Aeric Winter, the man who prompted my original Prefixated video, comes over all Miss V as he teaches how to phonetically pronounce his name: “Andreas”. A coup for every Andreas who is sick of having his name mispronounced!

I teach how to (badly?) pronounce a German sentence:
Ich habe mein eigenes Rad. (I have my own bike.)

The pronunciation might not be perfect, but you’ll be understood - which I think is the most important part!

I explain once and for all the mysteries of that odd sound coming from the mouths of Kiwis.

**due to technical difficulties, this video from last week could only just be posted now. Enjoy the belated goodness!**

Laugh at rather than with, as Miss V samples a splash of German tongue twisters (Zungenbrecher).

The Zungenbrecher are as follows:

Fischers Fritze fischt frische Fische;
Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritze.

Der Dachdecker deckt dein Dach, drum dank dem Dachdecker, der dein Dach deckt.

Am Zehnten Zehnten um zehn Uhr zehn zogen zehn zahme Ziegen zehn Zentner Zucker zum Zoo.

Good luck! 

Miss V, in a follow-up to her prefixation, muses on the lack of convenient acronyms in the German language.

Abbreviations make life so much easier. I mean, why bicycle around when you can bike? Why go to the trouble of saying celluar phone when you can just use your cell?

My good friend Herr Versteh-a-lot (who, like myself, is Deutschily challenged) has introduced me to the “abbrev.” (of course you have to abbreviate ‘abbreviation’!) for the German-speaking world.

So now we catch the ‘Ube’ (pronounced: ‘uub’) to a party instead of the U-Bahn, apologise for bumping into a stranger at the party with a quick ‘Schuldi!’ – much faster than Entschuldigung. And when you leave the party, it’s with a friendly “Tschüssi!” (although that’s not really an abbrev, but it’s kind of fun.)

It remains to be seen if these little kurzies will catch on among the Deutschies. But for now, they have their place in Deutschlisch!

Tschüssi!

Deutschlisch, on the other hand, is Miss V’s Great German-English Hybrid, used by those such as myself who have the English thing down, but the German sometimes just escapes. It officially means any English into which German words or phrasings creep, but sometimes can be applied to the haphazard mish-mash of German and English that Englischers such as myself use day-to-day.

Example from my good friend Herr Versteh-a-lot (while Schwarzfahring, actually!): “Is there a Typ steiging ein?” (Translation: “Is there a guy getting on?” - meaning of course a DeutscheBahn ticket inspector). Naughty!

Bis next mal!

Today I tied the room together with der rote Faden. Because Freitag = Wahnsinntag. Learning is fun!