Weimar Bemerkungen

This week we travelled to Weimar on a group excursion. For those of you not familiar with German history, Weimar is significant because it is the center of a significant number of developments in German history and culture. Some highlights:

Goethe's main residence
the Bauhaus University and founding location
Franz Liszt's main composition town
seat of the German government between WWI and WWII
and so much more!

But what I found most interesting about this town is just how much it embraces its status as one of the most culturally significant places in Germany.
This may be displayed by using Goethe to advertise the local favorite Schwarzbier, as seen here. It makes me wonder: Did Goethe really drink Köstritzer? (actually, yes) or perhaps by posting plaques outside of every building that ever had a famous person reside there, even if the building is no longer standing... In any case, is it really so important to remember the past in this manner? I can appreciate museums and monuments just fine, but sometimes I feel as though some of the effort put into memorializing the past could possibly be better used to develop the present.

On a side note, I encountered an amusing example of the striving to recreate the past in Eisenach, at the Bach museum. In this town, a house is attached to the museum and is called the 'Bach House'. Ironically, they discovered some years after the construction of the museum that Bach never actually lived in this house. But rather than try to memorialize him in a place he actually lived, they opted to be very specific with the language used in the Bach house, displaying "furniture that was owned by someone who lived at the same time as the Bach family" and "a copy of the book that was so prevalent in this time that Bach is sure to have owned one".

German Word for the Post: Bemerkung
Definition: observation, note
Pronunciation: buh-MARE-koong

Bureaucracy: an anecdote

Today I began the process to formally become a student at the Technische Universität in Berlin. I thought it would be simple, and it was, for the most part, but there was also a small snafu: Apparently, the payment that Friederike, the Duke program assistant brought along, was 0.08€ short, because the cost of a semester had recently been raised(raising the cost by 0.08€ per student seems pointless, but I suppose when you have 15,000-20,000 students it's not. Also, it's better than the US tuition hikes.) And the person with whom we were meeting was not permitted to receive this payment (the other 206€ was in some sort of payment statement already). Instead, she had to wander to another area of the building, where the Kasse was. There, she paid 0.08€ and got a stamp on the already printed receipt signifying that it was now the correct amount. This procedure probably doubled the length of our meeting (~5 min. to 10+). And although it wasn't truly a problem, I think she would have appreciated not having to do it. So ist das Leben in Deutschland...

Word for the Post: die Bürokratie
Translation: Bureaucracy
Pronunciation: Actually the same, except the last syllable. (tie = tee)

Efficiency

Here in Germany, there is a reputation for efficiency. This "German Efficiency" is world-renowned (I was even a member of a Facebook group celebrating this phenomenon) and regarded as one of the best models for social interactions, work, public transportation, and many more facets of the lives of the German citizens. After living here for a couple months, I've observed a few examples of this golden standard of Wirksamkeit

Example One: Language
The first couple examples I have stem from my grammar class. These are both genitive(a case-we don't have these in English) prepositions, and can be used to contract an entire phrase or sentence into a single word. Seitens prefaces a phrase with "In the opinion of" or "from the point of view of", so a phrase like "from the point of view of the Democrats" could be shortened to "seitens der Demokraten" Efficiency Count = Deutsch +5. That's pretty good.

The next one is another genitive preposition, this time "kraft". This kind of translates to "in virtue of" but a much better explanation is as "By the power vested in me by". So we can make another comparison, using the marriage vow : "By the power vested in me by the State of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you man and wife (or man and man, if you so prefer) Auf Deutsch, "Kraft der Stadt Massachusetts seid ihr jetzt Mann und Frau"Efficiency Count = Deutsch +8 Even better.

During my rides on the wonderful U-Bahn (subway) here, I've noticed a message that is occasionally played before the arrival in certain stations, which goes something like "Bitte beachten Sie beim Aussteigen die Lücke zwischen Fahrzeug und Bahnsteigkante"
English Translation: "Mind the Gap"
Oh. That's the wrong direction. Looks like this German Efficiency is a little more complicated than expected...

German Word for the Post: Wirksamkeit
Pronunciation: Veerk-zahm-KITE
Definition: See title

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.