deciphering german toilet talk
I love learning a second language. Using it is another matter.
The other day I wrote in a cover letter wherein I admitted that I am a criminal (gewieft). What I wanted to say was that I am experienced. Pff! Alex and his co-workers got a good laugh at my language faux pas.
Just like a kid, I sometimes have no idea when something is appropriate or not. Yet the adult in me tends to be a bit reserved and then I still don’t know. Years later, I’ll try something to ’spice up’ the ‘ol second lang. But having never learned in what content the word arises, my statements have the tendency to meet a raised eyebrow or worse, eyes of wild shock.
Take, for example, going to the toilet. When in doubt, say: Ich gehe auf die Toilette. This is the safe, foreigner path. People will probably forget you the next day, it’s so boring. Also, to delicately say something like ‘going to powder my nose’, say: Ich mache mich frisch.
Say you’re with your buds and being proper is equivalent to saying ‘my shit smells like roses’, you can tone it down with a, Ich gehe aufs Klo. Leave it to me to find a way to get a few snickers out of the locals. Somewhere I heard the word Dixi-Klo and thinking it meant slang for girl’s restroom, I thought I could use it at an upscale bar. Yet Dixi-Klo means port-o-let or porta-potty. Err. So much for being cute.
Here are other sayings I’ve learned in German for hitting the john, dropping the kids off at the pool, seeing a man about a horse, or wiping the dew off the lily. Is it just me or are most of these expressions more appropriate for men? I’m thinking this holds true for German euphemisms as well. See:
Kids will say: Ich mache Pipi.
Among good friends who like a lot of detail, you can say: Ich mache klein. (No. 1) or Ich mache groß. (No. 2) [If you don’t know the numbering system, No. 1 means to pee, No. 2 means to pooh. Just watch Austin Powers]
Mysterious and discreet: Ich muß mal verschwinden or Ich muß mal. I have to disappear or roughly, I have to go. Ich gehe mal um die Ecke. I’m going around the corner. (Never heard anyone use this yet.)
Idealized Mommy/Daddy types: Women: Ich muss mal für kleine Mädchen. I have to use the little girl’s room. Men: Ich muss mal für kleine Jungs.
and good ol’ trash talk: Ich gehe pissen (take a piss), ..gehe pinkeln (take a leak), ..muss kacken (take a crap), ..muss scheißen (take a shit)
Feel free to share any other English or German expressions for using the toilet. I’m sure this list just skims the surface.
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abandon ship!
You know. After all that work generating new images and a new layout color scheme, this blog looks like a pirate blog. The side link header backgrounds look like planks. Arrr. Walk the plank! Ha. This was not my intention and to hell if I’m going to mutiny on this pirate expat blog. I’ve learned a few tricks on this move and that’s what counts. But all in all, this site looks good to me. There is still a lot a work ahead but at least (as far as I know) all the links (that I have control over) work.
Last night Alex came home and changed his mind about having an |Al Bundy| night. A bit of surprise because I planned to have a little ladies night with Eva and Mandy at TTs German Stammtisch. In a way, I was relieved because sometimes these Stammtische are a little below my German ability and I end up playing teacher or it’s the same foreign speaker checklist: what’s your name?, where are you from?, how long have you lived here?, and what do you do?. It rarely gets beyond these questions before they all give up and switch to English.
Before we joined the German strugglers, we stopped by Eva’s for a drink and snob German. So reason I took some whiskey, since I was curious and Eva is my resident expert on good whiskey, having lived in Scotland for a spell. We talked about Erich Kästler and the popularity of “Das Doppelte Lottchen”. It finally came out that I know the story from the Disney film the “Parent trap”. As a kid, I loved the 1961 film with Hayley Mills. But then it showed my American side – how we are familiar with most things from TV or movies. But the whole conversation reminded me that I want to read Emil und die Detektive in German.
So the German Stammtisch was pleasantly better than expected, it must have been my whiskey breath that clouded my judgement. Mandy showed up with Muffin despite the rainy weather. Most people on our end of the table were seasoned expats and although the standard questions were asked it didn’t bother me. I ordered the chicken wings but they were the skinny frozen kind. So disappointing. Don’t order checking wings at Rick’s Cafe at Rotkreuzplatz. One guy said that they were saving the normal size chicken wings for the Oktoberfest. Some how I believe him. There is a buzz for a hefty Maß of beer like something fierce, at least among the expats.
We left at 10 pm, an early night, but Alex had to head to Regensburg in the morning and there was no point to staying any longer anyway. Besides, at 9:30 the strugglers gave up and started up the loud mouth English and my stomach was punching me for the whiskey.
After two years…I prefer a mind meld
Things have come full circle or maybe spiral. Major rains this week have caused major flooding in Switzerland just like they did two years ago in southern Bavaria. It’s just weird watching N24 or CNN, it’s deja vu and makes me realize that I’ve been here for over two years.
My head spins just thinking how much has changed since then – the way I talk in English or in German, I have no real accent that locates me to a particular region in the US. Although it’s clear I’m American. But hopefully you won’t pick that up in the first five minutes in a conversation in German. That’s my goal 
But hanging out with a couple of Canadians, I’m to through people off a bit. Eh! The way I think too has changed. I find it slower, which is all the more frustration. When I speak in English, my favorite simple German words slip in. For example: genau. oder. aber. are my 3 mischiefs. I’ve forgotten what I used to say when I thought something was cool before I moved. I say “super” for pretty much everything. I might even say “super geil” if I totally slip up. It’s okay though because everyone understands, but for language purity sake, I sound like an alien to someone who doesn’t know Danglish.
A Slacker Relates
It’s crunch time. In one week, I will spend two weeks with Alex’s parents and experience my first lectures and labs in a German university. I am beyond apprehensive, scared, unprepared – so much that I’m relatively calm. So for now I’m cramming as much info as I can handle with my turtle slow German/English learning pace. But first, I thought I’d share this:
With Alex gone during the week, no more language classes, too many English conversations, and me translating my lecture material in English, I’ll admit listening to German TV is not enough and I’m losing my prepositions, articles, and sentence structure. Alex confirmed that my German language skills are getting lax and we got into a small tizzy about him correcting me.
It’s a very touchy subject between couples. On one hand we want our partner to be our cheerleader, tell us how cool or right we are and on the other hand we want our partner to be our coach/mentor and help us grow or see things we are unable to see about ourselves. Sadly, I think after awhile a lot of couples give up the latter part to ‘save’ their relationship. This is something I definitely don’t want to allow to happen.
Let’s face it, not everyone has the gift for on-the-spot courteous rhetoric. Receiving the non-glamous truth from our partner hurts a lot at times, which makes us perceive that our partner’s intentions are then to hurt us. This is such a preventable pitfall but can easily deepen if we never reveal our troubled interpretations. What’s worse is that sometimes our closest friends and relatives wrongly encourage these doubtful perceptions, when what we really need is to go to the source, find out from our partner what they really meant and let him/her know your thoughts about what he/she said.
Too simple, you say. Really it is. But I didn’t say it would be easy. Not convinced? Well alright, then. What do I know? After all, I’m just a young whippersnapper living in an unannounced committed relationship without the social comfort of the M-word to ground my observations. (What do we lose when we are so blinded and deafened by our ultimate standards and absolutes? what do we maintain?)
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So we talk it out, as rough as it can be sometimes and we make up..with homemade chocolate cupcakes. I give the directions in German, measure out the ingredients and Alex stirs the goodies together. Team work. And will power – we ate only one. The rest were giving out to butter up his colleague at work because he’s the new guy on the project. Now on to brush up my German :bye:
