The Hitchhiker's Guide to Edinburgh

Having recently relocated to Edinburgh, I have been getting used to the new everyday sounds around me. No longer am I surrounded by the German language, but by English. The morning birdsong outside my window was replaced by a disorienting sound of seagulls, their melancholy screech echoing around the communal greens of tenement living. Police sirens sound different here too. The German police cars' perfunctory two-tone missive has given way to a sliding wail interrupted by a punctuated monotone, and in its third movement, erupts into a sound like a car accelerator wired to a wah wah pedal. In Germany, the siren went wonkily out of tune in direct relation to its distance from me as it sped away, reminding me that I was an outsider, out of synch with my surroundings but enjoying it.

Over the last 14 years of living abroad I realise my ears have become trained to believe that English is a rare occurrence. I automatically eavesdrop on stranger's conversations, lingering on their words. Something has not told my brain to stop doing this, so I am a sounding board for anyone's conversation.

I think: There is someone speaking English, that's unusual, I wonder who they are and why they are here?
Of course as anyone with experience of being an expat knows, you may feel the opposite, especially if living in Berlin: English speakers again, the place is verily overrun with 'em!

I stare for a moment too long and realise I am intruding.

Then there are the new sounds in the flat. The fire alarm goes off, there is even a detector in the kitchen, toast is the culprit. We can't get away from the ear-piercing sound, it is in every room and even the stair. My children run around in a panic, hands clasped over ears and escape into the garden. There is no deactivate button and we are told later that you must fling a towel towards it in the hope that it stops. Later, on a walk through the meadows, bordered on one side by glass fronted luxury flats, a man is balanced precariously on a stool in his showcase kitchen, waving a towel frantically upwards.  I smile in recognition. I have been initiated into that kind of Highland fling. I don't think this is what he wanted the world to see through the glass, though.

Then there is the sound that is inaudible to the human ear. We have mice. I now realise why there are so many cats prowling the greens. I won't buy a trap that kills. We try a humane trap, but it seems that the Edinburgh mice are clever fellows and won't fall for that. I am sold a plug that emits high-pitched frequencies that will stop mice nesting. I wonder if death would have been better than animal sound torture, but then the Edinburgh mice, astute creatures they are, must have taken to wearing ear-plugs as I catch one scuttling under the washing machine at night.

Tenement living also brings close proximity to the sound of our neighbours. The reliable sonorous chimes of a grandfather clock are incongruous to the occasional screeching of its owner, an elderly lady from the ground floor flat telling off our children for scaling a wall. What we know so far of our Spanish neighbour is relayed to us by an alarm clock that doesn't turn off in the morning, and a security alarm setting loudly at night.

Intelligent mice, useful towels, all we need now are Babel fish! I find myself struggling for English words again, and asking myself, "What was the English word for that, again?" The effort of communicating in a foreign language, though, falls away when you relocate. It is as comforting as going up a few togs in an eiderdown. You can enjoy the nuances of your own language, rather than casting around for scraps. Funnily enough, it was in the "famine" rather that "feast" environment in Germany, that I really first learned about the English language, teaching English as a foreign language. Now that I am back in the UK,though, I realise it is my own language that has to be brushed up.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I heard the poet and writer Michael Rosen on Saturday Live Radio 4 this morning say that the place name Nice, i.e the town in France, was at odds with the English understanding in his head of “nice”, because events he was researching that took place there during the Second World War that blighted his family were by no means nice. In the interview he had been talking about investigating, decoding and interpreting events using language. The interviewee seemed to brush over this one comment about Nice, the one that Michael Rosen seemed the most excited about. Perhaps it sounded too obvious? One is an town another an adjective, why mix them up? But I also share his fascination at those "strange" as he put it things that happen when two languages overlap, become mismatched or echo in a way that leads you to ask questions you may have never have thought of. Is Nice really nice? 

This made me think in general about how the understanding of your own language changes when you live in another country and how you may apply the meaning of another language, unwittingly, to your own when you relocate.

I am living in an area of Edinburgh now called Tollcross, having just moved from Germany where I lived for 14 years. Now I have a German language association with that place name, because the adjective “toll” means “excellent or great” in German, but also there is another meaning of the word as I discovered in a coffee shop in Berlin many year ago.

I went to get a takeaway coffee and saw some amazing looking biscuits on the counter in a jar; lumpy, misshapen and stuffed with nuts and white chocolate pieces with a sign that said “Tollhaus Keks.” Mmmm, yeah, “fantastic and great” cakes, I thought. But then the man in the shop told me that “toll” is also an outdated word for “mad”, (or perhaps“nutty” might suit these biscuits better), so the name translates as “madhouse biscuits”.

So now in Tollcross, destinations on buses, road signs and street names in and around the area all lead me to believe I am heading either towards a great place, a fantastic place, or on a bus ride straight to bedlam.

Sometimes, in language as in life, you tread a fine line.

Das Gift

No surprises here then! Presents wrapped in cellophane. 

The art of present giving is quite different in Germany to the UK. Here is what I learnt, the hard way:

Part one, for those with 5 mins to spare who like the hard facts!

1. Germans do not always immediately open your present!

OK, so you’ve handed over the perfect gift and expect your friend to open it, ‘cos they obviously just can’t wait to see what you’ve got them.  Well the thing is they can, it seems. Often, I have the experience that my present is put aside, leaving me in high anxiety as to when the moment will come when it will finally be opened. Then the only tactic to employ involves stalking, cornering and repeating endlessly, “Here’s your present, here’s your present” until they open it and you can relax and enjoy the party.

2.Birthday cards, Christmas cards? What are they? In the UK, I would say the card is just about as important as the present to signify how much you care about friends, but in Germany people rarely send or give cards.

3. It’s wrapped but I can still see the present, duh. For some shops the definition of gift-wrap involves putting clear plastic foil around it and tying it with a ribbon. I mean, where’s the element of surprise? You can see the present through the wrapping. On the other hand, at least you don’t have to wait for your friend to unwrap it.

Part two, for those who feel like having another cuppa and are willing to give their facts the benefit of the doubt. 

I have done a little investigating and I think these little cultural misunderstandings can be easily explained thus:

Germany is bordered by nine countries and has no natural buffer like the English Channel. Therefore trust has always been of particular importance for the exchange of goods. Here, the German language generously supplies further evidence. The German word "Gift" means Poison. It is of little wonder then, that upon receiving a potentially poisonous dose that the most prudent response would be to set such a parcel aside to assess the situation in the due course of time. I know I would. 

The reason for Germans not sending birthday cards is pretty obvious to me. It takes far less effort to write Happy Birthday than Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag.  Little wonder, then, that cards never caught on.

It is recorded that on the 18^th December 1776, in Northern Rheinsberg, Heinz-Peter von Herzhog gave his second cousin removed Hendrik-Franz a birthday present. After waiting for three days and three hours for his cousin to open his present, he finally lost it, ripped the paper asunder with his sword, inadvertently spearing his beloved cousin through the heart in the process. His father Duke Philip von Herzhog decreed that from thence forth that “ye so much as one man cloak his present in obscure papers as to be damned by all the power of wrath need be.” After that word spread through the land that a new transparent material was needed for wrapping up birthday presents to avoid further accidents. Finally, word reached Switzerland and Jacques E Brandenburger invented Cellophane in 1908.

Part three, for those onto their second choccy biscuit who are willing to digress into unknown territory at their peril. 

A cautionary tale of present giving at Christmas. 

Wrapping up presents in cellophane doesn't however always prevent accidents or near poisonings. On the 24th December 2012, W.P. opened a present from her British friend, C.M., safely wrapped in cellophane.  It contained a beautiful looking Praline. She couldn't resist it and immediately bit into it until she was literally foaming at the mouth and had to spit it out in great disgust as it was the most horrible praline she had ever tasted. W.P. remained in a state of shock, digesting the fact that her friend may have tried to poison her, until her boyfriend pointed out what was printed under the the cellophane, for use in the bath only.

Throwing caution to the wind, and the left over crumbs to fizz in the bath, W.P had to admit the enjoyment was lost, as it is one thing having a bath in perfumed oil without having to taste it at the same time. 

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Over a barrel

 chillaxing, not having an axe to grind

Last year they redid the main road that runs along the top of my street and left no room for a bicycle lane, in fact the bicycle lane literally just ends at some point, and the cyclist is told to dismount.  This got me really angry, I mean why should I stop, when it would take me about 2 minutes to get home by bike.  Instead, I would have to walk my bike along the road and then breathe in the fumes of two-lane traffic. Totally unnecessary.

This week I called up to complain about a bill I had received, nearly 70 Euros and for what? The plumber showed me that I had to press the button on the gas heater for 5 seconds and not 1 in order for it to start. Seventy Euros for 5 minutes work, which had been billed for 1 hour and 15 minutes of repair and skilled work. Talk about daylight robbery.

In the Kindergarten where my son is, he will be probably be chucked out after one year. Not for bad behaviour, but because my husband’s work contract runs out at the end of November and the Kindergarten is run by his place of work.

Recently, I’ve realised that I spend a lot of energy getting worked up about things that I can’t really do anything about. After all, living as a trailing spouse with a soon to be jobless husband applying here there and everywhere, it is not like I haven’t got any other concerns at the moment, including my own fledgling career reboot plans.

So today, as an experiment I got off my bike where the bike lane cuts off because the sign told me too, feeling absolutely ridiculous at my obedience to walk the 100 metres along the road to the crossing. Other cyclists sped happily by me.  I accepted the rules absurdity and somehow it made me feel better. That’s a hard one for me, not to fight/break stupid rules.

And the plumber. God, I always have to deal with these issues, with the landlords, with the handymen, and with the authorities. And from my experience even having lived here for years with a fairly good grasp of German, it is a real handicap if German is not your mother tongue.  Sometimes you can use this fact to your advantage as I did with the plumber last week. He wasn’t letting me speak, and I said, please could he give me time to speak as he must know that German is my second language, the subtext being “you are not treating me with such little respect because I am a foreigner, are you?” Usually works a treat. But in any language, it is hard to contest a bill.

And the Kindergarten? I knew this was the case when I applied to the Kindergarten.  But somehow I had a glimmer of hope that somehow our situation might change, or the Kindergarten may show mercy. Sometimes they designate the child a place if they have no applications in that age group. But somehow the idea of removing a child from a kindergarten where efforts have been made to integrate the child and make him seem comfortable seems so ludicrous and just about rules and regulations, where there is in actual fact a child at the centre of things. In my fantasy, I imagine myself fighting such bureaucracy through the courts, but in reality it is just something else to get worked up about.

So plan A (acceptance), I am going to follow the rules, with a smirk. The good citizens of Bielefeld will bless me, and I might even get my bike lights fixed, I mean really go for it.

I will pay the daylight robbers – “Hut ab!” a German phrase roughly translated “I take my hat off to you”, or in the language of youth – Respect!  Dear Mr Plumber, I am over a barrel, you win, “bin über den Tisch gezogen” – literally - you’ve pulled me over the table, thank you for your trouble,   Frau (sucker) Marshall. Actually not as bad as I thought, losing that battle.

And the Kindergarten place – well it’s a bit of a journey to get there, children are more adaptable to change than we are as adults. Or what about that old chestnut – it’s not the end of the world - I think the saying goes. Might help with this one.

This year may just be a lot easier to deal with if I just accept that I have no control over the Kindergarten situation or the imminent wobbly job/place/future situation otherwise known as the rug being pulled from under me scenario.

Less of a plan, and more of an experiment.  Lets see how it goes.

He, She and It

Who's that?

Henry is too young to differentiate between saying "who's that ?" and what's that?" so we have been having conversations lately like this:

"Who's that?"- Henry
"oh that's your teddy bear, Rex"- Me
"and who's that"- Henry
"oh that's a ladybird"- Me
"and who's that?" - Henry
"oh, that's a stone, Henry" - Me

I love these conversations. Suddenly the stone acquires a little personality of its own. It just shows that the way we label things using language can instantly change our perception of them.

The German language is still a source of wonderment and confusion to me. Unlike English, nouns are attributed a Masculine, Feminine and Neuter gender. In German 'the' can be Der (M), Die(F) or Das(N).

So the desk that I am sitting at is masculine, der Tisch. And the computer that I am looking at is also masculine, der Computer, but the keyboard is feminine, die Tastatur. And if I had a laptop it would be swaying somewhere in gender limbo between masculine, der Laptop, and neutral, das Laptop, as it would seem that people are still in disagreement on this one.

The fruit in my kitchen in mostly feminine, though the apple happens to be masculine. Funny that.

I can sort of get used to this way of attributing gender to things, in an abstract way but it jars with me with certain words. For example, das Mädchen, which means girl. It just feels wrong that the word for girl in German has a neuter gender, like Henry turning to one of his cousins and saying, "What's that".

On the other hand, cousin is not a neutral gender word in German. You know immediately if the cousin is male (Cousin) or female (Cousine).

Likewise the German word for friend indicates whether the friend is male (Freund) or female (Freundin).  That's why when Germans speak in English about their female friend or friends, more often or not it doesn't come across the way they intended:

"My girlfriends and I love to go to the beach together"German
"How nice for you"(wow, these Germans are pretty forthright aren't they.)  Brit
"And I am going to see my best girlfriend in Rome,next week"
"Oh, that sounds nice" (How many girlfriends does this woman have!) Briti
"It would be nice to have you as a girlfriend from England"German
"Er ,well.." (Wow, I heard the Germans were direct but...) Brit

On the other hand if you talk about your friend which is a male in German, this is also the word for boyfriend, which could leave your relationship on the ambiguous side.

Is this her boyfriend or just her friend friend?

Usually this is countered by a more emphatic: "MY friend" just so you know for sure.
Or when introducing a male friend I usually say, "this is my friend" - followed by - cough-  "this is a friend of mine" which always sounds wooden and as if you are really overstating that actually you really are not sleeping with this person, but keeping them at arms length so don't get the wrong idea, because he is of mine and not mine!

Whew, then it gets even more complicated and the words get correspondingly longer.

Whereas in the English language we have mostly done away with gender specific job titles, where, for example, the word actor nowadays can mean both male and female, and political correctness has replaced chairman with chairperson, in Germany the division is still there.

So you know whether the chancellor is a male or female, or the head of the company just by looking at the word ending.
If you are addressing a group of male and female students, for example, the gramatically correct way to address them would be by using the male plural for student, Studenten. However it is deemed politically correct to use the female form and make it plural, Studentinnen, and for good measure add und Studenten, so the boys don't feel left out by the feminist linguistic revolution.  Also, you might see StudentInnen, which has a capital letter I as a sort of code to let you know that the boys are included in this one, too, but means you can save on ink.

It's strange that the problem of equality in language has been dealt with in totally different ways in German and English.
Stewardess sounds quite old fashioned now and most people are quite happy to use the term flight attendant and be rid of the feminine ending, without feeling that feminism has received a deadly blow. I personally do not regret the passing of this term or feel that I should make a point of keeping it.

In a series of guidelines on how to formulate language promoting equality, I noticed that it often recommends skirting around the issue altogether (or should that be trousering) by using verbs instead of nouns. So instead of saying, "user friendly" you could say, "easy to use". No person mentioned, ha ha.

Even when the word is neuter and shouldn't really offend anyone, such as the German word for "members", die Mitglieder,  there is  a widespread insistence of putting both feminine and masculine endings on it, which is grammatically absurd.

But I don't think you can have your neuter cake and eat it, even if it is in a good cause. Just have pity on the poor foreign students trying to get their heads around all of this gender bending. The words get really really long and you often have to write two words instead of one.

What if everything was a that? Not a who's that, as Henry would say, but a what's that?

Everything could become neuter including people, which could not only solve hours of soul searching over political correctness, but also alleviate the headaches of millions of students studying German as a foreign language everywhere.

German teachers could go on a sabbatical and learn all the Latin names of flowers if they felt bored.

And now that German just got easy peasy, all those students could use their time in other productive ways. Like figuring out when it is appropriate to address someone as "Sie"(formal) or "Du"(informal) in German.

Hang on a minute. Cancel that sabbatical. Hyacinthus Orientalis is going to have to wait.