To date my German knowledge has been advancing quite steadily. I now have no problems interacting in everyday situations and can even have some quite decent conversations on varied topics with my german friends and Colleagues. I have however made a few humorous mistakes...
The first one was when I was relating to a friend that I had watched "Aschenbrödel" (Cinderella) in german the previous night. In my excitment I neglected to pay the attention to pronunciation that was needed in this situation and I elongated the "A" sound at the start of the word. An easy mistake to make and one might think "not that big a deal". My friend, however, stared at me quizzically with a smirk on his face, prompting me to scan over what I had just said. You see the difference in sound between the word for ash - Asche, and the word for a persons derriere: Arsch is quite small, but i'm sure that "Arschenbrödel" is a completely different type of movie altogether!
I moved to Köln in the middle of summer and was immediately struck by the level of humidity. I reminded me of a sticky Sydney summers day. I immediately looked up the word for Humid and discovered it to be "schwül". At language class the following week I made a comment about how "schwul" the weather was, to which the teacher replied with a giggle. Sensing that my sentence had not had the intended meaning I inquired as to where I'd gone wrong. The two little dots above the U was where I had gone wrong. Such a small difference but it changes the sound from U as in "Pull" to U as in "Hugh" and changes the meaning from Humid/Muggy to......... Gay! The irony is, it was the day after the Christopher Street Parade (Huge gay festival) and if I'd said my sentence the day before I would have been correct no matter which way I said it!
Shortly after I started working at the Opera I overheard a conversation where two elderly Germans were talking about the "Abo" that they'd just bought for the Opera. I was horrified that A: they were using such an outdated and racist word, and B: there seemed to be a people smuggling operation where my native countrymen were being purchased by Germans to be put to work in some aspect of the Opera. It was probably instigated under the Howard regime but I thought since K Rudd's apology that this sort of thing would have been stamped out. I was horrified and spent my train ride home wondering whether to call the Embassy or the Police first. Just to be on the safe side I decided to consult my dictionary upon arriving home. Imagine my relief when I discovered that in German "Abo" is short for Abonnement which is in fact a Subscription! Still, I wouldn't have put it past that nasty old Howard!
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