Fscking Bastards

Hello,

well, I don't know. I don't know any hitchhikers and I haven't seen one in years. But that might be because I very rarely travel on streets.

Regards
Gyro
.

 

Hello,

yepp, I remember your comment . No, it wasn't my car. I never owned a car. Maybe that's the reason why I'm sitting in this hotel room .

Regards
Gyro

 

So you're working again?

 

If bus service was on strike, would they be fscking bustards?

 

Hello,

no, I wanted to visit a conference.

Regards
Gyro

 

Hello,

walked around two hours, found a coffee shop and had a mug of coffee and two doughnuts. Now I'm back to my room, waiting for dinner time .

Regards
Gyro

 

You should cross the border on the west and visit a 'real' coffeeshop!

 

Hello,

and finally: I'm back home .

I had trouble ordering the doughnuts. First I ordered 'Krapfen', then the salesgirl asked if I really want bread rolls. That confused me and I asked for 'Fasnetskiachla'. Now she looked like she had a stack overflow. I remembered then how far up in the north I was and I asked for 'Berliner'. Et voila, that worked . German isn't easy . Maybe next time I should asked her for black afghan or something like that .

Regards
Gyro

 

I never thought deutsch was easy

 

Hello,

I thought the same about Dutch. But after five beers it becomes quite easy for me .

Regards
Gyro

 

I tried that approach a lot of times on german festivals but I always prefer to switch to english after a while. Too bad a lot of germans (there at least) don't speak english very well But I will admit after 5 beers I do make more grammar mistakes myself as well (although I still can make myself understood)!

 

Hello,

Well, in theory at least the younger ones should speak basic English. I'm not an expert at this, but I think it's hard to leave school without five or six years of English. In my opinion the problem is that we are shy and we are not used to speak English in real live situations. You have to be stranded during a strike, for instance, to watch an English movie.

Regards
Gyro

 

Yeah dutch people watch english tv and movies in the original language all the time. That definitely helps. I also thought it seemed that eastern german people speak less english than west germans (we tried to ask directions on a roadtrip once).
It is common for dutch kids to get deutch (and french too btw) language classes for 4 years at school too (I did), but when you never apply it irl or keep exercising after that you lose it all.

 

Hello,

the older people, the ones that were in school when the GDR still existed, learned Russian as their first foreign language. But I guess they don't like to speak it either. A friend of mine, who was born and grown up in the GDR, learned English in adult evening classes after he moved to the west.

Yepp, that's very true. I had six years of English and one year of French (oh, the horrors ;-)) in school. In English I had good grades, but I didn't used the language until I visited a conference as a speaker (the conference took place in Amsterdam ;-)). I survived, but didn't understand most of the questions from the audience. That was mighty awkward . Over time I get used to use English, I participate in discussions, I work in English speaking teams etc. My English is still rubbish, but it's good enough for smalltalk and articles in technical mags.

Regards
Gyro

 

German dubbed movies and TV shows are the worst.
Subtitling ftw.
But I suppose reading subtitles is too much of an effort for Germans.

Deutschland, what happened to you?

 

Hello,

you can't have your eyes on the schreen reading subtitles and on the chips bowl at the same time...

Regards
Gyro

 

It's a matter of getting used to it mostly. If you grow up watching tv with subtitles you can enjoy movies, shows and documentaries in every language I often hear americans and the english are just as annoyed by having to follow a movie partly through subtitles as most germans.