So, anyway, I got invited to the birthday party of someone in Jesus Freaks, Freiburg (http://www.jesusfreaksfreiburg.de). (Side note, if you plan on studying in Freiburg and you are interested in a college-age Christian fellowship, Jesus Freaks is great).
Anyway, being in Germany, I figured everyone would speak German to me, so I put myself in the German-language mindset. For the most part, people did speak German to me, and I spoke [somewhat broken] German back. I think they understood me most of the time, and I understood them most of the time. But there were a few people, who I hadn't previously met, who had been told that I spoke English, so they came up to me and started speaking to me in English. Since my mind was prepared to speak German, it took me a few tries to understand what they were saying. Then I realized they were speaking in English. It was pretty funny. (There was nothing wrong with their English that made me not understand them. It was just that I wasn't expecting to hear English).
Also a good percentage (80%+) of the songs played on the stereo system were English. I think I recognized one of the songs (except when they put in the Supertones album). Out of the German songs, I recognized 3 or 4. I wonder if I know more German music than most Germans. I was able to sing along to "Moskau" and "Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Ingendwann."
Anyway... In case anyone cares, I can maintain a conversation in German. It doesn't look like the Germans are straining to understand me, but it is possible. Unfortunantly, my vocabulary lacks some of the very common German slang, and many used, but relatively uncommon words. So sometimes I'll lose them midsentence. Most people I talk to seem patient enough to explain the word to me in German. Apartently, the active spoken vocabulary of a normal German speak is 600 words (according to the teacher of my language class). Now if I could only find those magic 600 words:-).
Archived comments:
Mom:
That's funny, not immediately understanding your native language because you're expecting something else.
I followed the Jesus Freaks link, and tried to read the stuff on their website. I could understand some of it, but I'll try again sometime when I'm equipped with my reading glasses and a German dictionary!
Any idea what the active spoken vocabulary of an ordinary English speaker is?
Paula:
YO....... This is amazing! I was finally able to log in!!! So cool. Hey I found out a little while ago that apparently you don't have to type two spaces after a period anymore. Someone told me that computers have changed and there is now sufficient space given between sentences even if you just type one space. It's hard to break the habit though. I have to stop and think at the end of every sentence. Of course, that person could have been misinformed, or malicious and trying to make my papers look bad.
s h... ddn't gt th jb t th hgh schl. dsppntd. thy r sppsd t cll gn (m mm tk th cll tdy, bt sh sd tht th ld ws gng t cll gn t tlk t m) nd s f thy d ctll cll gn 'm gng t tr t cnvnc thm n lst tm tht 'm ttll qlfd fr th jb... bt whtvr... f thy stll dn't hr m, t dsn't rll mttr. thr grt thngs l hd!
hy... f ml y y'll gt t thnk... bt mst lkl wll nt gt n mls y tr t snd m. nd f y hv mld m t ll frm grmn, hvn't gttn nthng. h tht lst phrs lks rll s t ndrstnd. cl. nwys s hr m fnll pstng!!! hv grt dy.
mikepn:
If you want to be like Paula, and encrypt your messages, you are more than welcome to. You could write a program in C++ and I will compile it here to decode the message. If you are a number theorist, you could use real encryption. Note that Paula's encryption could actually be relatively strong, as the method of encryption is fuzzy (that is, a proper decyption, depending on the message, could require previous knowledge or outside understanding). I had never thought about the idea of fuzzy encrpytion before, but now it has suddenly become very, very interesting. Maybe it is just late at night and I am imagining things. Ah, well, whatever.
Note, if you are having trouble logging in, please contact me. It seems Paula has figured out how to get in from AOL. I think the problem is that my site is not trusted by your browser, and thus your browser will not accept cookies from my site.
Srr bt th jb.
Anna:
Hmm, maybe I should write like Paula too. Did she do that on purpose, or did all the vowels just decide to go on strike or something. It's amazing how much of those encrypted sentences I could understand. The brain is a funny thing. Anyways, I think fuzzy encryption is spiffy. But I also think my mind is too fuzzy to think about fuzzy encryption late at night. And I really don't think about fuzzy encryption much, so it's egal.
Wll, dn't hv mch t sy, bt fll lk wrtng lk ths. t's hrd t tp lk ths, bt t's fn. Hhh.
Katherine:
Yeah... I would be trying to read these signs in Spanish, and having a hard time, and then come to this word that I couldn't recognize for the life of me. "That's not fair!" I'd wail. "What sort of crazy word is this? This doesn't even look like Spanish! How am I supposed to recognize that?!?"
"Um, that's English," my friend would say to me.
"oh. right."
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