itz... ze germanz...

:wink:

ITZ ... ZE GERMANZ ...
"Na, ihr Rüben. Passt auf, dass ihr mit dem Gesicht nicht in den Mixer kommt ! " ... i hope i got your attention ... i just received the december 2003/ january 2004 issue of the "DEUTSCHLAND MAGAZINE" and want to let you know that it has some really great articles about the german language. the articles can be pulled down in english, german, french etc. the intro comes from charlotte roche, cult tv presenter who was born in england and grew up in germany.she is perfectly bilingual and conducts the wittiest tv interviews. her "charlotte-deutsch" is a mixture of linguistic wit, cheek, imaginativeness. the translation of her outburst is : " ALL RIGHT, TURNIP HEADS . MIND YOU DON'T GET YOUR FACE CAUGHT IN THE MIXER." ... did you know that there are about 1.5 million people in uzbekistan and kazakhstan leaning the german language ? you can find the article under the heading : "LANGUAGE IN FLUX" , about half-way down the index. i found most of the articles in this issue quite interesting and if you have the time, i'd recommend you have a look at some of them. looking forward to some comments and feedback.here is the link >>> ... " ITZ ZE GERMANZ" ...

"Der Slogan einer Ladenkette „come in and find out" wurde von den meisten Leuten übersetzt mit „komm rein und find wieder raus""

HAHAHA I love this article! It's "Sprache im Fluss".

Ah, I love Gayle Tufts! But I keep wondering how many people in the audience really get all her jokes. Because even if everybody keeps saying that almost all Germans - at least the younger ones - speak English - I doubt that very much. The young Germans may understand some MTV speak - but real English? Hm. And don't forget all the people who went to school in GDR - they learned Russian in school.

So that test they did with the English advertisement slogans was really very funny. I liked the translation of the Douglas claim also very much. D1Doris!

Most people translated the slogan 'come in and find out' as 'come in and find your wait out again'.

this (click) site might be interesting to people interested in reading in german dialect.

I'm a big Wilhelm Busch fan, so ...

Beth, I grew up with Wilhelm Busch books. My parents had a nice set and I was very convinced that they were children books. Well, they had pictures and were funny... They were my favourite books to read again and again.

urs, I grew up with hamburger. Well sorta, he was already grown up!
That meant Wilhelm Busch were nursery books to me :wink:

My parents don't live in Germany anymore and I guess they took the books with them. I have to get at least one Wilhelm Busch book now that you reminded me of him, Beth!

since i grew up with wilhelm busch (in hamburg) it was one of the first sets of books (the large size, best read by sitting at a kitchen-table) we ordered from germany when we settled in canada. belonged to a german book-club for quite a few years; now we usually scoop up a load of german books (and cd's) whenever we visit in germany. have an absolute monster of a book sitting in the basement (or should i say "recreation room" - what is that in german ???). i inherited it from my dad. it's called "der goldene humor" and must weigh well over 10 pounds . have to bring it up again sometime. HELP, the books are taking over the house ! hbg

:-) I know what you are talking about, hamburger! BigDice and I favour paperbacks - we live in an appartment - no house to fill with books.

Recreation room? Hm, can't think of a German word. Maybe we don't have that? Walter?

urs : rec room is really a "glorified" basement or cellar. i recall that people living in a basement apartment in hamburg ( KELLERWOHNUNG - oh, my god !) would often say that they were living in a "SOUTERRAIN" - sounds so much more sophisticated, doesn't it ? i believe that the name was a leftover from the french occupation under napeleon. a fair number of french words were still being used in hamburg when i was growing up there, but people didn't really know of the french origin. so i'll now say that i keep the book in the "souterrain" - yep, i like that much better. hbg

hmmmmm

the party room in the basement - that'd be a rec room - recreation room, sometimes called a family room - nowadays you find game tables and big t.v.'s down there - when i was a kid it was board games and t.v.'s.

I've only ever been in two german houses with basements that I know of. One of them had a laundry room down there, the other had a bar/party room and sauna. Definitely not rec rooms.

Yeah, the only basement rooms that come to my mind are laundry rooms, saunas and party rooms, too, Beth. A 'Partykeller' used to be very fashionable!

Hamburger, in our area a lot of French words are still used - one is in fact 'souterrain', the sidewalk would be a 'troittoir' and there is also the 'chaise longue'. Of course, this is all pronounced Swabian :-)

... portmonnaie, coupé, fond - just to name a few others - are used as well (and not only im ländle :wink: )

the fine ladies of hamburg " versteckten ihr portmonnaie unter dem strumpfband" - so i was told, no personal experience! do we need to translate ? hbg

german will be a dead language soon neway
firatly germans dont use ze or itz (or if so very rarely) secondly the german spelling reform is slowly turning german to english anyway and meebe you need help with your german ze indeed

All them flat-Dutchers sound the same to me . . .

Wilso, you mentioned the accent of those from the north of England--i knew a French woman who had learned English while working as an au pair in Yorkshire--her combination of a French accent and the northern dialect was so incomprehensible, that i always told her to just speak French, it was easier to understand her.