I write down or practice what I am going to say every time I pick up the phone to call someone. I start all my conversations with "I'm sorry, my German is not good. Do you speak English?" which when I say it, it is in German and looks like this: Es tut mir leid, meine Deutsch ist nicht gut. Sprechen Sie Englisch? Sometimes I get lucky and they respond in English, sometimes I don't. When I don't, I have to be really on my ball and have thought out my conversation to get my point across before I ever start to dial.
This of course brings me to the question of the day for yesterday: What does a German telephone number look like? Well they look nothing like our numbers, that's for sure! I will use a made up number that would be similar to ours just so you can see what it is like: 08 31 51 12 63 4. (Please do not call this number - it is a fake!!) From what we have learned from asking those around us and the phone company, the first few digits are the area code like we have. For Kempten it is 0831. For our cell phone company it is 0170. Cell phones' area codes are by company and not location. They traditionally group the numbers into pairs, although I have seen it written like this: 0831 51 126 34. Apparently in other parts of Germany, although I have not seen it written this way accept when I write it, it can all be written like this: 0831 511 2634. Never, though, is a - used in the number or () around the area code like we do. Also, the amount of numbers after the area code can be randomly between 2 and 8 digits. I had the theory that the older your number, the less digits it had, but just this past week, I found out that was not the case. It, according to locals, is completely random.
When someone from outside of Germany calls into Germany, you have to use the country code and drop the leading zero on the area code. For the dropping of the zero part, I have no idea why that is, but it won't work if you don't do it. From the US, you have to contact the international "operator" by dialing 011. Obviously you are not calling the operator, but it tells the US phone system to expect numbers in a certain way so that the system can route your call. From Germany to the US, we have to use 001 and then the number. So this means that for someone to call the longest number possible and be calling from the US, the number could look like this: 011 49 831 12 34 56 78. Now that's a lot of numbers!!! (Again, this is a made up number - please do not call!!)
We do have another option to call back to the US, though, that we have thoroughly enjoyed. We use a program called Skype (there are others, this just happens to be the one we use), where you can call for free from one computer to the other without getting charged for the call. And even better, it is possible to see each other while you talk if you have a web cam and microphone. When I was growing up in the 70s and watching cartoons like The Jetsons, this was the "way of the future!" that we all hoped would come to be. During the 80s when the computer revolution was happening all around us, we knew it would only be a matter of time before the old phone that you put up to your ear would be gone forever. Well, some things don't change quite as fast as we hope they will (where is that blasted transporter when I need some cake mix??!!), but at least this technology has finally emerged, albeit not quite in the way futurists once described. Still, it makes you wonder what tomorrow will bring!
Question of the day: How many states (or regions) is Germany divided into?
Word(s) for the day are related to the telephone: Cell phone - das Handy (depending on where you look for the origin of this word, I have found that it was once thought to be the English term for the portable phone - thus, it is pronounced just as we would), To call - anrufen (ahn roo fen), Telephone - das Telefon (pronounced pretty much as we say it), and Long distance call - das Ferngespräch (fairn gay shprehch and use that cat sound).
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
P.S. I did want to share that today I found and made GRITS! Yes, the Germans (or at least these southern ones) do have grits, so I guess I haven't left the south afterall!
