General Discussion Thread

[Sunflower]

But the more I go to work, the more German I hear, and the more I want to be a part of it.  I've never really felt that, but I guess it's because I've never had a reason to learn another language before.  I am picking up small words here and there, mainly from design drawings, like "poliert" and "rundung," and it's pretty cool to learn these little things.  It's kind of exciting.

I had the same experience working at SAP (a very large German software company).  Between learning the ways of all my new Mitarbeiteren (co-workers) (so as not to pull an Emil) and getting hooked on Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung, I was suddenly enchanted by German. 

Unfortunately, "Who art thou, bold youth?" has only limited usefulness in the workplace, and "Dreadful dragon, I shall smite thee with my magic sword" none.  And the little German song I learned in high school about not drinking coffee goes directly against Best Practices in the Workplace.

[Sparky Dragon]

Has this happened to anyone else? Not realizing the language you are speaking or reading because it's become natural for you?

Ah, I wish. Heck, I wish there was anything in Finnish to read around in the first place! It's not exactly easy to find Finnish books (or anything else) in the southeast US, apparently.

[Eich]

I had the same experience working at SAP (a very large German software company).  Between learning the ways of all my new Mitarbeiteren (co-workers) (so as not to pull an Emil) and getting hooked on Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung, I was suddenly enchanted by German. 

Unfortunately, "Who art thou, bold youth?" has only limited usefulness in the workplace, and "Dreadful dragon, I shall smite thee with my magic sword" none.  And the little German song I learned in high school about not drinking coffee goes directly against Best Practices in the Workplace.

The only full phrase I know in German is (I'm about to be very unprofessional on my own forum), "I am full of piss water."  Gets the point across, but I don't think it's exactly proper for the workplace (or proper grammar, though I'm not sure).  "Who art thou, bold youth" could be used on student interns like me, but not much else, I think.  And, if your company goes into making video games, the second phrase might be very good to know. 

Maybe JoB could give us some help on more proper conversational German?

Ah, I wish. Heck, I wish there was anything in Finnish to read around in the first place! It's not exactly easy to find Finnish books (or anything else) in the southeast US, apparently.

*Sympathizes*  Though, if you have the aRTD book, one of Mikko's poem's is in both Finnish and English, in the back of the book.

[Fimbulvarg]

The only full phrase I know in German is (I'm about to be very unprofessional on my own forum), "I am full of piss water."  Gets the point across, but I don't think it's exactly proper for the workplace (or proper grammar, though I'm not sure).  "Who art thou, bold youth" could be used on student interns like me, but not much else, I think.  And, if your company goes into making video games, the second phrase might be very good to know. 

Maybe JoB could give us some help on more proper conversational German?
*Sympathizes*  Though, if you have the aRTD book, one of Mikko's poem's is in both Finnish and English, in the back of the book.

Moin moin alle zusammen!

Meine name ist Eich und ich bin hiergekommen für das Oktoberfest!

Ich werde heute auf dem boden schlafen! Tut mir leid aber es ist abgemacht! Das wetter ist so lala, naja es geht!

Bitte zeigen sie ihre karte am schnellsten!

[Eich]

Moin moin alle zusammen!

Meine name ist Eich und ich bin hiergekommen für das Oktoberfest!

Ich werde heute auf dem boden schlafen! Tut mir leid aber es ist abgemacht! Das wetter ist so lala, naja es geht!

Bitte zeigen sie ihre karte am schnellsten!

*Pastes google transate's interpretation*

Moin moin everyone!
My name is calibration and I've come here for Oktoberfest!
Today, I will sleep on the floor! I'm sorry but it's settled! The weather is so-so, well it goes!
Please show your card at the fastest!

I could've sworn my name was German for "oak," not "calibration." 

[Fimbulvarg]

Honestly though, "Calibration" is the most German name I've ever heard.

By the way "eik" is the Norwegian word for oak so there's your Scandinavian moniker if you ever need one.

[Eich]

Honestly though, "Calibration" is the most German name I've ever heard.

Well, I'll make the Calibration family proud, then.  Only fitting that I'm an engineer.
Actually, if I start learning German, I might be the first person in my family in 3 or 4 generations to know the language, since we came over here. 

[JoB]

Between learning the ways of all my new Mitarbeiteren (co-workers)

*wince* Sorry to go OC on this one, but a) it should be von meinen Mitarbeitern, if anything, and b) if you're their peer, rather than the boss of them, you'd better say you're learning von meinen Kollegen.

[Sunflower]

*wince* Sorry to go OC on this one, but a) it should be von meinen Mitarbeitern, if anything, and b) if you're their peer, rather than the boss of them, you'd better say you're learning von meinen Kollegen.

Haha, go right ahead and be obsessive.  It's good for me (the raging grammarian) to take it as well as dish it out!  I'm sure I did get the case wrong. 

As far as the choice of words, all I can say is that the M-word is what I recall everybody at SAP using about everybody else -- but I may be confusing the two terms because "Mitarbeitern" is more fun to say than "Kollegen."  (Just like "Kartoffel" is more fun for a birdbrained American to say than "potato.")  Certainly I was nobody's boss at SAP, and even "peer" is debatable.  I inspired a lot of kindly bafflement among my co-workers by actually striking up conversations with people to whom I was not connected on the org chart.  I'm sure some of them felt I would have been better occupied with a bell and mirror in my birdcage cubicle.

[OrigamiOwl]

Oh, dear.  I thought yard work was bad.  Wait, don't y'all also have a bunch of animals, too?  How many farmy things do you have?

We used to have sheep, but our shearer had a terrible accident so we sold them, but our main animal has always been cows. (Black angus x Devon)
Our main fruit is apples, but we used to grow cherries and pears once too. So along with the planting jobs I do there is:
Grafting, pruning, installing irrigation, irrigation maintenance (my favorite because you don't get a map of the water pipes, or where the buried pressure valves are, so you have to find them by listening, and fix them with whatever's in your spare parts bucket, in sync with the timer. I find it really fun ) electric fence building and maintenance, cow herding in paddocks, and along roads, fruit thinning, fruit picking, chain sawing, tree stacking and burning, occasional translation/interpretation (in the harvest season we hire a lot of European students who are looking for a summer job on their gap year trip, and sometimes there are language barriers, but I can only help if it's French ;__;) and multiple-house-cleaning. I used to do sorting, weighing, and packing with the cherries, but that was a while ago, I very occasionally do officey admin work too.
But now I'm a full-time uni student.....I still have to do those jobs between assignments and classes (which sucks as it's already hard trying to balance the work for my 2 majors...Wah!)

Too much information? Hehehe probably X'P *falls over*

[OrigamiOwl]

Okaaay, general discussion thread is for random stuff, right? so today I bought a pack of cards at the local selling-geeky-stuff store, and it all looked oerfectly normal to me. I unpacked them, read the m, prepared them, all perfectly normal. I even read the extra stuff about worldbuilding, all normal. It wasn't until I sat down and started playing with my father that I realized that the whole deck was in English!

Has this happened to anyone else? Not realizing the language you are speaking or reading because it's become natural for you?

Aww! Nope, not really... I do tend to get really confused after French classes, I start ordering food and bus tickets in French and then stop and realise the cashier/driver has no idea what's going on ;___; and then I remember. And then I'm terribly embarrassed.

Honestly though, "Calibration" is the most German name I've ever heard.

I don't think I'll stop laughing for a while! Calibration.... X'P

..

Oh! Also! General Discussion: a bird has just laid an egg in my fireplace and it flew away and I don't know what to do with the egg.....

[Sunflower]

Our main fruit is apples, but we used to grow cherries and pears once too. So along with the planting jobs I do there is:
Grafting, pruning, installing irrigation, irrigation maintenance (my favorite because you don't get a map of the water pipes, or where the buried pressure valves are, so you have to find them by listening, and fix them with whatever's in your spare parts bucket, in sync with the timer. I find it really fun ) electric fence building and maintenance, cow herding in paddocks, and along roads, fruit thinning, fruit picking, chain sawing, tree stacking and burning, occasional translation/interpretation (in the harvest season we hire a lot of European students who are looking for a summer job on their gap year trip, and sometimes there are language barriers, but I can only help if it's French ;__;) and multiple-house-cleaning. I used to do sorting, weighing, and packing with the cherries, but that was a while ago, I very occasionally do officey admin work too.

I enjoy hearing about this.  My God, that's hard work!  When I was a newspaper reporter in a remote part of California, it was still mostly agricultural, and grew a lot of apples and cherries (in addition to apricots, nuts, corn, tomatoes, and other hot-weather crops).  For a city girl (and foodie) like me, ag was a novel and delightful topic.  Now the farms have mostly been replaced with housing tracts called "Apricot Orchard Vista, a Planned Community" or the like. 

Do you know the Apple Tree Wassail?  It was written down in the 19th century, but reflects a much older tradition of praying to/praising orchard trees for bearing good crops.
http://piereligion.org/applewassail.html

Old apple tree, we’ll wassail thee,
And hoping thou wilt bear.
The Lord does know where we shall be
To be merry another year.

To blow well and to bear well
And so merry let us be;
Let every man drink up his cup
And health to the old apple tree.

[Eich]

Aww! Nope, not really... I do tend to get really confused after French classes, I start ordering food and bus tickets in French and then stop and realise the cashier/driver has no idea what's going on ;___; and then I remember. And then I'm terribly embarrassed.

I don't think I'll stop laughing for a while! Calibration.... X'P

..

Oh! Also! General Discussion: a bird has just laid an egg in my fireplace and it flew away and I don't know what to do with the egg.....

I'm not cut out for farm work.  I'm barely cut out for yard work.  I'll stick with my calipers and modeling software, I think.

I'm going to have to tell my family about that one.  We might put in for a name change.
You said use the microwave, yes?

[OrigamiOwl]

I enjoy hearing about this.  My God, that's hard work!  When I was a newspaper reporter in a remote part of California, it was still mostly agricultural, and grew a lot of apples and cherries (in addition to apricots, nuts, corn, tomatoes, and other hot-weather crops).  For a city girl (and foodie) like me, ag was a novel and delightful topic.  Now the farms have mostly been replaced with housing tracts called "Apricot Orchard Vista, a Planned Community" or the like. 

Do you know the Apple Tree Wassail?  It was written down in the 19th century, but reflects a much older tradition of praying to/praising orchard trees for bearing good crops.
http://piereligion.org/applewassail.html

Old apple tree, we’ll wassail thee,
And hoping thou wilt bear.
The Lord does know where we shall be
To be merry another year.

To blow well and to bear well
And so merry let us be;
Let every man drink up his cup
And health to the old apple tree.

The village-names sound really depressing a lot of growers here are pushing out and selling up too :/

We had a wassail in the valley this year! But I didn't go because 1) it was at a rival's orchard, and 2) you HAD to dress up, and 3) it was more of a tourist event, latching on to Dark Mofo.
http://darkmofo.net.au

I'm not cut out for farm work.  I'm barely cut out for yard work.  I'll stick with my calipers and modeling software, I think.

I'm going to have to tell my family about that one.  We might put in for a name change.
You said use the microwave, yes?

Heh, I wish I could do yard work~ then I could get paid! ;3

And *gasp!!* no! I'm not going to eat a blackbird egg! I already had lunch!

[StellersJayC]

Okaaay, general discussion thread is for random stuff, right? so today I bought a pack of cards at the local selling-geeky-stuff store, and it all looked oerfectly normal to me. I unpacked them, read the m, prepared them, all perfectly normal. I even read the extra stuff about worldbuilding, all normal. It wasn't until I sat down and started playing with my father that I realized that the whole deck was in English!

Has this happened to anyone else? Not realizing the language you are speaking or reading because it's become natural for you?

Well... I haven't had anything quite as extreme as previously mentioned happen to me, but I've essentially forgotten how to say "thank you" in English. Today for instance, I was at a Choir retreat and needed to borrow some music. Someone handed it to me and I responded, "Danke schön," without thinking about it. (If I spelled that wrong, I have never claimed to be a good speller in any language. Thank goodness for spell check.) About five people stared at me as another section started singing and the girl who had lent me the music whispered, "Um, all the rest of us are in French." Something like this happens nearly everyday, and by this point I think all my friends are used to the fact than my sixth-period German-class-buddy and I are going to speak simple German - that is possibly misconjugated - without realizing it. It's actually kind of fun in some ways.

Oh! And a seling-geeky-stuff store? Sounds like the only kind of store I like! What kind of cards were they exactly? It doesn't sound like you're referring to regular old playing cards.