I Am Not A Doughnut

JFK famously said "Ich bin ein Berliner", which caused journalists in Berlin to have a little fun at his expense. He was trying to say "I am a Berliner", a man from Berlin. What he probably didn’t know was that a Berliner is a local doughnut.

I didn’t actually want to make the same mistake so, while speaking pigeon German on my recent trip, I opted not to repeat the words of Mr Kennedy. We did actually try a couple of local doughnuts and very nice they were too.

We arrived in Berlin on Monday 3rd November, with absolutely no idea that the following Sunday (9th November) would mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I would have loved to have been there for that but the chances are that we would probably have struggled to find a hotel room. By travelling a week earlier we could experience the atmosphere of the city as they prepared for this momentous occasion.

I had missed Germany.

My previous visit there was thirty years ago when I attended the Oktoberfest in Munich. As I walked out of the train station at Alexanderplatz, I recalled just how friendly Germans were.  When I asked locals if they spoke English (mainly so that I didn’t embarrass myself for with poor German) they usually tried to accommodate me ("Ja – I speak a little”).

Of course, if they said “Nein”, which some did, then it was up to me to trawl my memory for words placed there almost forty years ago by my German teacher at school.

Mostly it worked. I was able to make myself understood on the occasion that I had to (although grammatically it was probably totally incorrect).

I am also trying to incorporate a scary thing in my life and on this trip I saw an opportunity. I had vowed never to climb a high building again and when Mrs PM told me about the Fernsehtrum (TV tower) I reminded her of this promise. The Fernsehturm is in the heart of East Berlin and very close to where we were staying. Standing at 1207 feet, it dominates Berlin and is visible from most areas of the city.

You're going to climb that? Really?

When I saw it, I gulped and had an inner battle with myself. Could I briefly overcome my fear of heights to experience amazing views of the city? Or should I sit in a bar at the base while Mrs PM took the lift to the top and allowed me to experience the views second-hand via the camera?

I decided to scare myself and go for it.

And I’m glad I did because I discovered something about my fear. As long as I am indoors and protected from the outside by glass I can tolerate the fear. At the top of the tower, I smiled with relief when I realised that I could stand slightly back from the windows and see the city for myself. Of course, Mrs PM still had to take the photographs but at least I knew my limits.

After that, we spent the rest of the day and the following two days, strolling around the city visiting churches, monuments and the odd museum.

Highlights of the trip include:

We visited the Brandenburg Gate where they were preparing for a big concert to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall (Mauerfall). I discovered that in a major exercise of détente, the East and West sides of Berlin clubbed together and restored this magnificent arch after the serious damage that it sustained during World War 2. Sadly, this was before everything went pear-shaped, resulting in the Berlin Wall being constructed.

The Reichstag building is another masterpiece. Now home of the German government it is a very beautiful and imposing edifice.

The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall dominated our trip though and we were introduced to some very harrowing stories about people who had tried to cross the barrier from the East into the West. The one thing that struck me in particular was the sheer size of the wall. It’s hard for me to believe that all of this happened in my own lifetime.

As part of the celebrations of the demise of the wall, a “frontier of lights” (Lichgrenze) was erected consisting of thousands of illuminated lights marking a segment of the wall. We saw some of the preparations for this as we strolled along parts of East Berlin where the wall stood.

On a lighter note, of course, we sampled traditional German food, beer and wine, from Currywurst to homely German winter food, served in cosy restaurants that resembled fancy pubs in England, It was nice to wash it down with a reasonable amount of German beer. We even found a tiny German style market in Potsdamer Platz.

Berlin itself is constantly changing. We noticed lots of building work, roadworks etc. and once again I was struck by German hospitality and friendliness.

It was nice to visit them again  and I think I will be back soon.

In the meantime, here are some photos from our visit.

St Nickolai-Kirche - Two steeples for the price of one.

Berlin as seen from the Fernsehturm. Mrs PM took this - I couldn't.

Modern Berlin complete with skyscraper

A fantastic German restaurant

Brandenburg Gate being prepared for the anniversary

The Reichstag in all its glory

Berlin Cathedral and the river Spree

A section of the Berlin Wall that remains intact

Two unfortunate victims of the Cold War

Checkpoint Charlie

If you are going to have a Trabant, decorate it like this

A Thousand Words

A couple of months ago, I read an article on the BBC website about a campaign called The 1000 Word Campaign, which was created to encourage British people to learn at least 1000 words of another language.

The campaign was born out of concerns that we, as a nation, have extremely poor language skills and as a result we are losing out on international business opportunities and jobs as a result.

I have to say that I whole-heartedly agree with this, not necessarily the fear that we are struggling to win business abroad but because, generally, your average Brit can barely string together a sentence in a foreign language.

We have become lazy. We are spoiled because we can converse with Americans and Australians easily enough and a lot of European countries speak at least a smattering of English, certainly enough to be able to have a simple conversation with an English speaker.

You can pop to Holland and have a fantastic conversation in English with many people.  The thing is, I would like to be able to chat to a Dutch person in their own language rather than English or at least flip between the two.

In my last post about school, I lamented my choices not to pursue French to fluency. The next part of that particular post will also mention German, a language I studied for three years but again forgot as soon as I had the chance to give it up.

I am better than a large percentage of my fellow countrymen. My French is passable and I have survived numerous trips to Zurich where German is the spoken tongue, being able to ask for my hotel key, order coffee, read a menu and even order food.

However I am far from fluent and had to carry a dictionary with me all of the time so that I could cope with unexpected needs. I certainly couldn’t chat with people in German other than to impress them with odd words stolen from the lyrics of Rammstein songs, such as zerstören (which means to destroy - typical of a Rammstein song). In fact Rammstein songs have helped my vocabulary, albeit with words that I probably would struggle to use in a conversation given my limited German.

My French vocabulary is more impressive than my German but I still struggle to hold a conversation with a French person, simply because it is difficult to understand their accent and words that are delivered at approximately 1000mph towards my ear.

I have managed to make myself understood but as soon as the person has replied, my brain has failed to understand the words I heard, spoken at such a velocity that I could barely decipher them, let alone trawl my addled mind for their meaning.

This is the one flaw with the 1000 word campaign; being able to understand a native speaker.

I have spoken to some foreigners in English and they have had to ask me to speak more slowly so that they can understand the words I am saying. And I always thought I spoke pretty slowly anyway.

Obviously I don’t.

I am taking slow steps to improve and have started to take steps.

For the past year or so I have been stumbling along trying to teach myself a brand new language: Spanish.

And slowly but surely I am picking it up.

Well, when I say “picking it up”, I mean forgetting fewer words and allowing more of them to stick in my addled memory.

The secret to learning a new language is to stick with it and practice as often as you can. And for the past few months I have tried to step up a gear and at least try to pick up the basic elements of the language every single day – even if it for just ten or fifteen minutes.

What I have discovered is that words slip out your mind but return when you look them up again – and eventually they stick.

I am using a free online tool for the past couple of months to help me and it does seem to be working slowly. I have managed to retain a whole bunch of new words although I have forgotten a few I learned last year. The tool keeps a running total of the words you learn and throws phrases and sentences at you over and over again until some of them stick.

According to the tool I have learned over 600 Spanish words. In reality, I imagine the total is a lot less than that simply because I sometimes fail to get questions right when I test myself.

But it’s a start.

The tool also includes other languages, including German and French and my aim is to reacquaint myself with those languages too – but as a background activity.

The internet does help. There is a plethora of material out there as well as a huge proportion of Spanish television, articles, blogs etc. for me to delve into if and when I feel confident enough to do so.

The one problem I have is that I do not know any native Spanish speakers who can help me to understand everyday speech and make myself understood when I try to ask for a meal in terrible Spanish with a pseudo Mancunian-Black Country accent.

I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Learning a language is difficult, I can’t deny that, but the rewards are magnificent. Whenever I travel I try to master a couple of phrases in the local language just to let people know that I have made an effort.
I can order beer, say “Please”, “Thank you”, “Hello” and “Goodbye” in Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Dutch and even Japanese.

And even though my vocabulary is limited to one or two phrases, the local people really seem to appreciate the effort.

And yes – I can say the same words in American and Australian too. I might even try to write my next blog post in one of those two languages.

How about you, dear reader?

Can you speak a foreign language? 

If so which and how fluently?

Mind Your Language

Fear not – this is not a post about swearing.

Instead it is a little confession about one of my regrets; my lack of fluency in another language.

I speak a very limited amount of German, a little more French and, if it were still spoken, I could get by in Latin. Sadly, for me, I was coached in these languages thirty or so years ago at school and the knowledge has been replaced by other, seemingly more important information over the years – stupid stuff like the lyrics to songs – you know what I mean.

I’ve just returned from a business trip to Zurich, a place I have visited many times before. It’s a wonderful city and the Swiss are one of the friendliest people in Europe, if not the world. In Zurich, the official language is German, although really it is Swiss German, almost a different language. I hadn’t been there for eighteen months, and had visited enough to actually start picking up snippets of German again. In those eighteen months, however, the snippets I had acquired had been replaced by yet more song lyrics.

As I was waiting in the airport to return home to Manchester, I began to reflect on the previous week. I had been working in the office, listening to the guys speaking German and then switching to English in order to accommodate me. A lot of these guys were fairly fluent in a couple of languages and I began to feel inadequate, so much so, that I started to try converse with them in very poor German. They were quite impressed that I had made the attempt but it became apparent very soon after I had uttered the first words that my vocabulary was extremely limited. I soon switched back to my native English. I was filled with disappointment.

It was so different when I was younger. At the age of 21, I left university and had the entire summer before entering into the rat race. I decided to have one last adventure and set off for a four week jaunt around Europe with two friends. At that point, my French and German were both strong enough to make myself understood and . My friends weren’t quite so good though. I nominated myself to do most of the conversing in France and they agreed. I managed to speak to Parisians in their mother tongue and could understand them too. I was filled with a feeling of pride and achievement. Alas, one of my friends, a guy called Chris, decided that he would attempt to speak French as well, a bold gesture in city like Paris if your French is not up to scratch.

Paris is a beautiful city but I have always found Parisians a little stubborn. If you walk up to a Parisian and say “Parlez-vous anglais?”, they tend to stare at you with a look of utter contempt and say “Non!”. You have to make the effort. In their eyes, you are in the capital of France therefore you must speak French. So Chris, not a shy lad, grasped the nettle and attempted to speak French as much and as often as he could. Sadly, his vocabulary then was far worse than mine is now and he frequently confused and shocked Parisians, as well as making them howl with laughter.

For example, as we were leaving Paris to head south on a train, we discovered that each carriage was absolutely full. We walked the length of the train looking for a compartment with three spaces and were just about to give up, when Chris spotted one. He opened the door and saw several old people, who stared at him with disgust (we were travelling light and probably looked a complete mess). Chris, being ever so polite but bold, gestured at the three seats and said:

“Le corridor – il pleut.”

Basically he told them that it was raining in the corridor. Some laughed at him; the rest stared at each other and said “Huh?”

I intervened and asked them if we could sit down. They reluctantly agreed but openly talked about us whilst sniggering at Chris. I understood a fair amount of what they said and they were criticizing our lack of French, even though we had at least tried.

I’ve been to Paris and other places in France on several occasions since then and have always tried to speak the language. As the years have passed, however, my ability to remember the words has diminished and I have had to resort to a pocket dictionary or a phrase book. Happily, in the last ten years my job has been made a lot easier because Mrs PM speaks French almost to fluency. She’s a little rusty these days but she can hold a decent conversation with your average French person. On a recent trip to Bordeaux, she was taking snaps for her photography course, when a woman started talking to her. The conversation was fascinating, mostly because Mrs PM was laughing and making the other woman laugh as well – not because of her poor French but because she was cracking jokes. How I envied her – I still do.

As far as German is concerened as I have said above, I have been to Zurich quite a few times over the past five years made a conscious effort to at least try to speak German outside the work environment. In the past, I have managed to ask for my room key, order food, order beer, buy train tickets and even have attempted to switch to German when talking to other people, switching to English only when I have had to. The more often I have been, the more progress I have made. Sadly, though, lack of practice makes you forget and this last trip was frustrating because I had reverted to having to ask for things in English again.

I still make an effort, whenever I visit a foreign place, even if I don’t know the language. In Moscow, for example, I learned a few choice phrases that helped me out.

“Two beers” – “два пиво “ (pronounced – “dva piva”)

“Thank you” – “Спасибо” (pronounced “spassiba”)

“Hi” – “Привет “ (pronounced “preevyet”)

I was stuck in Moscow in the middle of a harsh winter, with temperatures of minus 20 degrees and managed to find my way around the city, by learning how to pronounce the Russian alphabet. Sadly, speaking the above phrases only helped in a bar, so I ended up drunk.

Sometimes, attempting to speak a foreign language can be embarrassing (as Chris had discovered). In Beijing, I was in a restaurant with Mrs PM eating crispy duck, having had a few beers. Obviously nature had to take its course and I had no idea where the toilet was. In the end I had to ask a waiter. I waited until one of the male waiters walked past and pointed out the word "toilet" in the phrase book. He began to explain in Mandarin but I just stared at him like a lost kitten. He realised that I had no idea what he was saying and beckoned me to follow him. Feeling strangely courageous, mainly due to a little alcohol, I decided to practice the word as we walked. The phrase book had an English pronunciation for the word and I attempted to say it to him. He smiled and said the word properly. I repeated it and got it slightly wrong, so he repeated it again. This continued all the way across the restaurant when I finally pronounced it in an acceptable fashion. Just then, I noticed that a lot of people were staring at me with an ill-concealed look of mirth on their faces. I couldn't work out what was so funny. And then I realised; I had just walked across the restaurant with a Chinese waiter saying the word "toilet" very loudly and very badly and very often to him. He in turn had responded with the word "toilet". They had witnessed two grown men marching across a restaurant shouting "toilet" at each other. No wonder the patrons were laughing. Slightly embarrassed, I smiled at a couple seated next to the lavatory, pointed to the door and said "toilet" in Mandarin. I thought the woman would have a seizure. Her hand covered her mouth and she grunted and snorted, trying to give me the impression that she was choking on her food. The man stifled a laugh but nodded approvingly, simply, I hoped, because I had made an effort.

Ultimately, when we retire Mrs PM and I may want to spend a lot more time in France. If I can find the time beforehand, I will make an attempt to re-learn French to fluency. I may even have a go at improving my German. I don’t think it’s too late to try – I just need to fight another battle against my willpower and fill this particular void. I sense an oncoming war against procrastination.

Thankfully, this year our trips abroad include America and that’s a country where I can speak the language almost fluently. I need to get to grips with words like “faucet”, “sidewalk”, “diaper” and “garbage” to master the language fully.