You may have noticed that some of the dates listed at the top of my blogs don't correspond with the day that I write them. I have to apologize, but I am not sure why that is happening. I have tried to figure out how that date gets put on the blog, but so far no luck. Needless to say, if you check each day, you should see the most recent one listed.
Speaking of dates, that is one of the many things that I have really had to get used to over here. They write their dates, time and numbers differently. The date really trips me up, though. Here they put the day first, then the month and then the year. When you see it written, it would look like this for today: 8.10.08. Now at first glance, I see that as August 10th, 2008. But it is indeed October 8th, 2008. This date, is of course, a very important date in our family as it is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Sis! But as you can guess, each time I have to write the date (on all the kids' letters and forms that have to be signed and returned to school), I really have to stop and think about it.
Time is not quite as strange except that all printed or digital references to time are in 24 hour time. For those of you with military background, this is not a challenge, but for me, I am forever having to do the math. I'll get the hang of it before we come back, I'm sure.
Numbers are also a bit different. Look at the following number 51,75. This is how you would write 51.75. In terms of price on every item, it would be written with the comma instead of the "." as we do. And when we would use a "," they use a "." such as in 1,000. It would be written here as 1.000 instead. I definitely have to do double takes when looking at each of these things.
Today, I am also having to think about how we use words. I am teaching English classes for a language school called Inlingua. Companies contact Inlingua if they have employees whose jobs involve communicating in English or other languages. I (as well as many other teachers for English or the other languages) then go to these companies to work with these employees to help them have better writing and speaking skills. Sometimes, the people they are communicating with also don't speak English as their native language, but English is the only language they have in common. So a customer of theirs from South America can speak Spanish and English, and this person can speak German and some English. In order for them to work with each other, they rely on English to communicate. I can really relate to some of the difficulties these folks are having, though. They all tell me that when they get a phone call in English that the person speaks too fast. I feel the same way about German. I find myself using the phrase "Langsam, bitte" (pronounced lahng zahm bitteh) all the time, which means "slowly, please". Today, I am trying to find or think of games that would make learning past tense verbs more fun. If you know of something you like to do in school or have done in the past that was fun, I would love to hear from you!!
The question from yesterday was "In what month is Oktoberfest celebrated?" The answer is a bit of a trick - mostly in September. Oktoberfest is most famously celebrated in the city of Munich. Each year for the last two weeks of September and a couple of days at the beginning of October, there is a huge festival with all kinds of activities in the city surrounding the festival location. The original Oktoberfest was held on October 12th, 1810 to celebrate the marriage of soon to be King Lugwig I and Princess Therese. Everyone enjoyed the party so much, that they decided to do it the next year, too. By 1819, it had become a tradition with an official organizing group from the founding citizens of Munich. They decided the tradition would be held every year. Eventually, to capitalize on the good weather, the festival was moved up to the last 2 weeks of September with the final day ending on the first Sunday in October. (There are some exceptions to this date when Oct. 2nd falls on a Saturday or Sunday, which extends the festival by 1 or 2 days.) Since its beginnings, Oktoberfest has been cancelled only a couple of dozen times due to outbreaks of disease, military conflicts or economic crises. Today, the festival averages over 6 million visitors.
Although many of the events are more for adults, there are still activities and fun to be had by children as well. There are carnival booths and rides, lots and lots of traditional German food, a parade to start off the events with children and adults dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes, and traditional brass bands playing the um-pah music so associated with Germany. For those adults of you interested in coming, get your tickets now. They sell out a year in advance! And for the 2010 event, it will be the 200th anniversary, so it is bound to be even bigger and better (and more crowded!!)
The question of the day for today is: Where were the Brothers Grimm of the Grimm's Fairy Tales born?
The word(s) for today are the months. They are surprisingly like our months. If there is no pronunciation listed after the German word, it is pronounced the same as we do in English: January - Januar (Yahn oo ahr), February - Februar (Feb roo ahr), March - März (Mehrtz), April - April (Ah preel), May - Mai (My), June - Juni (Yoo nee), July - Juli (yoo lee), August - August (Ou goost), September - September (Zeptember), October - Oktober, November - November (Noe fehm ber) and December - Dezember (Day tsem ber).
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
