I think the population of Berlin is actually trying to make it into my blog. It seems that everywhere I go in the last week, people are actively entertaining me in order to feature in the superlative web publication that is Kangaroos in Deutschland.
Seriously, where do I start?
Maybe the coffee hawkers in the Ubahn? Two street kids in the Ubahn trying to sell me a 500g jar of Nestlé Gold for the bargain price of 4,- Euro (RRP 7.95). They even took the lid off and proudly displayed the in-tact golden foil seal. (Don’t worry – I didn’t buy it).
Or the "Äh, du Penner, du Opfer, ick ____ deine Mutter," Turkish kids, again in the Ubahn? (Non-German-speakers can use their imagination or Leo.org.) Seriously, some of the most interesting tales that this city has to tell happen in the subterranean maze of the train network.
This time, it was four Turkish teenagers having a full-on fight in the Ubahn… during which I unfortunately was occupying one of the two window seats in the group of seats they had chosen as the location of their very public difference of opinion. Great opportunities for studying Gastarbeiter Deutsch, and Neukölln slang… which the linguist in me would’ve wholeheartedly embraced and possibly noted down, had I not been trying to avoid all eye contact and not make any sudden moves.
No, I think the award for "Most Hardcore Berlin Experience of the Week" goes to my casual stroll through Hasenheide.
Exploring my new neighbourhood one idle Tuesday afternoon and ending up in a corner of the semi-infamous Hasenheide, an expansive park in the predominantly immigrant heart of Neukölln, with a reputation for being the narcotics supermarket of Berlin, watching the police and drug dealers play cat and mouse for half an hour, before making the decision to leave when I saw three police vans storm the park from all angles.
Yes, Neukölln is most definitely an interesting place to live.
Showing posts with label linguistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linguistics. Show all posts
More trouble with English...
And what did I tell you? Yes, “The Trouble with English” has a sequel.
Walking down the cleaning product aisle in a discount supermarket on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, in an area of Berlin where the vast majority of residents are Turkish immigrants (just off Hermannplatz, Neukölln for those who know Berlin), I notice a Turkish guy, I’d guess in his mid 30s, standing in front of the toilet paper, muttering to himself and shaking his head. “Einfach unglaublich, wie viel das alles heuzutage kostet.” Translation not really necessary: mostly just complaining about prices, and just desperate for me to take the bait and show solidarity with him in the face of the international capitalist conspiracy against the average consumer.
And sure, he seems nice enough, but I'm not interested; I’d had a challenging day at work, was tired beyond belief, and completely not in the mood for small talk or being chatted up in front of the toilet paper.
I am however awake enough to remember that my t-shirt – out of pure coincidence – is a Gallipoli commemorative t-shirt with an Australian flag on the right side of the chest.
So I do it: I call his bluff, and play my foreigner trump card. “Sorry, I don’t, ich nicht speak Deutsch”, while inwardly cringing – even the most linguistically challenged could have managed better than that. But desperate times…
And you’d think I would have learned from Homeless Dude. Never judge a book…
“Oh, sorry. I thinked you is German. Where you come from? You live here, or on a holiday? That flag on your shirt is England, isn’t it? My cousin - ”
Bugger. Again.
This guy’s English was about the level of my Italian, but he had more front than Myers. Translated from Australian slang, that means he was damn confident. And someone with a little bit of language and a lot of confidence can be really, really annoying. He just wouldn’t shut up.
Eventually the topic of toilet paper led him into a conversational corner, which for some reason prompted him to share with me the contents of his shopping basket. Apples, Nutella, and black hair dye.
“How old are you thinking I looks today? Looks at mys hair. How old do you thinking I looks today?” Without waiting for an answer, he charges on. “Maybe 40, 45, I think I looks today, like old mans.”
Sure, he’s got a few stray grey hairs here and there. Whatever. Get to the point so I can get out of here.
“But tonight, I change – I will be young again, I will go to the bathroom – ”. I really don’t want to know any more; it’s at this point that I begin my retreat. I step past him as he continues, very obviously looking at my watch, and backing away from him towards the opposite end of the aisle. “Sorry, I really have to – ”
“Tomorrow,” he interrupts, continuing undaunted and taking a step towards me, “I look again 20 years!”
“Um, ok…” I'm now at the end of the aisle, and have again reached that point where I feel I've been subtle enough for long enough. I take a deep breath and spit it out before he can interrupt me. “I'msorrybutIhavetogo.”
Suddenly he gets that look on his face. That “sad puppy” look. And had he not invaded my perfectly alone shopping experience, I might have caved and forgiven him. But I was past the point of caring. Before I could give myself a chance to backpedal and untrample his feelings, I gave him a generic “you know how it is” smile and disappeared around the end of the aisle behind the fabric softener.
But I know without a doubt that I’ll try it again. The convenience of the linguistic “Get Out Of Jail Free Card” is irresistible. Besides, it either works like a charm or leads to great material for blog posts.
Walking down the cleaning product aisle in a discount supermarket on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, in an area of Berlin where the vast majority of residents are Turkish immigrants (just off Hermannplatz, Neukölln for those who know Berlin), I notice a Turkish guy, I’d guess in his mid 30s, standing in front of the toilet paper, muttering to himself and shaking his head. “Einfach unglaublich, wie viel das alles heuzutage kostet.” Translation not really necessary: mostly just complaining about prices, and just desperate for me to take the bait and show solidarity with him in the face of the international capitalist conspiracy against the average consumer.
And sure, he seems nice enough, but I'm not interested; I’d had a challenging day at work, was tired beyond belief, and completely not in the mood for small talk or being chatted up in front of the toilet paper.
I am however awake enough to remember that my t-shirt – out of pure coincidence – is a Gallipoli commemorative t-shirt with an Australian flag on the right side of the chest.
So I do it: I call his bluff, and play my foreigner trump card. “Sorry, I don’t, ich nicht speak Deutsch”, while inwardly cringing – even the most linguistically challenged could have managed better than that. But desperate times…
And you’d think I would have learned from Homeless Dude. Never judge a book…
“Oh, sorry. I thinked you is German. Where you come from? You live here, or on a holiday? That flag on your shirt is England, isn’t it? My cousin - ”
Bugger. Again.
This guy’s English was about the level of my Italian, but he had more front than Myers. Translated from Australian slang, that means he was damn confident. And someone with a little bit of language and a lot of confidence can be really, really annoying. He just wouldn’t shut up.
Eventually the topic of toilet paper led him into a conversational corner, which for some reason prompted him to share with me the contents of his shopping basket. Apples, Nutella, and black hair dye.
“How old are you thinking I looks today? Looks at mys hair. How old do you thinking I looks today?” Without waiting for an answer, he charges on. “Maybe 40, 45, I think I looks today, like old mans.”
Sure, he’s got a few stray grey hairs here and there. Whatever. Get to the point so I can get out of here.
“But tonight, I change – I will be young again, I will go to the bathroom – ”. I really don’t want to know any more; it’s at this point that I begin my retreat. I step past him as he continues, very obviously looking at my watch, and backing away from him towards the opposite end of the aisle. “Sorry, I really have to – ”
“Tomorrow,” he interrupts, continuing undaunted and taking a step towards me, “I look again 20 years!”
“Um, ok…” I'm now at the end of the aisle, and have again reached that point where I feel I've been subtle enough for long enough. I take a deep breath and spit it out before he can interrupt me. “I'msorrybutIhavetogo.”
Suddenly he gets that look on his face. That “sad puppy” look. And had he not invaded my perfectly alone shopping experience, I might have caved and forgiven him. But I was past the point of caring. Before I could give myself a chance to backpedal and untrample his feelings, I gave him a generic “you know how it is” smile and disappeared around the end of the aisle behind the fabric softener.
But I know without a doubt that I’ll try it again. The convenience of the linguistic “Get Out Of Jail Free Card” is irresistible. Besides, it either works like a charm or leads to great material for blog posts.
The trouble with English...
I have to admit, one of the things I love about being fluent in two languages and having skills in a further two is having the option to codeswitch, to switch into the another language and plead foreigner when people bug me – gypsies, beggars, salespeople, people handing out fliers on the street, or wanting you to sign their petition for/against [fill in the gap].
In Australia, it works like a charm – while Australians do learn languages at school, and the classics of French and the like feature, the focus is logically on Asian languages. On top of that, with the exception of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, most people’s skills extend to a vague high school level and rarely any further. Brilliant.
In Germany, it doesn't work quite so well. Sometimes, yes, the pure shock of receiving a quick “No, thanks” to their casual icebreaker is enough to cut people off at the pass and they let you walk by. But other times I’m reminded that having English as my default switch language in Germany, or in the majority of countries in Europe, if not the world, does not have the same power that German does at home. Possibly because English is the most studied language on the planet (the often-quoted statistic that the number of native speakers of English is vastly outnumbered by the number of people learning English in China is astounding but true). By the way, my backups of French and Italian also often feature in people’s linguistic repertoire here – and their language level is almost always better than mine, so aside from the fact that my usual attire of jeans, Cons and a hoodie is nowhere near chic enough to pretend to be a Parisienne or a Florentine, I'm also linguistically out-skilled.
So the default switch remains English. And sure, sometimes you can get away with it – either because the other person’s English isn’t up to the level required or they just can’t be bothered to translate their sales pitch on the spot. Or because my Australian accent freaked them out a little.
Other times though, you weigh up the odds, and you decide to play that card, thereby calling someone’s bluff that they don’t speak English, or at least not enough to continue annoying you…
And it blows up in your face, usually in a rather spectacular fashion.
Example 1. Mid July, 2008. Sitting at a pavement table with a good friend of mine in Berlin at a cheap burger place in Kreuzberg, a very “uni student” area (cheap, alternative, and just a little grotty), happily chatting away in English over some delicious potato wedges, mayo and ketchup.
Enter random homeless guy.
He’s holding his beer as if someone might try to wrench it from his grasp at any moment, smells like a brewery and looks like he hasn’t showered in months, possibly years, but his German is remarkably non-slurred. He stands at one end of our table and starts making small talk with us – complaining about something or other, and just begging for us to start a conversation with him. Neither of us are really interested, and after politely nodding and smiling and making small talk with him in German for a few minutes, we switch back to English and continue our own conversation, hoping he’ll take this as a subtle “Please go away” signal.
He doesn't. To our horror, he takes a seat and follows our lead, switching to surprisingly fluent English. Turns out this guy lived in England for a good few years, studied at some university there (Oxford comes to mind, but I can’t remember exactly), and apparently retained his language skills.
Bugger.
For the next twenty minutes or so, we are subjected to his ramblings on all manner of topics which he thought essential to discuss with us, including an apparent dislike of America. Oh, and he also decided to bring up the Australian government’s treatment of the Aboriginal community, which he then compared to the slave trade in America. It was obvious that he had very little information about the situation or the history, and I ceased talking to him at this stage. He continued talking to, or rather at, my friend for a while, insulting America all the way. By the way, she’s American, which he knew.
We kept hoping he’d run out of steam and leave of his own accord, but he never seemed to. So, as soon as we’d finished our beers, we bid him goodnight (yeah, we’re too polite and subtle for our own good – need to learn some of that German directness), and made a run for it. He got up after us, and made a move to follow us for a few minutes, but fortunately we wove our way through the evening pedestrian traffic on Oranienstrasse and lost him.
I have no doubt that this will not be the last blog post on the dilemmas of code switching into English. Stay tuned…
In Australia, it works like a charm – while Australians do learn languages at school, and the classics of French and the like feature, the focus is logically on Asian languages. On top of that, with the exception of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, most people’s skills extend to a vague high school level and rarely any further. Brilliant.
In Germany, it doesn't work quite so well. Sometimes, yes, the pure shock of receiving a quick “No, thanks” to their casual icebreaker is enough to cut people off at the pass and they let you walk by. But other times I’m reminded that having English as my default switch language in Germany, or in the majority of countries in Europe, if not the world, does not have the same power that German does at home. Possibly because English is the most studied language on the planet (the often-quoted statistic that the number of native speakers of English is vastly outnumbered by the number of people learning English in China is astounding but true). By the way, my backups of French and Italian also often feature in people’s linguistic repertoire here – and their language level is almost always better than mine, so aside from the fact that my usual attire of jeans, Cons and a hoodie is nowhere near chic enough to pretend to be a Parisienne or a Florentine, I'm also linguistically out-skilled.
So the default switch remains English. And sure, sometimes you can get away with it – either because the other person’s English isn’t up to the level required or they just can’t be bothered to translate their sales pitch on the spot. Or because my Australian accent freaked them out a little.
Other times though, you weigh up the odds, and you decide to play that card, thereby calling someone’s bluff that they don’t speak English, or at least not enough to continue annoying you…
And it blows up in your face, usually in a rather spectacular fashion.
Example 1. Mid July, 2008. Sitting at a pavement table with a good friend of mine in Berlin at a cheap burger place in Kreuzberg, a very “uni student” area (cheap, alternative, and just a little grotty), happily chatting away in English over some delicious potato wedges, mayo and ketchup.
Enter random homeless guy.
He’s holding his beer as if someone might try to wrench it from his grasp at any moment, smells like a brewery and looks like he hasn’t showered in months, possibly years, but his German is remarkably non-slurred. He stands at one end of our table and starts making small talk with us – complaining about something or other, and just begging for us to start a conversation with him. Neither of us are really interested, and after politely nodding and smiling and making small talk with him in German for a few minutes, we switch back to English and continue our own conversation, hoping he’ll take this as a subtle “Please go away” signal.
He doesn't. To our horror, he takes a seat and follows our lead, switching to surprisingly fluent English. Turns out this guy lived in England for a good few years, studied at some university there (Oxford comes to mind, but I can’t remember exactly), and apparently retained his language skills.
Bugger.
For the next twenty minutes or so, we are subjected to his ramblings on all manner of topics which he thought essential to discuss with us, including an apparent dislike of America. Oh, and he also decided to bring up the Australian government’s treatment of the Aboriginal community, which he then compared to the slave trade in America. It was obvious that he had very little information about the situation or the history, and I ceased talking to him at this stage. He continued talking to, or rather at, my friend for a while, insulting America all the way. By the way, she’s American, which he knew.
We kept hoping he’d run out of steam and leave of his own accord, but he never seemed to. So, as soon as we’d finished our beers, we bid him goodnight (yeah, we’re too polite and subtle for our own good – need to learn some of that German directness), and made a run for it. He got up after us, and made a move to follow us for a few minutes, but fortunately we wove our way through the evening pedestrian traffic on Oranienstrasse and lost him.
I have no doubt that this will not be the last blog post on the dilemmas of code switching into English. Stay tuned…
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