Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone
Actually, the sun shone for three days in a row when Dolores was in the hospital. Unfortunately, I was fighting a cold so I slept in most mornings and missed half the daylight. I visited Dolores twice a day, most days, and I worked away feverishly on my dissertation, which must be handed in on January 15th.
Today I thought I would talk about all of the little mistakes that foreigners (like myself) make. We'll that's too broad of a topic, so I'll limit myself to linguistic mistakes. You've already heard about Dolores' house battle. Unfortunately, I don't have anything quite so funny to report. But anyway, here they are.
1) On our first day in town, I went up to a rather attractive young waitress arranging tables at a sidewalk cafe, and I asked, "Are you open?" She said -- thankfully with a smile -- "No, I am not open. But the restaurant...something...something...blah,blah...opened." I wasn't sure what my mistake was. At first, I thought my mistake stemmed from using the word "you" to refer to the restaurant. Of course, we do this in English, but the Germans are often more literal or exact than we are. It turns out, however, that this was not my mistake. My mistake was using the verb "to be" instead of the the verb "to have," and using the word "open" instead of "opened." I should have said: "Have you opened?" Unlike in English, however, this question asks about a current state, not about a past event. So one can also ask: "When have you opened?" to find out what the general hours are. So what had I actually asked the waitress? I asked if she was frank or direct. Apparently she is not. Strange that in all my years of German class and my time in Munich, I never learned how to ask if a restaurant is open.
2) I just realized the other day that for the first two months I've been pronouncing the word "euro" as "your-o" rather than "oy-row." (I just mentioned this difference to Dolores, because I was only 90% sure that "oy-row" is actually correct. After some reflection, we both think it is. Still, how many times have we heard this word? And we still kept saying "your-o."
We'll there are plenty more mistakes, but I'll save some for later.
Today I thought I would talk about all of the little mistakes that foreigners (like myself) make. We'll that's too broad of a topic, so I'll limit myself to linguistic mistakes. You've already heard about Dolores' house battle. Unfortunately, I don't have anything quite so funny to report. But anyway, here they are.
1) On our first day in town, I went up to a rather attractive young waitress arranging tables at a sidewalk cafe, and I asked, "Are you open?" She said -- thankfully with a smile -- "No, I am not open. But the restaurant...something...something...blah,blah...opened." I wasn't sure what my mistake was. At first, I thought my mistake stemmed from using the word "you" to refer to the restaurant. Of course, we do this in English, but the Germans are often more literal or exact than we are. It turns out, however, that this was not my mistake. My mistake was using the verb "to be" instead of the the verb "to have," and using the word "open" instead of "opened." I should have said: "Have you opened?" Unlike in English, however, this question asks about a current state, not about a past event. So one can also ask: "When have you opened?" to find out what the general hours are. So what had I actually asked the waitress? I asked if she was frank or direct. Apparently she is not. Strange that in all my years of German class and my time in Munich, I never learned how to ask if a restaurant is open.
2) I just realized the other day that for the first two months I've been pronouncing the word "euro" as "your-o" rather than "oy-row." (I just mentioned this difference to Dolores, because I was only 90% sure that "oy-row" is actually correct. After some reflection, we both think it is. Still, how many times have we heard this word? And we still kept saying "your-o."
We'll there are plenty more mistakes, but I'll save some for later.
1 comment:
It actually is oy-row ;-).
Schade, dass wir Euch nicht mehr sehen bevor wir abreisen. Aber ich bin so froh, dass es Euch gut geht! Ganz liebe Grüsse aus Freiburg.
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