Category: Life In Germany

Q&A Time!

On By StevenIn Life In Germany10 Comments

A short while back, I posted an ‘Ask Me Anything’ post.  Some folks used that as a chance to ask for advice in advance of their upcoming travels to the area, and I tried to answer what I could of those in regular e-mail.  Some of the remaining questions are really interesting, so I’ve decided to do a series of “You asked, I answer” posts.  Let’s get started!

Here’s a question from Rarasaur:  What’s your favorite holiday, including minor or obscure ones?

My favorite holiday is actually New Year’s Eve.  While I’m not a religious person, I believe firmly in the concepts of circles closing, in things ending, and in getting a fresh start.  New beginnings are important.

My second favorite holiday is birthdays.  All birthdays.  Mine, yours, the birth of the Sony Walkman, and so forth.  Like I said a minute ago, beginnings are important.

As for the rest of the holidays-  I like Halloween and Fasching because I like to see people dressed up in nifty costumes.  I like Thanksgiving because I like to have tasty food with my family.  I like the Day of the Dead because it’s important to remember those who have passed beyond the rim.  I like May Day because giant poles with streamers and decorations!  I like Valentine’s Day because I’m a romantic at heart.  I like La Tomatina because pelting people with tomatoes is fun and more than a little strange.  I like Diwali, despite only learning about it this past year, because it’s a festival of lights, involves family, and is utterly fascinating to me. I also like invented holidays, such as Talk Like A Pirate Day, Towel Day, and yes, even Steak and a BJ Day.

I tend to like the holidays that are about people and introspection more, and the holidays that are about giving and receiving gifts less.

Here’s a related question from Jenny: What has been your favorite German event/celebration so far?

I quite liked Palmator, the Starkbierfest that turns up on Palm Sunday each year, when Prösslbräu Brewery in Adlersberg serves up their signature bock beer for the first time.

I also enjoyed the Jazz festival that turned up here one weekend, and Mai Dult, which had all the things you would expect from a festival here-  beer tents, bands, lots of interesting food, and carnival-style rides.

I haven’t made it to Oktoberfest yet, but I’m hoping to make it this year.

Do you have anything you’d like to ask?  The Ask Me Anything post is still open!

More observations on Germany.

On By StevenIn Life In Germany21 Comments

It’s time for another list of random stuff that I find fascinating!  Ready?  Go!

Paper sizes:  In the US, the most well known paper sizes are letter (8.5 x 11 inches) and legal (8.5 x 14 inches), and then there’s a bunch of smaller sizes for envelopes and such.  The sizes here in Germany are metric, and the closest match to what I’m used to would be the A4.  You can see from the chart below that the A4 size is a little larger than Letter, and a little shorter than Legal.  After looking at the chart, I have decided that I will only write notes to people now using A0 sized paper.

papersizes

Mayonnaise and Mustard tubes:  A common mayo and mustard delivery system here is the toothpaste tube style.  While you can get the jar form that Americans are used to, there are lots of brands that show up in this form factor.  I was weirded out by this at first, but I’ve grown to kind of love this-  no more hunting around for a smaller spoon just to get the last bit of mayo out of the jar-  you just roll this down like toothpaste.  And the nozzle is star-cut so it even makes the mayo pretty. A further note about mayo here-  they separate the mayo into two types, deli mayo and salad mayo.  I still haven’t really figured out the difference other than a slight change in consistency.  I prefer deli mustard based entirely on the logic that deli sandwiches are delicious.

thomymayo

Laundry: I bought a washing machine for my apartment a few months after I arrived, and my friend Jenny promptly named it Gretel.  That’s fine, it seems like a Gretel to me also.  It’s not common to also have a dryer here, and so my laundry  mostly drip dries.  When I do want to use a dryer, I go to a nearby laundromat.  It’s the same basic idea as laundromats in the US- a row of coin-operated washers and dryers in a shop not far from the Altstadt.

The picture below is the main controls for Gretel the washer.  After an entire year with this washer, I still have no idea what most of these functions do.  Although to be fair, I didn’t understand most of the functions on my washer back in the US either.

gretel

Dry cleaning: I don’t know if this is just where I go or if it’s everywhere, but in the US, when I drop off my dry cleaning, they give me a ticket, and then I pay when I pick it up.  Here, I pay when I drop it off.  Aside from that, dry cleaning is pretty much identical here, though.  Hey, it can’t all be strange and unusual, right?

tschiboTchibo:  When I first arrived in Germany, I was thoroughly confused by Tchibo.  I couldn’t tell what their deal was-  they seemed to have coffee, dishes, and lingerie.  I’ve since learned that being a coffee cafe is their main focus, but that they rotate other products through just to be contrary and confusing.  My iPhone is also confused by Tchibo.  I was making a note about it to myself, and the iPhone auto-corrected Tchibo to ‘Tax Hobo.’

Also, their logo is supposed to represent a steaming coffee bean as far as I can tell, but I can’t look at it now without seeing it as a swimming sperm.  (Damn it, Heather, this is your fault!)

plungersPlungers: Ok, there’s nothing really different about plungers here, I just like this picture of a giant bin of plungers for sale in the Globus.  When I first got my apartment, I needed a plunger, and I bought it in the Globus.  I didn’t know how to ask for a plunger in German, and the woman I asked didn’t really speak very much English.  I used the word for plunger that came up in my handy dandy translation app, and it was spectacularly unhelpful.  Undeterred, I mimicked the motion of plunging a toilet, and the recognition on her face was immediate and clear.  She guided me right to where they were in the store.

I still have that plunger, by the way-  it’s in the shower, which is what I bought it for.  My shower drain is occasionally stubborn, and requires a good shower-plunging.

werner Werner: This is Werner.  He’s a robot in a local store called Conrad.   Conrad is sort of like if Radio Shack, Best Buy, a hardware store, and a hobby store all had a freaky four-way and had a child as a result.  I bought my television at Conrad.  I also bought a Mac Mini there.  They sell electronics, power tools, hobby items, remote controlled vehicles, and more.  Their catalog is this enormous thick affair that rivals the Sears catalogs they used to send out once a year.  The reason I wanted to show you guys Werner is that he can help you find stuff in the store.  When he’s not already helping someone, he hangs out near the front doors.  If you use his screen to select a specific type of product, he will guide you there.  The first time I saw a small group of people being led through the store by this friendly fellow, I was kind of enthralled because hey, I’m still basically a ten year old boy.

Snow Plows: They have snow plows in the US too, but I’d never seen one outside of a television screen because I lived in Florida.  As a life-long Florida resident, any technology that is used expressly for dealing with cold stuff is just fascinating to me.  They come in all sizes!  Here’s one that’s sidewalk sized and one that’s street sized.

plow1 plow2

Weiberfastnacht 2: The Reaping Of The Ties

On By StevenIn Life In Germany12 Comments

Last February, I wrote about Fasching, including “Weiberfastnacht”, or “Women’s carnival night”.  Here’s a quick recap about Weiberfastnacht:

The Thursday before Ash Wednesday is known as Weiberfastnacht.  On this day tradition dictates that women are allowed to cut off the tie of any man within reach.    The women are also allowed to kiss any man they like, according to some versions of tradition. 

I didn’t last long at all today.  It’s just 10:30 and I’m already snipped:

tie

One of my colleagues is a tie hunter. She shows off her trophies on the wall.  Some of these are paper-  after the first two ties were cut, the other men in the office started to put on paper ties.  It’s a massacre!

trophywall

It’s not all wardrobe-bloodshed, though.  At the start of Fasching, sometimes the RVV (the local public transit authority) gives away Krapfen (donuts) at the main bus station.  Just look for the fuzzy green hats and reflective vests…

donuts2 donuts1

Watch out for your neckties, friends!  Have any of you had your ties cut (or done some tie cutting) yourself?

Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.

On By StevenIn Life In Germany12 Comments

Before I got to Germany, I had never heard of CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This is partly because it’s a European framework, and North America has a different set of standards. Mostly, though, I hadn’t really spent much time thinking about how people learn languages before I got here. Once I arrived in Germany, however, I had to make a decision about how much time and energy to commit to picking up German.

It may surprise many people to learn that I could live here for the entire run of my contract without speaking a word of the local language. Some people do. Regensburg has a large university as well as a tremendous amount of industry, with international companies like BMW, Continental, GE, and Siemens present. In addition, German children start to learn English in school. When I first arrived here, I started a lot of conversations with, “Do you speak English?” The answer was always the same: “A little.” This, followed by a fluency in English that far surpasses my skill in any other language.

My job interaction is primarily with other members of my department back in the United States, or to people in my local office who are all basically fluent in English. My contract is only for three years, and my residence and work permits do not require any proficiency with the language. And yet…

I know someone who has been here for seven years and is only just now starting to learn German. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the stereotypical monolingual American who refuses to adapt and acculturate, so I’ve tried almost from day one to integrate myself as much as possible. This means trying in earnest to learn the language.

When I moved over in 2011, I purchased the Rosetta Stone software. Rosetta Stone is good, to be sure, but it didn’t quite work for me because it doesn’t explain the grammar. German grammar is a horrendously complicated, nightmare inducing crapfest. This is a huge part of why it’s so complicated:

germanarticles

I would absolutely kill on the vocabulary exercises in Rosetta Stone, but every time a grammar exercise came up, I would bomb it utterly. There are interactive parts of the Rosetta Stone program that put you one on one with other people learning the language, and even a small classroom environment where you learn in a small group- the software comes with a basic headset so you can interact in real time with video and audio. I never used those portions of the software though, and my learning curve became a sort of stagnant crazed line.

Last September, I finally gave in and joined a local language course at the Volkshochschule, the German equivalent of a community college. It runs two nights a week for two hours and fifteen minutes each night. The classes are split up into CEFR levels, and so I started with the A1/1 class.

The CEFR levels are set from A to C, with the highest C being a level of mastery that comes close to a native speaker’s proficiency:

A1 Breakthrough or beginner

  • Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type.
  • Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has.
  • Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

A2 Waystage or elementary

  • Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).
  • Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.
  • Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

B1 Threshold or intermediate

  • Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
  • Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst traveling in an area where the language is spoken.
  • Can produce simple connected text on topics that are familiar or of personal interest.
  • Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

B2 Vantage or upper intermediate

  • Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.
  • Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.
  • Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

C1 Effective Operational Proficiency or advanced

  • Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognize implicit meaning.
  • Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions.
  • Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes.
  • Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organizational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

C2 Mastery or proficiency

  • Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read.
  • Can summarize information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation.
  • Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.

The first thing I noticed about the class was that there is no way I could have succeeded if I’d started it when I first arrived. There is no English spoken in these classes, and I found that I needed a base layer of German language skill to even follow the class. However, I’m glad I started going- the class does a few very important things for me that Rosetta Stone never did:

  1. It explains the grammar and verb conjugations – This alone is well worth the price of admission. My German has improved significantly since I started the classes just because I finally understand the verb conjugations.
  2. It gives me the huge satisfaction of real time feedback – One of the best things about being in the class is that if I’m wrong about something, the teacher will correct me immediately. Rosetta Stone will tell me that I’m wrong, but it will never tell me why I’m wrong. I can’t understate how frustrating that is.
  3. It makes me stay on task – With Rosetta Stone, it’s far too easy to do an exercise or two and then go slack off for a while. It requires a special kind of discipline to keep going back to it when it’s self guided learning, and I don’t have it. (Editor’s note: This is why I don’t work out consistently, too.) With a class that I paid for, I keep going. Being part of a group learning experience is a tremendous motivator to keep it up.
  4. It forces me to interact in spoken German in real time – My professor has a little yellow and blue ball that she uses during class. She’ll ask a question, and throw the ball to someone in the classroom. The person with the ball has to answer the question, then throw the ball to someone else in the class. They ask the question to the person now in posession of the ball, and the new ball-bearer answers. This process repeats until everyone in the class has interacted on this question, with the teacher correcting us on grammar, sentence structure, conjugation, pronunciation, and so forth. If someone uses a new vocabulary word during their answer, it goes up on the white board. One of the most commonly repeated things in the classroom is “Verstehen Sie das?” Do you understand this?

Since September, I’ve done two more classes, all part of the A1 level. My current class goes until late February, and then there’s one more class to cover all of A1. I still speak like a two year old, but I’m getting better. I’m picking up more words when I listen to other conversations or television or radio, and the meaning of things is starting to filter through in tiny pieces.

I’ve decided that I’m going to stop after the last A1 class, at least for now. I’ll have been going to German classes nearly non-stop for seven months, and I’m kind of burnt out on the time expenditure involved- between the classes, the homework, and the travel to and from the class location, this has been burning a lot of time, and I’m really feeling it. I’m confident that I won’t stop learning the language just because I’m stopping the classes, though- the classes have given me a great starting point to keep learning in the real world.

Tell me about your experiences learning a new language. Have you had success with language classes since you arrived?

Expat Tools

On By StevenIn Life In Germany19 Comments

I was having a conversation with Alex of Ifs Ands & Butts about how we get our respective television fixes,and I realized that there’s a good blog post in talking about some of the technological tools that I use to get by in Germany without losing my mind.   I suppose I should post a Disclaimer: I have not been paid, sponsored, or otherwise compensated for endorsing anything in this post.  It’s just stuff I find useful for getting by outside my home country.

This list really falls into three categories-  Websites, Software/Apps, and Hardware.  Let’s start with the software.

iTunes11

iTunes:   Let’s start out with one of the two most important applications for maintaining my sanity.  Not only does this contain my music collection, without which I would be a ravenous, rabid beastie, but it also lets me rent movies from time to time, and it lets me purchase season passes for a few cherished television shows that I would be very sad to miss out on.  I mostly watch these programs and rented movies at home, but if I know I have a very long flight coming up, I sometimes rent a movie or two and load them onto an iOS device just to help pass the time in transit.  I use a variety of other methods to maintain my ridiculous volume of television viewing; this is just one of the methods I use.

SkypeSkype: This is the second important sanity-maintenance application.  Skype is a VoIP (voice over IP) application that lets you talk to people in several different ways.  It has an instant messenger function, for basic text communication, it carries voice, and it also does video chat.  Skype-account to Skype-account calls are always free, but that’s not where the true power of Skype lies.  The real strength of Skype is that it can call out to the existing phone network.  This means you can speak to people on their regular cell phones and land lines for a fraction of the regular telephone cost.  I bought fifty dollars of Skype credit roughly eight months ago and even with regular calls back to family members in the US, I haven’t run out yet.   It’s important to note that this is both a computer app and an iOS application.  I sometimes run Skype just for voice calls from my phone, and the sound quality is every bit as good as a normal phone call.  Lastly, I paid a little bit extra for what is called a Skype-In Number.  This is a local phone number in an area code of your choosing which connects directly to your Skype account.  In my case, I got an area code 561 phone number because the majority of my family and friends are in 561, a South Florida area code.  If they dial that 561 number, it costs them nothing more than any other local phone call, and it dials my Skype account directly.  If I don’t have Skype running, they get sent to voice-mail.   This is a thing of beauty.

A Slingbox:  Some people have access to HBO Go and Showtime Anytime accounts.  For those that don’t, a Slingbox is another useful way to view US-bound television.  The trick with a Slingbox, however, is that you have to have someone back in the US willing to leave it attached to their television.  Preferably someone who doesn’t mind if you occasionally take control of their television to view it remotely.  I no longer have a Sling of my own, but I do have a friend in a town outside of Chicago who lets me access his Sling from time to time.  It can be quite nifty.

Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, and Other Entertainment Websites: Each of these is a source of video or audio entertainment.  Spotify is now accessible in Germany, but it wasn’t when I got here.  There are various entertainment websites out there which help to complete the fabric of my pop culture addiction.  I make daily visits to The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Rachel Maddow Show online.  Of course some of these aren’t visible from outside of the United States, which brings me to…

hidemyassA VPN: A VPN, or “Virtual Private Network,” is a service that can be used in many different ways.  Many companies use them to help a remote worker access an internal network, or to help secure the work being done.  For an Expat, though, a VPN is most valuable as a means of making the Internet at large believe that you’re on an IP in the United States.  Why is this useful?  Many entertainment websites, because of International copyright and licensing laws, restrict access from connections outside of the US.  In order to access Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, and a bevy of other sites, you need to have an IP address that appears to be inside the United States.  There are many different VPN services out there.  The one I use is entirely software, from a company called Hide My Ass.  I’ve also seen hardware VPNs.  These usually consist of a specially programmed router that you purchase, and the VPN connection is handled automatically by that piece of hardware.

There are also several methods to catch up on your television that are of questionable legality.  I do not condone these next two methods, but I’m including them here for completeness:

      1. There are sites that will stream shows, such as watch32.com and movie2k.to
      2. There are torrents.  Sites like showRSS in tandem with a proper BitTorrent client can help you to grab shows as they air.

Google_translateGoogle Translate and Leo: Both of these exist as both mobile apps and Websites.  Google Translate helped me through my first few months, especially in the grocery store.  It has the nifty feature of allowing you to speak a word or phrase in German to your phone, and it will attempt to translate using basic voice recognition.   It will also pronounce things for you using simple speech synthesis, which can also be extremely useful. However, Google Translate isn’t always the most precise translator, which is where Leo comes in.  Leo on the iPhone is just a word translation app.  It will give you a variety of meanings, including pronunciation and the gender of the German word.  For anyone trying to learn the language, this is an incredibly useful tool.

Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging, and other Social Networking sites:  While Skype is great for making phone calls to a few people on a regular basis, the time difference between the US and here makes it unrealistic to keep in touch with everyone via phone calls.  That’s where social networking comes in.  As much as I despise Facebook, I can’t deny that it has made it easier than ever to see what’s going on with my nieces, to communicate with friends all over the country, and to make sure that certain technologically challenged family members can still see pictures that I post from my time here.  Without Facebook, I would have significantly less contact with my family.  Without Instant Messaging, I would be massively out of touch with everyone else.

Similarly, a lot of people use What’s App to communicate with other folks on disparate cellular networks using only your data, rather than typical cross-network SMS charges.  Hanley from Pink Parliament swears by TextPlus, which I haven’t used myself.  From her description, she uses TextPlus the way I use Skype: “Textplus is a life saver. I use it every day. You can get 1300 mins for 20 bucks, it works on both 3G and wifi and the other person doesn’t have to have it for you to call. You can call landlines and cell phones.”

plugadapter Electrical Adaptors: It should go without saying that someone like me is going to have a lot of gadgets.   The good news is that most of the important ones can handle the varied voltage.  Most laptop computers, cell phones, and tablets can handle the varied voltage without too much difficulty.  That just leaves the shape of the plugs.  The picture to the left of this paragraph is a set of electrical adapters that I purchased in the local MediaMarkt store for just a few euros.  As you can see, it’s got the US plug style on the front, and the German plug style on the back.  It doesn’t do any voltage conversion, but for most gadgets, that’s all you need.  You always want to read your documentation to be sure, though.  The alarm clock I brought with me from the US?  Utterly useless on this voltage.  I had to buy a new one here.   My electric razor can handle this voltage just fine, but the Water-Pik cannot.  My printer/scanner won’t work on this voltage, but I have a single voltage converter, also purchased in the US, connected to that one device.

By the way, I left my television behind when I moved, and bought one here.  When I move back, I’ll do the same thing-  this one will get sold off  locally for a very good price, and I’ll buy another set when I get into a new apartment in the US.  The reason for this is very simple-  the video systems in these two countries are very different.  Even if you aren’t looking at the electrical plugs, the video has different connectors, different picture types, and so forth.  I suppose it might be possible to use a German television in the US, but there are too many reasons to just start over with a US marketed set.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it does cover some of the most important things I use.  Fellow expats, what tools do you use to make your life abroad easier?