Die Vorabreise

Strings of oddity that I want to pull at have already been launched my way from Germany. 

Trawling through WG-gesucht listings (German Spare Room) I am at first shocked by, then grow weary of, disclaimers that no Nazis are welcome in the various student house-shares. How many Nazis will be put off applying by the two lines stuck on the end of each advertisement? How many listings are there on the website that openly welcome Nazis? Does the absence of this disclaimer on other postings mean that its authors are Nazi-sympathisers or did they just… not think they had to specify a distaste for extreme racism?

As I am still bumming around in England (German term starts in April… don’t ask why ‘cos I don’t know) I thought I may share some intrigues that my self-inflicted Deutschebildung (figure it out from ‘Bildungsroman’ if you don’t speak German) has surfaced. As my German is a lot worse than my French and (blame the Malory Towers books) I automatically assume that English people know some French but no German, I will explain some elements of the language that I find interesting. Although it is horribly complex, I have moments of lucidity when I can picture it as simply as one of those 3-part block things where you could twist one section to mix up the head, torso and legs of various characters. Hopefully during the dark moments that I know are to come, this will help remind me of my, sometimes worryingly difficult to retrieve, love of language.

If you are German, or better than me at German and reading this, please go away now because you might think I’m very ungebildet.

Also (so), los geht’s (let’s go) with that lil word: ungebildet.

In German der Roman, as in French, means ‘novel’. A ‘Bildungsroman’, as we know from English, is a coming of age novel. Die Bildung means education; the infinitive bilden means (among other things) ‘to educate’. Its past participle is bildet, and we are already familiar with the suffix ‘un’ in English, which negates. Voila: ungebildet = uneducated.

Suffixes are a big Thing (Ding: a fun word) in German, which is nice because it can make the meanings of words like ungebildet easier to guess, and you can build words like my title. Vor- is the equivalent of pre-, as in preparation (Vorbereitung) and Abreise means departure. I don't know if it works as a compound noun but even if doesn't vorexist, I think people will get the jist... See! ! ! ! ! ! ! FUN ! ! ! ! ! ! !

I first encountered a diminutive when my Father introduced me to vodka. In Russian, voda means water and inserting a k makes it diminutive, so a vodka is just a little water. If jaba means ‘frog’ in Bulgarian, what does jabka mean? That’s right, you got it! Glove compartment. And jawohl, also little frog. The two are related, I believe. Anyway, that’s how diminutives work. In English we might use ‘-ette’, ‘-le’ or ‘-ie’ (snackette, huggle or doggie). Germans add ‘-chen’ and an umlaut (if possible) to form theirs. During my online perusing I have learnt ‘Bierchen’ and ‘Weinchen’. Little beer and little wine. For some reason I find this image adorable… or should I say süß! (= ‘sweet’ in both English senses – on the palate and in the heart) and people suggest going for one with prospective flatmates. The image is so enticing that it makes me want to live with whomstever mentions them in their WG Gesucht ad.

Another diminutive appears in the phrase “Bäumchen wechsel dich” which literally translates as ‘swap yourself sapling!’… but means tag (as in "you’re it"). I leave you to ponder on that one.