Incoherent Scribblings

A Language of Our Own

When I first started learning German, and long before I ever thought much about “Denglish,” I made a prediction: I said that in all likelihood, although English would always be our primary language, eventually A. and I would end up speaking a unique mixture of English and German with one another.

When I told A. this he wasn’t convinced that we would ever do such a thing. Therefore, even though I believed that it would likely come to pass, after my initial prediction I didn’t say too much more about it. However, the longer that we are here and the more comfortable I become with German, the more I see it happening.

As I foretold, English remains the primary form of communication between A. and me. Nevertheless, every now and again I can simply no longer think of the English word to describe something or the German word that I have learned just works better. In these instances I am amazed at how easily the German word flows out of my mouth and into the conversation.

The first couple of times I slipped these odd German words or phrases into one of our English discussions, I thought for sure A. would say something. After all, during our rare attempts to speak German together A.’s biggest complaint is that he doesn’t think we sound “natural” when we speak German with one another. Yet the first time that I exclaimed toll he barely batted an eyelash and now when I interject such things as begeistert, or Gar nicht so übel Baby! into my every day dialogue he doesn’t even seem to notice.

But it isn’t just me. After a long day at work where he communicates mostly in German, A. has been known to come home and forget to shift back into “English mode.” It can happen at any time, but usually occurs within the first couple of hours after he gets home. We may be having a chat in perfect English and then, without warning, the next phrase that he speaks is in German!

Because I often hear A. speaking German with other German speakers, I am never completely surprised to hear him speaking German. However, I must admit that since his German is seldom directed at me, every time he slips German into one of our conversations, I definitely notice.

I have considered reminding him of my prophecy by pointing these language inconsistencies out to him, but until now I have not done so. However, next time one of us says something in German when we are speaking in English I definitely think I will remind him of my prediction. We may not be speaking Denglish just yet, but he can no longer deny that German has crept into our every day speech and we are well on our way to speaking a language of our own.

Project Guglhupf

A guglhupf is a southern German or Austrian term for a type of bundt cake, is among A.’s favorite desserts, and is one of the few German cakes that I like.

Because A. is so fond of guglhupf, his mother usually makes one when we visit and as a result, guglhupf was one of the first German desserts that I sampled. I remember that first taste left me slightly disappointed: The cake had no frosting, it wasn’t nearly as sweet as I thought it should be, and in all honesty, it was a little dry. However, after trying a plethora of other German cakes, I came to the conclusion that the guglhupf wasn’t too bad after all and since A. kept telling me that I could surely make a better guglhupf than MIL, I also became interested in someday making my own.

As a result of a lot of begging and pleading from A., last spring when we went to visit the in-laws I finally took the initiative and spent some time with MIL in the kitchen; specifically asking her about a guglhupf recipe. Since I am not as much of a “visual” person as a lot of women, usually I can get along just fine with merely reading instructions. However, since the recipe was from an ancient Austrian cook book I thought it might not hurt to actually see a guglhupf being made, so I asked MIL if she would show me how to make one. (Besides, I have learned that hanging out in the kitchen with MIL is always good for a few brownie points!)

And as usual, by observing MIL in the kitchen for a couple of hours I learned a lot about what she does wrong when she cooks. Don’t get me wrong: MIL isn’t that bad of a cook. The problem, as I have mentioned before, is that she was trained as a cafeteria cook and I believe it is literally impossible for her to cook anything without cooking in quantities that can only be described as able to comfortably feed a small army.

Such was the case with the guglhupf. The first thing MIL did was pull this pan out of the cupboard that, first of all wasn’t a proper bundt pan, and second of all looked big enough to make a wedding cake for 200 guests. According to MIL, this pan was large enough for 2 ½ guglhupf recipes and so she almost tripled the recipe! As we made the cake I took note of the things she changed from the original recipe and realized it was no wonder that her guglhupf was always a bit dry.

While we were making the cake, I was also surprised to see that I almost always have the ingredients to make a guglhupf on hand in my kitchen. All I needed was a (proper-sized) bundt pan. The day after we made the guglhupf, MIL took me shopping and bought me a bundt pan. (Even though she did try to buy me an enormous one until I finally convinced her that since A. and I are just two people I didn’t need such a large pan.)

Today, after approximately six months of sitting in the cupboard, I finally used the bundt pan. Yes, after months eating store-bought guglhupf A. finally convinced me to make my own. It turned out so well (except that I slightly burned the bottom – I always forget that my oven is just a little bit on the hot side) that A. and I passed on a nutritious dinner tonight and substituted caked instead!

The English Antenna

Sometime in January my sister is going to have a baby and this impending event has made me seriously consider visiting my family. If I do so, not only will it be the first time in nearly four years that I have seen my family, it will also be the first time that I have set foot on U.S. soil since I moved to Germany.

I seldom get homesick for America, but the prospect of seeing my family and friends again is quite appealing and even though my sister and I have never been very close, I would like to be there on such a momentous occasion in her life.

Besides, I know that I would enjoy seeing the rest of my family, particularly my niece. When I left she was barely two years old and just learning to talk. Now she is almost six, has started kindergarten, and is eagerly awaiting her baby brother. She isn’t a baby anymore, she is a person and I feel that by being away for so long I am missing the opportunity to get to know her.

However, as much as I would like to see my family, I must admit that the idea of visiting America after all this time does have me a little anxious. In fact, ironically enough, of all things that a visit to America makes me consider, it is the language that I think about the most. During the time that I have spent in Germany I have gone from wistfully daydreaming about returning to a place where everyone understands me and I understand them to fearing a sensory overload when I am confronted with my native language everywhere I go.

Though German no longer really sounds or looks like a foreign language to me, the fact of the matter is that it is a foreign language and always will be. It is true that I have finally learned enough German to understand most of what is happening around me, but it has been a long time since I was able to flawlessly understand everything and as a result, I find it surprisingly easy to filter things out. Of course, this sporadic language oblivion has been known to cause problems, like when I happen to miss the most mundane of announcements because I wasn’t properly paying attention, but in general I am satisfied if I understand 65% of what I see and/or hear.

Now you might wonder what the big deal is about my ability to tune German out. After all, people do that in their native languages all the time: There is so much random information floating around at anytime that one must have the ability to filter information in order to cope with daily life. And I would wholeheartedly agree with that point.

However, I have discovered that while living in Germany, I have developed some sort of “English antenna” that has turned picking up an English conversation or spotting an English-language newspaper or book from an interesting anomaly into something of an obsession for me. As soon as I spot someone speaking or reading English, I am completely absorbed by it: It doesn’t matter if they are talking about what they had for breakfast or reading the sports page of USA Today, I just have to eavesdrop.

I don’t know why either. It would be different if I was starved for English, but thanks to the Internet and the fact that A. and I speak English together, I simply have no excuse for this peculiarity. Out of politeness I try to ignore English when I see or hear it, but for some unknown reason I just can’t seem to pull myself away from it.

Therefore, I hope that upon returning to America I can remember how to filter out things in English that I technically have no interest in. If I can’t, I fear that I might go mad!

The Phenomenon that is Potter

I think by now we all know what an international phenomenon Harry Potter is, therefore it didn’t really surprise me to find Harry Potter books here in Germany translated into German. However, I must admit that I was quite amazed to learn how popular Harry Potter in English is here.

When we came to Germany, it was shortly before The Order of the Phoenix was released in English and I think the promotions for it were just as intense as I would have seen in America or the U.K.

This year the publicity for The Half Blood Prince in English was no less crazy: One could pre-order the English edition on amazon.de and on the day that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was available in English one could also buy it here.

I wasn’t at Hugendubel (Germany’s answer to Barnes and Nobel) on the day that The Half Blood Prince was released, but a couple of days later I was sitting in a corner of the bookstore reading away surrounded by German kids that were also reading it in English. (I didn’t buy The Half Blood Prince here because I was waiting for my mom to send me the American edition that would match the rest of my set.)

Many kids in Germany begin learning English in the fifth grade. However, as anyone who has ever learned a foreign language can tell you, there is a long way between the start of learning a language and being capable enough to read literature in it. Yet as I looked around me on those summer days in Hugendubel, the kids were working their way through the English edition as devotedly as any native speaker.

It is hard to tell how much the fifth, sixth, or seventh graders that I saw really understood and I am sure that even though many may have understood quite a bit, there were probably just as many waiting for the German version of The Half Blood Prince to be released so that they could finally comprehend everything that happened.

And now at long last their (im)patience has been rewarded.

Today on the train to and from school I noticed that probably one in four people appeared to be reading a Harry Potter book. I could tell from a glimpse of the cover it was the new one: The cover art of the German editions of the Harry Potter books depicts Harry in a somewhat wilder manner than their U.S. and U.K. counterparts, but even if one couldn’t read the bold “Harry Potter” engraved on the cover, one would know who the boy on the cover of the book is.

However, it wasn’t until later this afternoon when I walked by our village’s little bookstore and saw the poster proudly declaring that they had the new Harry Potter that I remembered that the German version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was just released on Saturday! I guess I need to go to the bookstore and pick up my own copy of Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz so that once I finally get around to reading them all in German I have it.

A Non-Smoking Section

Today’s post is brought to you by Expatica.com!

Though I currently do not smoke and prefer to live, work, and play in a non-smoking environment, in general smokers do not, and really never have, bothered me as much as they do some people.

Even so, as a mostly non-smoking American I never realized how much I took the smoke-free environment of public buildings and the non-smoking sections of restaurants in the United States for granted until I was in college and I took my first trip to Europe.

At that time, I thought that I was used to smoking: After all, I had been working as a cocktail waitress for a few years, smoke was always present in the bars, and from time to time I indulged in a cigarette myself.

But I really didn’t have any idea what a smoking culture meant: When I arrived in Europe (France to be specific) I was greeted by a population that smoked on a scale that I had could barely fathom. It didn’t matter if they were riding a bike, waiting for the bus, sitting in the café, or working behind a desk, everywhere I went it seemed that the people were smoking. And to be honest, since it was more acceptable, I smoked more frequently in France than I ever had before.

Luckily, once I returned to the U.S. after my first trip abroad I more or less quit smoking (I still had the occasional cigarette at the bar, but as time passed even that got less frequent) and by the time I met A. four years ago, I hadn’t even lit up a cigarette in over a year.

Therefore when A. and I decided to move to Germany, it was only natural for me to wonder if smoking would tempt me again. Of course I know it is bad for my health and since I have always detested the taste of cigarettes, I hoped not; but I also know that it doesn’t take much to pick a habit back up, especially when a culture is so tolerant of it.

I would be lying if I said that the thought of lighting up hasn’t appealed to me now and again. I especially considered it during those first six to eight months when everything was so stressful, but I stood my ground and have never even bought a pack of cigarettes in Germany.

Fortunately for my health and marriage, the longer I don’t smoke and live with someone who is strongly opposed to it, the less it appeals to me. In the time that A. and I have been together I find that while I don’t really mind if someone smokes, I am much less resistant to the second-hand smoke that inevitably drifts my way: My eyes burn faster, my throat gets scratchier, and my stomach churns.

I believe that people should have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to smoke, but I also believe that non-smokers should be able to separate themselves from a smoky environment if they so desire. Therefore, while things don’t necessarily have to go as extreme as prohibiting smoking in restaurants and bars here in Germany, I am sure a few more non-smoking sections in public buildings would be welcome.