I wonder if dear Angie ever had to tackle such linguistic obstacles. Though, I suppose with a cleavage like that you don’t have to worry about whether your Italian or French counter party is listening to you or not.

Unless you’re a native speaker of a language, you are always going to face the inevitable infiltration of your mother tongue into your borrowed tongue. Since living in the German speaking part of Switzerland and interacting with German speakers on a daily basis, I’ve noticed some mistakes in English that seem to be made universally by almost all German speakers. I don’t know whether this is entirely due to people directly translating from German to English or whether German speakers have spread these common errors amongst themselves. Either way, I find it amusing how a linguistic conglomerate will consistently make the same mistakes when speaking English, and I’m sure this extends beyond German speakers, but it’s not something I’ve noticed as much in Italian, I have to say.

So, here’s a list of commonly made mistakes, according to me.

Since

This one is clear – in German, to say that you’ve lived in Zurich for three years, you would say, “seit drei Jahren”. Seit meaning since, of course. So, understandably, many German speakers say, “I have been a skier since ten years”, instead of “I have been a skier for ten years.” I’m pretty sure English speakers must do the opposite when learning German.

How does it look like?

This is understandably confusing. In English you can say:

“How does it look?” or
“what does it look like?”

In German you say, “wie sieht es aus?”

Wie=how and I guess the aus at the end in German makes German speakers want to add an extra syllable at the end of the English version, without realising that only works when you switch to what instead of how.

I would tend to differ between the two English options listed depending on context, but essentially, they are more or less interchangeable.

At some point in time

This is one I hear surprisingly often. I admit I’m not sure why German speakers say it. My boyfriend was unable to shed any light on the matter either.

In English, or at least the English I was brought up speaking, you would refer to an occurrence that took place at a vague point in time as having happened at some point. I’m not sure you could say that “at some point in time” is strictly incorrect per se, because grammatically it isn’t, it’s more the case that English speakers abbreviate it to “at some point”, so the former sounds unnatural.

To stay, instead of stand

This one’s logical, in German to stand is stehen, which essentially makes it a false friend.

If a German person turns to you on the train and says, “shall we just stay?”, they are unlikely to be suggesting that you root yourself to the spot and make a new home of the vehicle, rather, they are dismissing the notion of hustling for a seat.

So to say

Again, one could easily do the same going the other way: so zu sprechen. In German you’d say, so zu sagen, resulting in many German speakers opting for say, rather than speak.

To make party

This one’s sort of endearing, if you ask me. In German it’s party machen. Machen is one of those words that confuse the hell out of German learners at the beginning, I think, or perhaps I’m alone on this one.
Just know that if a German speaker suggests you go out to make party with them, they are seeking a place in which they can enjoy a bit of a piss up coupled with dancing.

Explain

“I can explain you.”

A bit of a harrowing prospect when the words come from your boss’s mouth, for example. Relax, this is not an attempt to dissect your psychological makeup, the person is hoping to explain something to you.

Invite

The look on people’s faces when you say “thank you for inviting me” at the end of any sort of gathering that racks up a bill at the end is priceless. Many people will misconstrue your politeness as an encroachment on their goodwill. In German, einladen, in such a situation, means that the invitee’s bill is being settled by the inviter.

I do chuckle when German speakers will correct me by saying, “oh, you don’t mean that I’m going to invite, you, I see. Ho ho ho.” Rather than acknowledge the linguistic misunderstanding they have undergone in your language, they will correct the social mishap on your part.

Eventuell

People often look confused if I say something like, “oh, I’m sure I’ll get hungry eventually”. This is a false friend, my friends. Eventuell is the German word for maybe. So if I declare I’m sure of something that will maybe happen, it can cause ripples of confusion through a room full of German speakers.

She’s getting a baby

I like this one. If I could get a baby that is a perfect combination of my own genes and my partner’s, I would certainly opt for that method as opposed to squeezing one out myself one day. In English we have babies, at least we women do, and in German one gets, as in bekommen, a baby.

But don’t think I’m letting myself off lightly. I make plenty of mistakes in German in a very similar fashion.

Mit keine

The word for without in German is ohne, but the word with embedded in without in English had me tripping up at first. I kept saying, mit kein…whoops. It’s even grammatically incorrect, but I didn’t know what the dative form even was back then.

Arme mich

When feeling sorry for yourself, you could say, poor me in English as a casual alternative to “oh woe is me”. If you say this in German, people will snigger. Trust me. I would have to step outside my own body and address myself in the third person and say, arme Christine. I’ve opted instead to just exaggerate my sad face when in doubt.

Check out this link for a list of false friends if you’re in doubt!

Sexy image from here

The tragic nature of my boyfriend’s return is that Reikalein is inevitably going to be susceptible to faux honeymoon syndrome for a week or two. So, apologies for the slow posts.

As a peace offering, here is a picture in which you should be able to spot a few oddities:

Yes, that’s me on my graduation day looking like I’m built like a shit brick house in a kimono.
My mother is Japanese and is 170cm tall. I’m 160cm. She’s taller than me and my graduation cap combined. If you look closely, you might even notice that I have Godzilla hands. Not complaining though; it makes climbing much easier than if I had hands that had stayed in proportion.

Anyway, onto a slightly more serious note; here is my most recent article on BPA:

Hi there, come va? Sei uscito last night? Have you already asa gohan tabeta or do you want to go and dokka de grab a coffee? I’ve not eaten yet so maybe we can grab a bite to eat at that place that’s sugu soko?

Not that I go as far as mixing three languages in a single conversation, but code switching is and always has been an integral part of my life as a halfie. Code switching is used to describe the act of using two or more languages within a conversation. Multilingual people tend to find themselves hopping between their languages when speaking to anyone sharing the same language combination. I’m sure for many people, especially in the US, the term Spanglish will ring a bell. Well, Japlish, Frenchtalian, Chindeutsch and Korgolian may be less catchy, but they’re all feasible combinations that probably mesh into each other more easily than you could possibly imagine as non-native speakers of any of those languages.

When someone asks me how to explain how code switching works, I often describe it as having an expansion pack on your mental language programme. While one language is usually the MVP of any communicative engagement, you have a bench on which you keep your subs, just in case your MVP has a wobbly moment or is completely and utterly defeated by cotton mouth syndrome. That’s how multilingual people end up being able to switch between one language and another; the languages are basically intertwined in their brains, they just have to throw out whichever one comes to them first and when that fails to function properly, they can dip into their other one for some help….

To read the rest, head over to the site! I would love to read about anyone else’ experience with code switching!

I often find that as soon as I mention that I am half Japanese to a Western person, they suddenly narrow their eyes and furrow their brow in an attempt to maximise their concentration. A high level of concentration is needed in order to detect every aspect of my face that hints at my Japaneseness, you see.

After an awkward few seconds the person will often reply with either:

a) What are you talking about? You don’t look Jap to me.

or, more often…

b)Ahhh, yes, I see it. It’s the eyes and the hair… (and the fact that you’re slightly yellow-tinted, you can hear them think).

I, in my opinion, have eyes that are rather non-descript. Like so:

When someone throws statement a at me, I find myself feeling defensive and I start to try to make myself look more Japanese. It’s not something I can control, it’s a unique defense mechanism; I think we halfies have evolved to be this way since we’re a minority species.

And of course, being the irrational and fickle idiot that I am, I do the exact opposite when people try to throw statement b at my face and describe my Japanese features at length.

Anyone else catch themselves doing strange things like this? Tell me it’s not just me!

When all your friends are scattered about the world, it’s a miracle of sorts when you manage to gather a few of them together somewhere other than home.

Last year we managed to get a good few of us together in London.

I miss you all and am looking forward to the next reunion!

On the plus side though, I have places to stay and people to see in Chicago, Toronto, California, Austin, New York, Paris, Montreal, Milan, London, Vienna, Guernsey, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Yes, that’s right friends, I will be knocking on your doors demanding free accommodation one of these days. You’ve been warned.

Stop whining and get on with it; you’re in it because you would rather be in an empty bed with your heart safely purring contentedly in the possession of your beautiful partner than in bed with any old tosser while your heart slows to an icy indifferent lull.

That is how I have come to view long distance relationships. Of course, a pinch of pragmatism always helps: if you can’t envision yourselves eventually joining forces at the same point on the global map, well, then the only way it’s going to work is if you are asexual or if you have an allergy to human touch.

I’m not preaching from atop my unjustified rickety old high horse here, I’m preaching as someone enduring her second long distance episode in five years. A veteran, I is. The first battle lasted a fairly long time, but the necessary funds and commitment lacked so it ended up wilting after precisely three and a half years.

The one I am currently in is much tougher, but very much worthwhile. It’s partially tougher because I truly believe I have met someone who redefines the meaning of the phrase, “I miss you”. I have spent most of my life missing people. When half your family is in Britain while the other half is in Japan, it’s physically impossible not to miss half your family at any given time. When your friends all congregated in one place temporarily (International School) but then all dispersed to their home countries for University, then you are bound to end up constantly missing your friends. Such is the nature of belonging to two or more cultures. I thought I had had enough training in this area, but then life throws me a curve ball; I get sent a wonderful man I could happily spend every minute with and then his company send him away for eight months. Selfish bloody company; the only thing they have over me is their ability to pay him (lots). I could give him some of my money to be by my side all the time, but that would drastically alter the nature of our relationship.

So how do I cope?

Of course, like any couple in a long-distance relationship we talk on the phone (mostly Skype) daily and have managed to maintain, for the most part, an argument and misunderstanding free relationship. That’s not to say I haven’t thrown mini unprovoked tantrums just because I miss him, but that can usually be attributed to chocolate withdrawal and is easily solved here in Switzerland.

The main ingredient in a successful LDR, in my opinion, is to be fundamentally quite laid back. If you have jealousy issues, then this ride is not for you. Trust me, I’ve seen what jealousy does to a woman who has been involuntarily dragged away from her man. You don’t want to follow her footsteps and have to juggle a long distance relationship with your partner and a short distance relationship with the green-eyed monster, do you now? As long as you can trust your partner, you’re good to go.

While the situation is far from ideal at present, I have been in the presence of plenty of couples who now reap the benefits of having stuck with their instinctive decision that their partner was worth the extra air fare.

My parents are my prime example. They endured it, they got married, they are still happy 20 odd years later. I’m here because it worked for them.

I know a wonderful Swiss-Japanese couple here who told me they met in the States just as she was due to go back to Japan. A couple of years of meeting up at the mid-way point, Switzerland, led them to taking the plunge and securing a way of being together. They are now happily married and keeping me company in Switzerland. It’s not what they had in mind, I’m sure, but hey, babysitting Reikalein is easy, just sit her down with a beer, a deck of Ligretto cards and some competitors and she’ll stay relatively tame. Luckily, they discovered this early on!

My wonderful man is due to get back to Zurich in ten weeks, soon my life will be a little bit more rose-tinted. If I write any vomit inducing sappy posts from that point onwards, I promise to pay my readers’ carpet cleaning bills.

At least Dave Eggers’ other wonderful works make up for the elk/buffalo/cow’s pessimism:

pics via here.