Titles

Germans are a anomalous among the peoples of Europe in that they can concatenate titles.  When addressing a letter to a man who has a doctorate and is also a full professor, the Germans write "Sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Dr. ____."  "Very respected Mr. Prof. Dr. ____."  This feels absurd to me, but this is how they do it.

The unexpected side effect of this is that, when referring to people with titles in conversation, it is always acceptable to say just "Herr ____" or "Frau ____."  In English, the Mr. or Mrs. is chased away by the Dr., but the Germans are not so exclusive about things.

Tschüß!

Haha, no, I'm not leaving or anything.  Gotcha!

Tschüß (or "Tschau" and "Tschö") is today's German Word of the Day.  It means "bye,"--it actually is a heavily corrupted form of "adieu"--but is used in more situations than the English.   Basically, any transaction, no matter how short or how trivial, tends to end with this word.  When I have finished paying for things at the supermarket, the cashier and I say "Tschüß."  When I go to hand in some forms, whoever takes the forms says "Tschüß."  Everyone takes their leave at the end of a lecture with "Tschüß."  Pretty much the only person you don't say "Tschüß" to is the bus driver.  

I think this is pretty great.  It makes mundane daily activities feel like actual human interactions.  In fact, it makes it easier to talk to whomever you might be interacting with, because you know that the conversation will have some sort of endpoint.  I don't know if anyone else has the problem where you say something to a cashier and then just sort of awkwardly walk away because the transaction is finished, but I sure do.  

Germans probably don't find their usage of "Tschüß" in any way exciting, but it warms my heart a little every time.

Onomatopoeia, or something like it

I often, when receiving some small piece of bad news in IM, respond with "eeeeeee."  This is meant to represent a sort of shared distress.  I realise, though, that when I am communicating by IM with Europeans, the sound of "eeeeeee" is closer to English "ehhhhhhh," which would rather communicate indifference or hesitation.  I suspect that the Europeans do not appreciate my indifference to their bad news.

Foreign-language communication has many pitfalls.  It should not be attempted.

Failure

I'm trying to make a contingency plan for if Russian doesn't work out, and I thought second-semestre French might be a nice alternative.  I can read French fairly well, and I know the grammar, but I'm pretty hopeless at speaking and I don't understand spoken French at all.  I figured I had missed the placement test, so I sent an email to the professor of the class like this:

Madame Professeur Bensalah-Mekkes,

Je voudrais vous demander si ce serait possible à faire le cours UniCert I/2, quoique je ne m'ai presenté à l'examen à l'évaluation?  Je peux lire et écrire (les documents scientifiques), et parler (lentement), mais je ne comprends bien le français parlé.  Je comprends passablement bien la grammaire--j'étude linguistique, et je connais les verbes irregulaires, et autres choses, qui rendent la grammaire française intéressant.  C'est seulement qu'il y a beaucoup des mots, que je n'avais pas appris, parce que je n'ai jamais fait le français dans l'école.  Je m'ai appris moi-même tout ce, que je sais, pour lire des documents, qu'il a fallu lire.  J'ai écrit cet e-mail avec l'aide d'un diccionaire, mais personne ne m'aidé.  

Je présente mes excuses, qu'il me faut poser ce demande, mais je croiyais dans la semaine prochaine que je ferrais un cours de russe.  Peut-être, je ne pourrai pas faire ce cours, donc j'écris à vous.

Dustin Heestand

This is my very, very best French, so please don't make fun of me.  She sent me a reply back like this:

Bonsoir Dustin,
vous n'avez rien à perdre si vous passez le test d'évaluation. C'est une formalité mais c'est la règle pour tout le monde. Vous pouvez passer le test même à partir de chez vous.
Chaleureuses salutations
SBM

It turns out that I could take the test on-line!  So I did.  It was pretty bizarre, actually: I was given five paragraphs in which every other word had its second half removed, and the task was to complete the words.  I scored a 57, enough to place me into fourth-semestre French.  

So I've emailed her again asking if I can be in a lower class.  The answer will probably be no.  My life is ridiculous.

Bemerkungen

The office for visiting students here is having an event called a Running-Dinner, which would in English probably be called a "progressive dinner."  According to Wikipedia: A progressive dinner (US) or safari supper (UK) is a dinner party in which each successive course is prepared and eaten at the residence of a different host. It is essentially a variant on a potluck dinner, with travel involved.

The culmination of this event is called "Das Running-Dinner Come-Together."  Can anyone translate?

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I have met this German dude who enjoys pretending to be an American.  His American accent in German is quite as convincing as my own.  The sentence he chooses when he wants to sound American as possible?  "Haben Sie Burger XXL, bitter?"  

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I have now been told variously that I sound Dutch and that I sound Sächsisch.  That's not so great, as I'm actually working on my Berliner Akzent.  We'll see if I have more success in the future.

Русский язык, à l'Allemande: a boring story with no pictures

To-day, I took a madatory test to determine which Russian class I will be placed in.  The test was, inexplicably, at 9 am, and took place on the Griebnitzsee campus, which is fifteen minutes by train about 50 minutes by bus away from the Golm campus, where I live.  The train runs infrequently, so I had to catch the 8:00.  As we settled ourselves to take the on-line test at nine, it transpired that the proctor didn't know the password, which ended up being, after an hour of failed attempts, "einstufungstest_up_spz_ru_2009".

The hardest part of the test was figuring out what the German instructions meant.  And German is a language that I actually speak.  Seriously, I missed 6 questions, three of which were because I blanked on the conjugation of дать.  The test was over in half an hour.  I then had to make my way back home using the least direct bus route ever devised.  The only redeeming feature of the trip was that I had twenty minutes between my bus-rail connection at the Potsdam Hbf (Potsdam Central Station).  The great thing about Potsdam Hbf is that it's just like a mini-mall.  I was therefore able to purchase some delicious milk and a soap dish at Kaufland (translation: buy-land) which is just like an inferior Target only with huge amounts of alcohol.  It makes so much sense to put your shopping hub at the same place as your transportation hub, doesn't it?

I have just now received an email stating that I can enroll in UniCert III/1.  This is a little terrifying.  For instance, here is the course description:

Данный курс предназначен для студентов всех профилей обучения. Тематически языковой курс охватывает актуальное развитие России в различных сферах жизни, таких, например, как  образование, социально-демографическая ситуация, образ жизни и здоровье, инфраструктура и тому подобное. Также затрагиваются актуальные события, происходящие в России во время занятий по курсу.  

На основе письменных и устных текстов у студентов развиваются различные виды навыков чтения и аудирования, а также передачи содержания с выражением собственного мнения.

I can't really read this at all.  I think I'll go talk to the Russians and see what's up.