Because it’s sometimes hard to remember that in German you have fear FOR something (Angst vor), and you take medicine AGAINST an illness (gegen). You travel WITH the bus (mit dem Bus) and works of literature are FROM Goethe (von). And there are no rules to learn them, it’s a matter of Sprachgefühl.

It’s kind of interesting to see each language’s slight twist on thisidea. In English, you are most likely to hear ’sister city’. In German it is ‘Partnerstadt’, and French ‘ville jumelage’ ( both gender neutral, how politically correct). In the former Soviet bloc, they were (somewhat tellingly) known as ‘brother cities’.

What I was most curious about is the process involved in acquiring partner city status. Is there an official process, or does one city just flick another an email saying “I’ve noticed you around, I think you’re pretty cool - want to be sister cities?”. Or maybe that’s a little too forward. Perhaps there’s a kind of personals page for towns ‘Seeking Sister City’… “looking for a good, mid-sized town, preferably European. Must have a sense of humor and basic infrastructure. Pop. preferred: 40 - 50,000.”

Here are the rules:

1. Provide a link to the person who threw you the stick. (Check!) (Setze einen Link zu der Person, welche Dir das Stöckchen zugeworfen hat.)

2. Outline the rules in your blog. (Check!) (Erwähne die dazugehörigen Regeln in Deinem Blog.)

3. Explain 6 unimportant things/habits/quirks. (Erzähle von Dir 6 unwichtige Dinge/Gewohnheiten/Macken.)

4. Pass the stick to 6 more people through a link at the end of your answer. (Gib das Stöckchen am Ende Deiner Antworten an 6 Leute durch Verlinkung weiter.)

5. Leave a comment on each chosen person’s blog/website letting them know they’ve been tagged. (Hinterlasse bei der jeder der gewählten Personen einen Kommentar in ihrem Blog/Website, dass sie “getagged” wurden.)

So without further ado, here are six of my Macken:

1. I am a grammar nerd. Those who read this blog probably already know it. But I’m like Ross from Friends, the kind of person who will say “to WHOM”.

1. Ich bin einen Grammatikfreak. Die Leute, die dieses Blog lesen, wissen es wahrscheinlich schon. Aber ich bin ganz wie Ross aus Friends, der Mensch, die immer „WEM” sagt.

2. I have a secret shame: celebrity gossip. Yep, I visit Perezhilton.com almost as much as I check my email. There. I said it.

2. Ich habe eine geheime Scham: Starnews. Ja, ich besuche Perezhilton.com fast so oft wie ich meine Mail checken. Jetzt ist es gesagt.

3. I love peanut butter. It is pretty much my favourite food. Most Germans think it’s gross, but I have it on toast, on bananas, on apples, and… straight from the tub on a spoon! Oh the shame!

3. Ich liebe Erdnusscreme. Die ist wohl mein Lieblingsessen. Die meisten Deutschen finde es eklig, aber ich geniesse sie auf Toast, auf Bananen, auf Apfeln, und… gelöfflet direkt aus dem Becher! Die Scham!

4. My big toe has a life of its own. When I concentrate very hard, e.g. when cooking or doing anything vaguely mathematical, it becomes almost vertical, like an antenna. I don’t even know it’s happening. Weird, right?

4. Meinen Großzeh hat sein Eigenleben. Wenn ich mich intensiv auf etwas konzentrieren, z.B. wenn ich koche oder etwas entfernt mathematisch unternehmen, er wird hoch, wie eine Antenne. Ich erkenne überhaput nicht, das es passiert. Komisch, oder?

5. My pet hate is soggy bread. It doesn’t often happen, but sometimes you see a discarded sandwich, and it’s been raining, and… ew.

5. Was mich wirklich nervt, ist feuchtes Brot. Diese Phänome passiert nicht so oft, aber manchmal sieht man ein abgelegtes Sandwich wenn es geregnet gerade hat, und… igitt.

6. I am extreeeeeemly ticklish. It is a great weakness, causing me to lose many an argument with friends and family. I feel that it’s safe to reveal this information in the blogosphere, away from physical proximity.

And here’s who I’m tagging: Phil @ Phil’s Blogging, Funkypenguin @ Kiwification, Eurojism, Headbang8 @ Deutschland über Elvis, Garbo009 @ Einfach Klasse and of course the famous 42317 @ CodeAlpha! I encourage all to put their own spin on it (linguistic or otherwise!)

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Typical Miss V overconfidence - I thought: “Spanish! Que facil!”. Then I got 42%. Shame.

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 hydrogen atoms (I mean water of course!). I was oh-so-politely asked once if I wanted my water “mit oder ohne Sprudel“. The next time I was asked if I wanted it “prickelnd“. Again I was asked, but this time it was all about “Kohlensäure“. Oh Germany, why must you confuse with your manifold words for fizz?

In another funny fizz tale, on a different Lufthansa flight last year, the flight attendant spoke to me in English and asked me if I wanted my water “with sprinkles”. How cute! Not wanting water with candy sprinkled on the top, I politely declined.

Stay tuned for a New Zealand update… (yep, there are still lots of sheep!)

When I described this hellish travel itinerary to an English-speaker (not in Germany), I said I would be “soooooooo long unterwegs.” Not “on the go”. Not “in the air”. Not that I would be “travelling for a long time.” Unterwegs. The German word. It just slipped in there! Do you speakers of another language find that this happens from time to time? I sure do, it’s how Deutschlisch was born. Unterwegs is just such a great word, there’s no English one like it. I guess I’ll just have to start realising that when Englischers are staring at me blankly, it’s time to get translating!

My pop quiz on some common false friends/falsche Freunde/faux amis for people trying to learn Deutsch. I know I’ve slipped up on them, especially at 6.30am.

In fact, it seems that back in the day, it was reasonably common for musicians to sing their hits in foreign languages. The Beatles sang Geh Raus (seemingly less popular than the original Get Back), and who knew that David Bowie (in the guise of Ziggy Stardust) sang Space Oddity in Italian - or should I say Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola?

I know what you’re thinking, and I thought it too - no, these musical geniuses (genii? genies? Ah who knows) were not also linguistic genuises. They actually learnt the foreign ditty off-by-heart, taught by a native language coach. I wonder how convinced the Deutschies were by the Man in Black’s attempt to speak their language? You can listen to his attempt (as well as those of the others) here, and sing along with the lyrics here. Now you can hassle Johnny Cash’s German language skills instead of mine!

I finally got my 19th-Century brain around podcasting, so if you click here you can access Miss V in the iTunes store, or this will subscribe you to the podcasts directly. (Note to the dedicated followers: I’m starting from the Schwarzfahrer video.)

While I struggle to get my head around the technology, the word ‘podcast’ itself I find interesting. The ever-reliable friend Wiki tells us that the word is a portmanteau of ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’ - which is obvious enough given that iPods were the first portable entertainment device to receive these little transmissions.

This got me thinking about portmanteaux in general - where two words are mashed together to make a new word (neologism!). English is full of them - whether it be reading an ‘advertorial’ (an advertising editorial feature), looking at a ‘pixel’ (PICture-ELement), or catching up on celebrity gossip and the lives of Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, of course!)

While I could go on listing them in English, I have no idea about German portmanteaux. So German-speakers: Are there any? What are they? Top marks for funny/cool entries!

When you go and drink a couple of beers at a friend’s house before a big party, that’s a Vorglühen. When you imbibe a gin and tonic or two before the society ball, yep, that’s a Vorglühen. And if you drink some pre-mixed vodka cranberries before hitting the club… you better believe that’s a Vorglühen.

My American colleague described it as “the pre-game”, but in British/Australian/NZ English, I’m not sure there’s such a cool translation. I mean, sure, you can have some “pre-drinks” before you go out. But it’s got nothing on Vorglühen. Any suggestions for a translation from the English speakers out there?