A Useful German Phrase

I happened upon an interesting phrase as I was playing Doppelkopf (I'll try to explain this one later) here, and I'm not sure it has an English equivalent. The phrase is "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof" or "nur Bahnhof verstehen", and translates exactly to "I only understand the train station". I think it's pretty close to saying something is "over your head" or similar in English, but it essentially means you have no idea what is going on and/or what was just said.

According to our grammar professor, Jörg Sohst (who tells great stories, although I'm not entirely sure about the veracity of all of them), it stems from the first days of P.A. systems in train stations. Initially, they had one large loudspeaker for the entire train station, which was great if you were the optimal distance from it, but any further and you would probably hear something akin to an adult speaking in Charlie Brown: "wohn woahwn waowahn wah -Bahnhof- waohsn wah..." thus the 'I only understood Bahnhof from that message'. Of course now, the PA systems are better and we can hear much more than Bahnhof, but the phrase stuck.

Thus, the word for today: Bahnhof (BAHN-hof)

Bahn - the a sound in ahhhh

hof- replace the -pe in 'hope' with an f.

Translation: Train Station.

Introduction

So I have a blog now, which feels a bit weird... I can say right now that I won't be talking much about my daily activities or posting those sorts of updates, so if that's what you're looking for, send me an email or Skype me or something. I'd much rather post information I find noteworthy, which may include daily activities, the stories told by my grammar professor (they are quite good), or random conjectures about cultural differences and so on. This may be short-lived, or last pretty much the length of my stay. We'll see how it goes.

Also, because I predict that most of my readers will be primarily english speakers, I'll probably add a german word or two per post. Just to help you learn the language. Also, I don't know how to properly describe pronunciation with the right characters, so similar-sounding words will be used.

German word for the day: Einleitung (Ein-lei-tung)

ein as in fine

lei as in lie

tung as in ... toong

definition: see post title.