Days of Nations

Monday was Bastille day in France. So, if you watched the right television, or happened to be in Paris, you would have seen the most spectacular display of fireworks over the Champs-Élysées. In fact, Europe does a pretty good run in National Commemoration Days. The Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day, [...]

Germany, land of the Future

Who needs the land of the free when you have the land of the efficient? Following on from the world’s first automated restaurant, did you know that Real has opened ‘The Future Store’? No, you don’t get to shop on hovercrafts or buy or your meal in convenient pill form (although they do [...]

Cool kids learn Deutsch!

Feeling pretty pleased with myself for learning German right now… I was just reading that the Steinke institute in Bonn has come up with a fancy-schmancy formula to convert the Gross National Product of a country in 2025 into its power within the world, and therefore the importance of its language. And guess [...]

Who knew Hamburg and Auckland were related?

Doing a little research into German-New Zealand relations (the things I do for you!), I found out that Auckland, New Zealand boasts li’l ol’ Hamburg as one of its sister cities. In fact, Germany actually pioneered the concept of sister cities/twin towns/friendship towns.
It’s kind of interesting to see each language’s slight twist on thisidea. [...]

Discovering Neuseeland: German culture in NZ (video)

Join me as I report live from New Zealand, and uncover some pockets of German culture along the way.

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miss-verstaendnis.com%2F2008%2F05%2F30%2Fdiscovering-neuseeland-german-culture-in-nz%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Discovering+Neuseeland%3A+German+culture+in+NZ+%28video%29′;
addthis_pub = ”;

The Sprudel Question

In between providing me with blankets and reading material and feeding me soggy vegetables in inidentifiable sauce, the lovely Lufthansa lady who looked after me for 10 hours sometime during the last 48 also offered me many a drink. Being a responsible air traveller, I stayed hydrated with lots of oxygen accompanied by 2 [...]

Unterwegs!

You’ll have to bear with me here, as I am about to undergo the 30+ hours’ travel that it takes to get to New Zealand. You see, I am paying a quick visit to family and friends on those little islands down there, and it just so happens that it is pretty much the [...]

Txt ok & ‘wont hrt kids’

Remember when I looked into the increasing use of SMS language recently? Well, the plot thickens. A recent University of Toronto study says that using text slang will not hinder kids’ linguistic development, but rather presents an “expansive new linguistic renaissance”.
Hmmm, I’m not so sure about that. While SMS abbreviations may not statistically [...]

Further evidence of umlaut abuse!

I found this and just couldn’t resist. As I was flicking through an English cuisine magazine (WHAT! It’s hard to find English-language magazines here!), just look at what I found.

Which LOLCAKAOPULIA will volunteer to write a firmly worded letter defending the umlaut?

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miss-verstaendnis.com%2F2008%2F05%2F10%2Ffurther-evidence-of-umlaut-abuse%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Further+evidence+of+umlaut+abuse%21′;
[...]

Attention World Travellers!

I thought that since the readers of the blog seem to be worldy folk, that you all might like to test your knowledge of various countries’ names auf Deutsch. Achtung: it’s not as easy as it seems!

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miss-verstaendnis.com%2F2008%2F05%2F07%2Fattention-world-travellers%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Attention+World+Travellers%21′;
addthis_pub [...]