probable) audio processing disorder, and have no trouble telling the two apart. And I can't recall anyone I know ever mixing up the two either. I'm a native US English speaker (my German step-father freaking loves to make fun of my SoCal accent for some reason... which is really one of the less accented US dialects out there, iirc), but only had one semester of high school German before moving to Germany, so essentially I learned my German in Germany. I used to mix up Kirche and Kirsche by accident, but after getting laughed at a few times in Ostfriesland, I learned to fix that mistake. I never did pick up Plattdeutsch, though.
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Jan 29, 2011 16:47
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Plattdeutsch is not German. It doesn't sound like German and I can't understand a single word. Seriously. Plattdeutsch and Voralrbergerisch are the two least understandable German dialects.
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Jan 29, 2011 16:51
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Zwo is actually far more common for me, but that's primarily because I work in the Bundesmarine. Also, zwanzich. As far as greetings and whatnot, Tschüssi still makes me do a double-take. Tschüss already sounds pretty girly to my American ears, but especially when hearing it come from a dude, it makes me go  Lopping the -e off of verbs is still getting fairly natural. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. And, out of my year or so of experience, ist...gewesen (instead of war) seems to be more common than I originally thought.
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Jan 29, 2011 20:37
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I went to a Gymnasium that had a Plattdeutsch competition each year. This kid in my class comes back after it and goes "I won!" and we all congratulate him. Next morning, during announcements (we had to sit on the floor for five minutes each morning the hallway, freaking sucked) the school director goes through his normal lecture and then announces the winners of the competition... "And winning first place -- and the only one who entered in the Oberstufe, I present Timo!" Que the entire 11th grade groaning. I actually knew a lot of kids in boarding school in Ostfriesland who spoke Plattdeutsch, because their parents still used it at home. Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily call it a dialect, more it's own language, but still. I certainly had the exposure, just never the need? to pick it up. I did laugh when I came across Harry Potter in Plattdeutsch, though. ist...gewesen instead of war? I...don't get that.
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Jan 29, 2011 23:15
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Allia posted:ist...gewesen instead of war? I...don't get that. In many other languages, the perfect tense ("ist gewesen") means something that has happened in the past or recently, and has an effect at present. "War" would then be something that has happened in the past, but does not necessarily have an effect on today. I believe this used to be more developed in German and has since died out. I also have the feeling that this has more of a meaning in the North whereas in the South it makes almost no difference.
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Jan 30, 2011 07:57
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Liface posted:"War" would then be something that has happened in the past, but does not necessarily have an effect on today.  Isn't there already a thread where all this language stuff belongs? It might just be me, but I would limit it to tourists' needs in this one. To contribute some observations from my recent trip to Germany (where I was born and grew up) that may or may not be helpful to someone: Getting into the country was really quick and painless. No stupid forms to fill, quick passport check and I was in. They did question this one guy though who said he was coming to party, though it looked like they eventually let him in also. A myth that never dies out but was debunked again was that of how everything is so organized over there compared to the U.S.: After arriving six hours late due to the weather, the helpful Lufthansa guy sent us to a flight which turned out to be the wrong one. Also, Lufthansa now has these highly convenient check-in terminals (kiosks) that only read your name from government ID but can't read pre-2008 U.S. passports. Additionally, if your flight is not booked under the full name found in the passport, get ready for some lecturing from the helpful staff. Of particular intelligence is the fact that you can't get to the counter without a boarding pass and when these machines don't work for you, you can't get your boarding pass without help from someone at the counter. The solution was to ask Lufthansa staff from completely unrelated counters, like group check in. They were really helpful, but the system is silly. Another thing that is thoroughly hosed is the S-Bahn (commuter train) system in Berlin. They have had disruptions for months now, with no end in sight. After many years of experiences, my friends and I came to the conclusion that overall Germany and the U.S. are about on the same level when it comes to being organized. Another debunked myth is how everybody in Germany has 9999999 TB/s internet while we in the U.S. are using dial-up. My friend who lives 5 kilometers from Hamburg has 1 Mbit/s DSL and can't get anything faster right now. My poorest friends in a podunk town in Texas have 3Mbit/s. 3G data on my pre-paid Medion GSM card was also not quite measuring up to AT&T here. Random comment: The FSK stickers on all media are fugly. Otherwise everything was cool and the trip was fun. Es nervt nur auf die Dauer etwas, wenn hier nur noch Haarspaltereien ueber die Deutsche Sprache kommen. Das ist fuer typische Touristen, fuer die dieses Subforum ja hauptsaechlich ist, nicht wirklich interessant. (Reiteration of what I said about the existence of the other thread.)
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Jan 30, 2011 09:08
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The S-Bahn fuckup is a relatively recent thing though. You can switch to the subway without too much hassle. What's really annoying though is how the guys responsible STILL haven't gotten torn a new one over all this and now everyone's used to the S-Bahn being unreliable. You can turn the covers on most media - they usually have a sticker-free version printed on the back now, and if it's a steelbook or something you usually can just peel off the sticker.
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Jan 30, 2011 11:53
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 Pretty good for something like 3€/month  Touristy stuff now, does anyone have any experience with sightseeing in Cologne and/or Dusseldorf? I just realized I haven't really bothered to go explore either of those cities despite the fact that I can get to them in just over an hour and travel for free. I've no experience with Dusseldorf, and only spent half a day walking around Cologne and the cathedral.
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Jan 30, 2011 12:46
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Ziir posted:Touristy stuff now, does anyone have any experience with sightseeing in Cologne On a sunny day you should walk through the Rheinpark to the Zoobrücke and take a gondola over the Rhein to the other side. There, you can visit the Zoologischer/Botanischer Garten which have some art installations, if I remember correctly. After that, take the subway 18 to the Dom and city center and later have a Currywurst at the CuLux at the Rudolfplatz 
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Jan 30, 2011 14:51
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quote:In many other languages, the perfect tense ("ist gewesen") means something that has happened in the past or recently, and has an effect at present. "War" would then be something that has happened in the past, but does not necessarily have an effect on today. Oh, I know the grammar behind it. I was just wondering why "ist...gewesen" has become more popular, because even though it technically would be correct in several situations, it doesn't seem to be something that gets used a lot, in my experience. But whatever. The S-Bahn screwup started summer 2009 when the "lovely" S-Bahn decided to skip repairs or something, got caught, and had to take about half their trains out of service. It took them like six months to sort of get it going again (it was loving hell back then to take the S-Bahn because we were sardines). After that it was...sort of reliable. Usable, in any case. Then this winter in Nov/Dec we got the heavy snow and it totally screwed up the system. But things seem to be running pretty normally now... I usually take the S-Bahn to Uni, and don't have issues with it. Only thing is that it's crowded at Friedrichstr., but it always is. If you can, use the trams. They're pretty much limited to the east, but they really are great things. They don't have the issues of the S-Bahn and they're much more reliable than busses -- who are late when you are early and early when you are late without fail. And assholes to boot, most of the drivers. quote:Another debunked myth is how everybody in Germany has 9999999 TB/s internet while we in the U.S. are using dial-up. The hell? Seriously? I'd say it's definitely the other way around. I knew a lot of people while I was in the Oberstufe (2003-2006) that either didn't have internet at home, or still had dial-up. And now it's still pretty dang slow, and I live in the middle of Berlin. Meh, German organization. Depends. I'd say they're simply (a lot more) bureaucratic than the states, which people think means they're organized, but when you actually have to do anything dealing with bureaucracy, you realize how ridiculous it all is and how they have no clue. Also, Germans, organization and music do NOT mix. Even professional musicians make my head hurt when I think of stunts I've seen pulled.
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Jan 30, 2011 15:30
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flavor posted:
One guy had 1Mbit/s DSL? MYTH DEBUNKED
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Jan 30, 2011 17:47
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Zwille posted:You can turn the covers on most media - they usually have a sticker-free version printed on the back now, and if it's a steelbook or something you usually can just peel off the sticker. Liface posted:One guy had 1Mbit/s DSL? Another thing that I found to be a little bit silly is the relative scarcity of ATMs. In the U.S., where in most places you hardly ever need any cash, you can find these in any convenience store, supermarket and so on. Over there the only safe bet was near banks. If you're going to require cash for many things or accept credit cards, but not Visa/Mastercard (like Saturn in Hamburg doesn't), at least have ATMs in your store.
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Jan 31, 2011 02:41
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OK, not every distributor is going to release a Wendecover, but a lot of them explicitly advertise it if they have it. As for ATMs - that's changing. I've observed that a lot of small supermarkets have got an ATM attached recently - but you have to pay insane fees usually unless you're from the exact same bank or if your bank isn't in a sort of cooperation with the bank you're withdrawing money from. Credit cards as a form of payment ins stores are kind of a crapshoot too, yeah. Some places accept them when you wouldn't expect it, and some don't when you expect it (Gravis, I'm looking at you). A lot of Saturns or Mediamarkts have started placing ATMs in their lobbies though. There's a Kaiser's supermarket that accepts cash, EC and Visa, and still has a ATM (Sparkasse no less) in the lobby. What's really annoying to me compared to the US is that there's no supermarkets here that are open 24/7 or even just on sundays. There's a couple exceptions in major cities but if you're in a more rural area you have to pay the usual gas station markup.
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Jan 31, 2011 08:29
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Ziir posted:Touristy stuff now, does anyone have any experience with sightseeing in Cologne and/or Dusseldorf? I just realized I haven't really bothered to go explore either of those cities despite the fact that I can get to them in just over an hour and travel for free. I've no experience with Dusseldorf, and only spent half a day walking around Cologne and the cathedral. I'm not sure if there is a whole lot to see in Cologne. The Dom. The Chocolate mueseum. Mueseum Ludwig. Shildergasse (voted Germany's best shopping street or something). According to "Ich werde ein Berliner" you can see a bunch of German guidos here. You could always wait a month till Karneval and see that too. We could have a Köln goon meet again.
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Jan 31, 2011 11:11
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Is Kölsch really as magical as they say?
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Jan 31, 2011 11:19
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It's pretty flat and uninteresting but racing your buddy to the middle of a Meter from opposite sides is fun as hell. Three more Meters later he tried to bake a frozen pizza in the oven without taking the plastic off. I think he got kicked out of the club after that. Yeah, that happened during Karneval.
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Jan 31, 2011 11:28
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Default Settings posted:Is Kölsch really as magical as they say? It tastes like _____ Lite to my American taste buds. Oh god 
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Jan 31, 2011 11:28
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I've been to Cologne a couple times and I'd say if you're interested in how the Romans handled their far off provinces, checking out the Romano-Germanic Museum and the ruins of the Praetorium might be worth your afternoon.
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Jan 31, 2011 11:47
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