Languages
Language-wise there are lots of traps to fall into. I'm sure I've done most of them trying my German, but since this is my blog and my English is kinda fluent I want to heckle the Swiss instead :)...since it's so much more fun.
Some of the things the Swiss use in English is save for safe. I think it has to do with the letter v being pronounced "fau" in German. So somehow they think v sounds like f. How v. weird.
The most obvious one is of course the inability to pronounce the. It always sounds like "ze". Which is one of the reasons it's so easy making fun of ze Swiss (and ze Germans of course :)
When we meet in English we meet. In German they meet each other (wir treffen uns), so I often get sms's saying "when will we meet us?". Which sounds very strange. Who else would I meet if not you who sms'd? Are you interested in other people I plan to meet or what?
Last one I just heard is "hi together", which I assume comes from "hallo zusammen" actually meaning hello everybody. But hey, isn’t that what makes it fun in the world?
Diversity, I'm all for it!!! Just wish the Swiss were the same :)
Some of the things the Swiss use in English is save for safe. I think it has to do with the letter v being pronounced "fau" in German. So somehow they think v sounds like f. How v. weird.
The most obvious one is of course the inability to pronounce the. It always sounds like "ze". Which is one of the reasons it's so easy making fun of ze Swiss (and ze Germans of course :)
When we meet in English we meet. In German they meet each other (wir treffen uns), so I often get sms's saying "when will we meet us?". Which sounds very strange. Who else would I meet if not you who sms'd? Are you interested in other people I plan to meet or what?
Last one I just heard is "hi together", which I assume comes from "hallo zusammen" actually meaning hello everybody. But hey, isn’t that what makes it fun in the world?
Diversity, I'm all for it!!! Just wish the Swiss were the same :)
posted by Annika @ 5:55 PM
2 Comments:
At 2:29 AM,
Anonymous said…
Topic: languages
reads funny.... I first didn't understand what you wanted to express with "fau". well I vocalised it and I got it. Afterwards I was laughung about myself. Yep, I'm German which is not too bad :-)))
With regard to "when will me meet". For us Ze Germans it sound like: "wann treffen wir"
tja, then the question is: who will we meet....therefore: wann treffen wir UNS?
Funny differences in languages
Ze German
At 10:15 AM,
Annika said…
And it give me ideas for blogs :)
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