Showing posts with label german language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label german language. Show all posts

Abba to E to Mental Mania

I AM LISTENING TO ABBA. Proof positive if any was required that I am in recovery from SEVERE MENTAL BREAKDOWN. I found Mamma Mia down Morrisons for a few quid. The lurid red heart on the cover made me buy it as a FUCK YOU to sneery supermarket staff, so I made sure I went through the slow isle where a surly person serves you, not self service as I usually do.

The sneery looks make such purchases so much more worthwhile (shame I didn't get one). Same as when I pick up cig ends from the bus stop. It's always better when somebody's watching disapprovingly. One time one Jamaican man had the cheek to inform me "that's disgusting" NOT AS DISGUSTING AS THE EXTORTIONATE NEW LABOUR GOVERNMENT TAX I shot back. He shut his mouth then. He looked like a Labour voter. Sad.

I'm voting Tory next time as long as they lower taxes for the rich. I want to be rich and I want to pay low taxes so I'm voting for whoever lowers them most for Proper People. High taxes for the poor don't bother me at all. We already have them. It's called the Council Tax. The one I'm being sued for not paying. The one my solicitor wants me "severely mentally impaired" for. Now that I'm a hallucinating paranoid mood swing nutter on antipsychotics I might go for it. Unless I'm depressed again, in which case I don't believe I exist, so I don't bother engaging with forms of any description. Mainly because my depressed self believes it's natural and right that I should live on the streets anyhow. And that the answer for just about everything is a flat-fronted commuter train whooshing into London. (Trains going into go faster than out of. Flat fronts are best for maximum fatal head injuries. I was researching this issue that day when the BASTARD DRIVER actually read my mind and knew I wanted to jump. He waved arms at me! I know I've said this before but honestly how did he know??? I wasn't exactly hanging off the end of the platform.

I was blaring out this Mamma Mia movie when Naomi the Nuttery Club lady rang up re my antipsychotic problems. She said "ooh what's that music" I said "do you like Abba?" she said yeah. I said well you can borrow it on Thursday but she's already got it.

I have to say it's a HELL of a lot better than I thought it would be. I LOATHE that Dancing Queen song. The only Abba tunes I really like are Money Money Money (of course) and Take a Chance on Me. And Chickadee Chickadoo whatever it's called. I never actually VIEWED most of the film. Just smoked fags and looked at blogs. I keep forgetting to comment so y'all probably think I'm dead rude, ignoring y'all. I'm not ignoring y'all. I'm just plain rude!

Now it's blasting out at 2 in the morning with German dialogue. I love German dialogue. Double value on all my DVDs. I now have a good 16, purchased in the course of a week. Tomorrow I get Burton/Taylor in Cleopatra. I know it's crap, but I like her look and I Like the scenery. Main reason I watch films: bright colours, nice scenery, nice actresses.

I know I should be gay because I like Madonna and like musicals but seriously do you know what you have to do to be gay? Wear TUCKED IN TEESHIRTS, cut your hair REALLY SHORT. Snogging boys I've done just for the shock value but they're not as nice as girls let's face it women ain't called the Fairer Sex for nothing. So I'm plain old metrosexual. I feel desperately disappointed in this [I meant being straight is boring, but it's not boring, I was just being provocative]. Also gay clubs are FAR too sexual for my taste. I've been to a couple of gay-mixed nights, but didn't really like them. When I was a clubber my Big Thing To Do was go to Trade Club... but it never happened.

Trade Club was THEE best club in London. It ran from about 4am to 4pm Sundays. Heavy heavy banging hypnotic E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E music. Ie absolutely fantastic. But I never went. I went Sunny Side Up instead, which ran from about midday Sunday till around 9pm, meaning you could spend Friday and Saturday night actually having a sleep cycle, then go clubbing Sunday afternoon and be daisy-fresh (well as fresh as anyone on an E comedown can be)... by Monday. E comedown doesn't really hit you till 3 days later hence Friday night high: Tuesday blues. About half the people at Sunnies as they called it were spacefaced nutters who'd been going all weekend and had probably had twelve pills each by this time.


Trancy hard house: what I went there for


The other half were like me: people who appreciated a sleep cycle. The press often compared Sunny Side up to Trade because it was thee most banging hardhouse club I ever went to. But Sunnies was a normal straight club. I never liked gay clubs as I say even though most are actually mixed I didn't like the sexualized vibe. Clubbing is about being free and expressing who you are. When I was persuaded into a gay club, I stood out like a sore thumb with my long hair and non-tucked-in teeshirts and no belt. Let alone one with a huge buckle.

Maybe I should play about with y'all and do a protesting too much thing so y'all think I AM gay. Well I'm hardly out of touch with my feminine side am I.

Everything I tried just led to the usual situation in my personal life. Me in bed. On my own. Crying my heart out because I felt broken, empty, abused, confused and very lonely.

That was the end effect of Ecstasy too. Though I ADORED that drug, because it's not just a high, it's transcendently high. Cloud 9, 10, 11... going up up UP!

Everybody's happy. Everybody's smiley. Everybody free. Everybody E.

Then the E wears off and they become the miserable gits they are in real life. And after the after after after party, no matter what adventures happened between then and then I always ended up in my own bed, eventually (never brought anyone back to mine: ALWAYS went to theirs. I had a thing about other people's beds, other people's showers... much more exciting)... after all this I ended up in bed, alone and crying. Wondering why I had said what I said (E makes me ULTRA frank, to the point of friendship-damage)... why I had done what I'd done. Usually it was just me being a tit, dancing on the stage but on a comedown this feels ridiculously over the top)... most of all I felt let down and lied to. Badly lied to. So I curled up in bed, crying again.

I had been to wonderland. A paradise so high I wasn't even dancing with people, I was dancing with fractals, dancing along a rainbow. I didn't just find the pot of gold at that rainbow's end, I picked it up and showered in stardust.

And then I came down down down and reality was just too much to take.

The last few times a kind of trip kicked in as the E-rush wore off. My books were dancing on the shelves. Everything was pink, blue, pastel coloured dots. Maggots in my contact lens case. I had to put the lenses in with the writhing maggots, telling myself they weren't really there. Telling myself this did nothing to diminish the hallucination. Then I took downers to sleep. I couldn't tolerate the cannabis most people toked to come down. I was on Valium (bought on the street, of course). Then I switched to heroin ~ far naughtier.

The fact that my friends disapproved only made it more attractive. I thought they were really uptight, snorting weak coke, thinking they were it. I scored heroin via dealers I met through the local homeless (my true home crowd: they never judged me, always accepted me. Only true acceptance I ever got was from the crustie junkies. My true crowd. Not the shoplifters or the prozzies. The crusties. And nearly ALL are dead now. The only people who "got" me. All dead. I'm one of very few left. So I took this heroin in secret. Because it was forbidden. Because it worked for me. Because unlike that coke, even the dealer's personal... it was crap. Washed crack cocaine: THAT worked. Heroin worked. In the end I switched drugs totally.

Raving and clubbing burns you out in a way not even crack does. Taking eight ecstasy in a night really does hammer brains and body. I was never into multi-pilling. I did 1.5 say at midnight, so by one I was flying. By two this dose was peaking and it was time for my second dose: one more pill. By three am I felt fantastic. by four everything was going full blast. Most clubs chuck out at six, so my 2.5 pills were coasting down luxuriously from six to eight.

Usually I went to someone or other's house, but was home by eleven when a couple of blue Valium pushed me down enough to get three or four hour's sleep. I never slept dirty. Always showered first. Showering on ecstasy is like that "dancing naked in the rain" song. Showering on ketamine is like showering in a spray of diamonds. Mushrooms added extra sparkle when I wanted it. Those were my holy trinity: ecstasy, mushrooms, ketamine. Ketamine was attractive because though I couldn't tolerate spliff, ketamine was OK to me. And lots of people were scared of it, which only increased its appeal (have you noticed I can be a contrary person?)

I genuinely loved the K trip. It's quiet and sparse. Very sparse compared to acid, which is sensory overload. On ketamine you float through outer space. One time I flew through the thorax of a gigantic metalic insect each rib clang-clang-clanging as I thrummed past it. The vibrations of ketamine (you literally feel a low-pitched vibration) were to me AUM, sacred syllable of the universe.

These drugs were my religion.

But you need to discard any ideas that I was somehow a fucked up acid casualty. I used E ONLY at parties. One per weekend. Any more was just overdoing it too much, you really do fry your brains on too much E. I knew about E, knew the bad brain damage neurotoxicity publicity so I took it with care. Yeah the last couple of times I took 5, then 8 pills but that was just 2 occasions. Through most of my E-phase I was known as somebody who DIDN'T TAKE IT WHEN I DIDN'T WANT IT. Even though I ALWAYS had it on me at a dance party (only the desperate score in the club where prices are more than double what they should be).

Like most drugs, like an empty glass once you fill what's full, what's as high as can be, you don't get any higher, the full glass overflows, the drug overflows sideways. Instead of Eeeing you're tripping. This is the law of diminishing returns. Didn't Jesus counsel "moderation in all things"? I'm sure he didn't have MDMA in mind, but it's good advice. If you WILL take drugs take this advice and TAKE THE VERY MINIMUM NEEDED TO GET THE EFFECT YOU WANT. Taking more is just wasting money, wasting serotonin, dopamine etc; wasting brain cells.

So that's me and E. Me and raving. I adored it while I did it, but eventually it all got too much and I wanted to do other things. I cleared myself out for several months but the mood swings I'd experienced since my early 20s were worse. I felt like the sea. High tide (me buzzing on nothing) meant a low tide was coming (depression). Heroin squashed my moods into a flat line and I thought I was cured of this cyclothymia. Then it came back ON heroin (ie heroin wasn't working any more). And y'all know what happened lately. Those mood swings were severe even by psychiatrists' standards. I know what mild-moderate-severe mean in the context of bipolar. Now I have bipolar symptoms.

The doctor didn't use that word but he did say when handing over the risperidone script "it should damp down these mood problems". What I experienced was definitely bipolar in that I swing between two opposite extremes. Bipolar disorder is another matter and it must be carefully diagnosed. So I don't know what's wrong. But it would be just like me to be a manic-depressive junkie, wouldn't it?

I've gone past wanting an excuse for inexplicable behaviour and self-neglect and neglect of pretty straightforward responsibilities like filling out council tax benefit forms and sending them off. I got to a point where I was engaging with nothing. It all seemed pointless. I felt like an utter waste of space and a fraud. And I was usually able to put on a convincing front which confused friends and drug workers. It was Mother Hubbs, who says she was on lithium before she dropped it in favour of heroin (both are mood stabilizers) who told me I was bipolar ~ years ago. I thought she was exaggerating. Then I asked her more recently, "do you really think I am?" and she said "you know you are".

I don't know what I "know" but I know I'm up against something pretty formidable. More formidable than any drug I've ever tried. I mean this high I had not very long ago, the one that had me posting rubbish for days on end... that literally did feel better than any drug I've ever experienced. Now I'm down towards normality I'm pissed off, to be frank. Well if you got amazing free highs, wouldn't you want to keep them? It was the agitation, volatility, physical exhaustion to the point of nausea (having forgot to eat), utter inability to focus on anything longer than a few seconds, a total lack of judgement ~ not so much regarding should I or should I not do this, but judging what was or was not right for another person... I honestly had no idea... the utter inability to care for myself, the inability to think of anything without the idea popping open like a flower, every petal exploding with streamers and little ducks dancing down these streamers saying "hello! hello! hello!". Utter distraction. It was this. This mess that I could see I was in, yet didn't really care about. That I was hearing walls, cars, ceilings talk to me. I knew I was going crazy but didn't care. Yet I was angry enough at having been ignored, written off, misdiagnosed that when my druggieworker suggested I see a psychiatrist I agreed wholeheartedly. I knew in my heart I wasn't right. The psychiatrists knew where I was coming from. I wasn't complaining of feeling bad. I was telling them I felt EXTREME. And I was going very very fast. so fast I lost touch with my own thought process repeatedly. If I put food in the oven I didn't know it was in there till the smoke alarm reminded me. Well it's past 3am and I've not slept. Sorry to go on about my mental probs yet again. You must understand this is a big deal to me I have to reach some solution, some serenity, some sanity. If sanity is good then I want it. If it's boring: no thanks. I wasn't bored when I was mad. See I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I've messed myself up so bad I don't even know what "ordinary" or "healthy" or "balanced" really are any more.

I need a Speak and Spell machine. Perhaps then I can phone home. Maybe somebody will rescue me. I'm lonely here. Nobody seems to understand where I have been. I went to wonderful places more beautiful than you can imagine. And I was tripping on my own natural Higher Power. No drugs. If you honestly do still think I'm on drugs then do yourself a favour and stop reading this blog, because you're totally missing my point.

Well this has gone on long enough. From Abba to Ecstasy to me being a nutter. What's new. Take it easy people. Sorry if this is a mess. I'm not editing, else I'll get uptight and won't want it to go. All I'm doing to this is spellchecking, paragraphing it out then BAM! It's yours to skim or pore over or have a good laugh at.

Take care, lots of love

xx

PS I can just tell someone is going to read this and assume I only took heroin to be "naughty" I had many motivations. Its deadliness was a big one. The fact it made me FEEL BETTER was what kept me taking heroin. "Self-medication" as the nurse who never medicated me (did she think heroin was a good thing?) used to spout...

The flakes on the spoon are ketamine, cooked down from medical ketamine for injection into dried ketamine salts, which are snorted up the nose. Ketamine is NOT horse tranquillizer. It's a dissociative agent used for emergency anaesthesia and pain relief where more diamorphine is not appropriate. IF YOU HEAVILY ABUSE KETAMINE WITH HEROIN AND HAVE A BAD ACCIDENT, DOCTORS MAY HAVE GREAT DIFFICULTY ADMINISTERING ADEQUATE PAIN RELIEF... YET ANOTHER REASON TO GO EASY!


MAMMA MIA MOVIE: TAKE A CHANCE ON ME



ABBA: TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
fully original version
don't anna frid and agnetha look a bit like men in drag?...??



MAMA MIA MOVIE: RED NOSE DAY SPOOF



This tune is the kind of stuff I used to go E-E-Eing to. Without the tacky voiceover. And less cheesy eurotrance. More hardhouse with trance on top. Or hard Goa (late 90s Return to the Source type clubs were my favourite parties; tranced-up hardhouse was my favourite music)
shall i add a few more dance musical terms just to confuse you more if you're not into this shit? hardcore-jungle-tekno, drum & bass, speed garage, grime, deep house, trip-hop, amyl house, psy-trance, gabba, acid techno! There ya have it!!



A Busy Day: Odds and Sods

THIS IS WHY YESTERDAY WAS LAZY. It's all happening today. Too much to do!

AKH I'VE GOT TO GO OUT IN A SEC. Got an appointment with a woman down a disused mine or somewhere.
She's sorting out my paperwork re the council..? Something. If I'd been "all vague" like that a few years ago I'd have just not wanted you to know. Now I just do not know. Haven't a clue about any of it. Fed up of being an adult baby (not in the fetish sense though ~ you ever seen that one? I saw it on telly. Grown woman putting a man in nappies (diapers). Most hilarious.) Now what was I saying?

O yeah I've got to run out. Gotta go chemist. Gotta see this lady down a disused dripping mine shaft to sort out my paperwork. I can't remember where I actually see her. Somewhere I have a map, but it's gone... I can get their phone number. From somewhere.

By the way I must complain about the voices in the German version of ghost. Now either I was hallucinating floridly through the auditory "faculty" or these really were the voices coming from my telly. They all sound like TV presenters! With that Standard German Accent, which is like standard English from Britain or the USA. Whichever you think of, it's pretty characterless. I expected Whoopi Goldberg at least to sound like a True Berliner, but no! Sounds like she's just knocked off a shift reading the 6 o'clock news on ARD. Plus they didn't sound anything like the original actors. Whatever dubbed film you watch the actors always sound the same.

At least British dubbing has some character. Greatest dubbed drama of all time is the NHK-produced Monkey(aka Monkey Magic), a Japanese rendition of Chinese traditional Buddhist folk tales. It was on childrens' TV in the 1970s. It was on nighttime telly, where I was again glued to it, in the late 90s or early 2000s. My favourite characters where Trippy-something or other [Tripitaka] (young woman playing a little boy) and Pigsy who's more interested in eating magic dumplings than actually saving the day...(!)



PIGSY'S 10,000 LADIES 1/4 you can view the rest on my random blog here.




LYNN: i made a real hash of my answer to you last night. I meant to say:
~ sorry I don't know about GPs
~ supervised is not a good way of getting control over your dose
~ you shouldn't feel ill mornings
~ then again they want you not to do gear; you crave it; they're giving an inflexible dose, so what are you going to do except use on top...?

hey that's better!



AGE OF LOVE: AGE OF LOVE (SVEN VATH MIX)
this is beautiful, that tune that goes "come on dance with me, move your body..."
better mix than that long jam & spoon one, or the official video










Dodgy Chinese/Ghost

I HAD HEARD staff-members at record shops could be a bit sniffy according to what you bought. I never had that problem with Sly and the Family Stone limited edition CDs or even years back with my Ultimate Rave/Reactivate II compilations. Maybe I was in a touchy mood, but I did appear to notice a slight smirk cross Mr Dweeb-Glasses' poker-face when I handed over my £3 for Whoopi Goldberg/Patric Swayze/Demi Moore in Ghost!

I took it home and watched it. I know this is old hat to y'all but I've never actually owned one of these DVD machines before. I was amazed how superior the picture was to video.

Then I glanced through Further Options and saw I could have Ghost speak to me in German. So that's what I did today. Watched Ghost in German and followed nearly all of it!

(Big wow, considering how terrible my German was just over a year ago...)

*******


I also went to NA. Crowded out. Heard the life story at the beginning, which is called the chair. Couldn't sit still longer than that. Had to go out for a cigarette and a walk home.

Majorly sweaty palms; hearing voices but the antipsychotics block most of that out.

*******


I bought a horrible dodgy undercooked Chinese chicken curry mix vegetable fry rice. Not going there again. Nearly raw onions. Chicken too soft. Microwaved the second half; instincts say don't eat it. I'm saving a sample (not reheated) in case I get ill. So I could prove what caused it. I've never in my life reported a restaurant or takeaway and I don't intend to start now. I wish they'd just cooked the food properly. Ruined my favourite meal. Nearly £8 down the drain...

*******


Here's a poem I started writing years ago. I still remember it in my head. I only have one stanza and a bit I'm afraid. It recalls me staring into the River Thames from a boat and seeing fantastical shapes in the shimmering water:~~

Glance and gleam the fishes in the sky,
sun has streamed them the strong river's course,
one by one they wink into my eye,
mud-and-blue flashes of fish-force,
darting each rippling willow between ...


*******


THE ORB: LITTLE FLUFFY CLOUDS (CUMULO NIMBUS MIX)



*******


THE ORB: LITTLE FLUFFY CLOUDS (DEEP DUB)



*******


GHOST: FINAL WALK TO HEAVEN SCENE
i nearly cried when watching this. y'all know a big cry baby like me would just fess up if i did actually weep, but i didn't. that was a close nearly though. i love things that take you away from ordinary reality; things that are sublime



*******


Illustrated: pottery scene from Ghost starring David Hasselhof and British comedian Allan Car; hopefully not a countdown to being sick on that Chinese ..(!)

IS ALL THIS BANGING ON ABOUT CHINESE annoying y'all?

I was desperate for a hobby, desperate for a heroin-replacement (granted: Chinese wouldn't make a good heroin-substitute for most people, but it does for me).
I was also desperate to educate myself. I wish to speak Chinese and Japanese fluently. There is nothing new about this goal, which has been with me since my teens. So I have decided (or fixated) on training myself up as a translator. To be a qualified translator, you need a postgraduate degree on top of a language BA. Most translators can offer at least two languages on top of their own, so there is no conflict between improving my German and French and studying Chinese. Especially as I could do that post-grad in Germany, which would effectively qualify me to translate Chinese into German as well as English. German is the number one business language of Europe (after English, of course) and Chinese, as we all know, is the most-spoken language anywhere on earth. So I doubt I'd be out of work...
I've been looking into BA courses in Chinese actually in China. Annual tuition fees start from about £1600 ($2500US) pa for four years.
One of the websites I consulted complained that many of these courses concentrate on reading and writing at the expense of listening and speaking. But who cares, when you can pop outside to an authentic Chinese noodle-stall and listen and speak to your heart's content?
One major major hurdle is that every course I have looked at imposes a meximum age limit of between 30 and 40 years ~ I am 39 next spring.
But where there's a will there's a way. I have a cunning plan up my sleeve that might hopefully put some oomph behind my appeal against this ridiculous regulation.
Oxford, Cambridge and London universities offer Chinese and Japanese studies, but the prospectuses state rather bafflingly that a prior knowledge of the language won't help your application that much. Plus they specify that their courses aren't suitable for native speakers. Looking closer I see why: these courses promise only to take you to about a year past A-level ~ which is where my German is now! Which all in all suggests that if I cannot do Chinese in China I may as well get on to a "Sinologie" course in Germany, killing two linguistic birds with one stone.
I desperately need a copy of Hammer's German Grammar (the standard advanced reference work). My written German is still pretty dire ~ despite my daily blogging attempts. I'm having less and less trouble reading zentraleuropäische books and websites as time goes by, which shows I'm at least making some progress. (And I do know the German for a corpse (eine Leiche), which means I can describe my face in the mirror at six in the morning...)
I do apologize once more if my whittering is boring. I have a slightly obsessive temperament, you might see... Which also might explain why I've found heroin so very hard to kick.
Right from the word go I had a sense that my drug addiction had turned my strengths against me ~ so now my strengths were weaknesses. When I love something I give it everything. I have loved "B" like nothing else. So I gave my entire life to heroin.
And that, my friends, has been the crux of my problem...

Illustrated: Chengdu (top), home of the University of Sichuan... famous for its Szechuan chicken (bottom)!

Chinese for today:
Zhe4 这=this shi4 是=to be ren4shi 认识=recognize
zhen1 真=really gao1xing4 高兴=happy bei1 杯=cup
jiu3 酒=alcohol ba 把=suggestion particle
ne 呢=question particle hui4 会=know how/can/will
ju2zi 桔子=orange 橘子 also = ju2zi, orange
ju2zi-zhi1 橘子汁 / 桔子汁 = orange juice
ma 吗 = question particle

The numbers refer to tones: 1 high level; 2 high rising; 3 mid-low-mid dipping 4 falling. No number=neutral tone (the de facto 5th tone).

Chinese names

Eating eating eating me alive!

STUPIDLY I went and downloaded the most up-to-date PDF Broschüre for the course I have set my heart on.
I hate setting my heart on anything
, because I might not get it. But I've set my heart on this. The desire to do it is eating me up inside. In fact I feel like I'm festooned with army ants and being eaten alive. I feel like a hydrogen bomb inside me is about to detonate at any moment.

This is what they say about the languages on offer, re the application process:

3.2 Zulassungsvoraussetzungen
Für das Bachelorstudium besteht in den Sprachen Englisch, Französisch, Spanisch eine Zulassungsbeschränkung (Numerus clausus). Der NC-Wert ergibt sich für jedes Semester neu aufgrund der freien Studienplätze, der Abiturnoten, der Wartezeiten und der Anzahl der BewerberInnen. Eine Vorhersage über die für das jeweilige Zulassungsverfahren geltenden Grenzwerte kann daher nicht getroffen werden.
Als Zugangsvoraussetzungen für das Studium am FTSK sind neben der allgemeinen Hochschulreife oder einem äquivalenten ausländischen Abschluss fundierte Kenntnisse in Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Englisch, Französisch und Spanisch und Grundkenntnisse in Chinesisch erforderlich, falls diese Sprachen als Fächer gewählt werden.
Genaue Informationen zu den Eingangsvoraussetzungen für alle Sprachen entnehmen Sie bitte den Merkblättern der einzelnen Sprachen, die Sie auf der Seite http://www.fb06.uni-mainz.de/261.php finden.


Well I have to read it in German ~ so can you!!

To summarize, English, French and Spanish ~being so highly popular, are subject to entry restrictions in numbers. Being as English is my mother tongue and the only language over which I feel I have some genuine mastery, I don't have much choice in the matter. But I can avoid French by not applying for it, and doing Russian instead, as I've already decided. Some basic knowledge of Chinese is required. So I'm determined to trounce the other students by achieving A Level standard (or higher) before I even start.
As you cannot fail to have noticed, I have a genuine fascination for Chinese characters. I already know about 2-300. If I could multiply this by a factor of ten, I'd have a pretty good basic reading knowledge in Chinese.

I couldn't find any entry restrictions or requirements for Russian, but would feel compelled to reach at least GCSE (lower school certificate) level, simply to underline my interest (and distinguish myself from the vulgar hoardes I'll be up against in the application process). The greatest novelists of all time wrote in Russian ~ Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Turgenyev, Pasternak... imagine how amazing it would be to read those in the original?!

My biggest worry of all doesn't concern waiting lists because I'm English or beating others at Chinese: it's the German language test to which I'll be subjected. I tried on before on the Goethe Institut website (admittedly when my German was clagged up with 18-years of unpractised rust) and got a dreadful score.

As I shall point out, not having a teacher here, I have focused my energies on acquiring a passive reading vocabulary. And it's working amazingly. The novel I'm reading, Seegrund, which means Lake-Bed is a thriller about a dead body found... you guessed it. In a pool of blood in the snow on the banks of a frozen lake. I was astonished to comprehend the words for river-bank (das Ufer) and corpse (die Leiche) ~ both of which I've picked up and remembered in the past couple of months. So you see reading books and keeping my amateurish German blog has got me somewhere after all. There are many expressions for which I know two or three words in German, just as I do in English. I get a real sense of achievement from this. Especially as I DROPPED OUT of a languages degree in the early 90s in disgrace and despair, convinced I would never achieve any degree of mastery over German, let alone any other tongue. Somehow, amazingly, the magic has happened.

I think my turning point came one night as I listened to BBC World Service radio. I realized that across the world there are millions of people who have never set foot on Anglophone soil, who have learned to speak our language fluently by following radio broadcasts and slogging their way through English literature, dictionary in hand, referring and re-referring constantly to every word they're not entirely sure about. So I did this and look! I'm seriously considering applying to uni in Deutschland. How amazing is that. Six months ago I wouldn't even have been able to read the prospectus...
Well enough of my babbles.

It's 5:34. The clocks went back last night, meaning darkness now falls not long after 4pm. It's dead romantic ~ like a Siberian goods train yard full of onion-picking babushkas, with immigrant workers hiding in the cattle trucks smoking Cyrillic cigarettes and babbling away in Chinese. (I must fit the two new languages into this silly fantasy.) German, Russian and Chinese are also, of course languages of the former Communist Block. Life behind the Iron
Curtain has long held an enduring fascination for me. That was a big reason why I so loved German doing at school. When I started the A-level course Germany was separated by 200 yards of watch-towers, searchlights and tripwired minefields. By the time I actually sat the exams the wall had come tumbling down and a new world order was upon us.

What the future world order shall bring, I shudder to think. It's capitalism capitalism capitalism everywhere. I'm a capitalist, but I see excesses everywhere. And greed is not always good, despite what Gordon Gecko would have us believe.
Anyway I must ping. I wonder if anyone actually read this post to the end? If so, I commend you with a 金奖章 jīn jiǎngzhāng ~ a gold medal!



PS Here's an entertainment for you: the oldest recording JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, et al... he appears in this early English Linguaphone course in units 13 "the wireless" and 20 "at the tobacconist's"! What a blast from the past. (He was well into his "pipe-weed" as anyone who's seen the films will know...)

Link: Sprache, Kultur und Translation - Chinesisch

Where there's a will there's a way...

I AM STILL DEAD SET on doing this uni course. The prospectus says you can choose an A-language (your mother tongue, in my case English); the B-language would automatically be German. These two languages you learn to translate into and out of (written translation; interpreting the spoken word is another skill entirely and you can't do it at home in pajamas, so I'm not into that...). Translating INTO a foreign language is a tall order, so I need to get as far beyond my A-level German as possible. They say they have 800 students with mother tongue English on these courses (Bachelor and Masters), so to get in I will need to distinguish myself as much as I possibly can. The C-language can be any one of: Chinese, French, Italian, Modern Greek, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish. This language you translate out of, into your mother tongue ie Chinese to English. I would luuurve to speak Chinese, it's one of my life goals (as well as Japanese, which isn't on the syllabus). The D-language, which is entirely optional you don't learn to translate, you just learn it. The choices are: French, Italian, Modern Greek, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish (note Chinese isn't there). Originally I would have gone for French, which I already have A-level (higher school certificate) in.

Having banged on ~ quite truthfully, of course ~ about WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY in my previous post, I realized I was limiting myself by present circumstance and convenience. If I could have a magic wand waved over my head and speak fluent French, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish or Russian ~ I'd actually choose Russian.

So Chinese and Russian it is. And I don't see why I should compromise.

So I'm on a hunt for Linguaphone courses in Russian and Chinese. I need to get as fluent as I possibly can before applying. If learning those two from scratch simultaneously sounds a tall order, just bear in mind it's what I'd be doing at uni anyhow ~ if I can prove I've done it myself, at home with no teacher, just CDs and books, and if I can get my German as fluent as I possibly can, this will stand hugely in my favour when I apply.

I'm not too worried about having to account for my lost years. Nobody is owed an explanation for my life and I can justifiably claim ill-health.

You see I'm working to convince myself here, not you, but if you have any comments I'd be glad to hear them.

I wouldn't expect even to apply until this time next year at the absolutely earliest. Interviews for college places are generally held the following spring (2011). And I wouldn't be able to start until October 2011. This feels very fast. I cannot really envisage myself commencing until the year 2012. And as I say, for a course like this, which is obviously going to attract the crème de la crème (nobody leaving the British educational system at 18 would have German good enough to go straight to a course like this, unless they had German family or some other advantage ~ the standard of language tuition in this country is abysmally low...

... so these are my thoughts for today. Hope I haven't bored y'all too much ...!


PS My apologies for having visited NONE of you for AGES. Until my goblin-nibbled cable replacement comes I'm limited to half-hour dashes at the local internet café...

I want to get qualified

DO ANY OF YOU REMEMBER the language course I found in Germany that I was banging on about some months ago? It's the only course on the face of the earth that I actually want to do, because unlike a straight language degree it's actually a course in TRANSLATION, so it would qualify me to do something I know I'd be good at.

Plus I could study German and two other languages.

If you're reading this on American soil, you need to bear in mind that European university courses are always specialist honours degrees. There's no "major" as such. You do a degree in English or law or physiology or whatever with little scope to "read" much else. Which was part of my problem before. I had too many interests...

Last year's prospectus annoyed me because there's an undergraduate version (for me: I don't have a bachelor degree) plus a postgraduate version for those already in posession of a BA. The only difference so far as I could discern was that the postgraduate offered Chinese in the list of available "C" languages, whereas the undergraduate version didn't. Which really annoyed me, as I'd love to do Chinese. It's not that difficult, I never had trouble with tones when I learned holiday Thai some years ago, plus I have a good memory for characters. You might have noticed over time that I have a thing about foreign scripts. I think most of them look really funky.

Anyway I just checked and they've CHANGED THE PROSPECTUS so I could now do exactly what I wanted to: English-German/German-English Chinese-English (translation) + French (not to translate, just to speak it). I already have A levels in German and French.

Also I just found out that those German ICE trains, due to depart London-Frankfurt within a couple of years would take me to within an hour of Mainz, which is where that course is... is this a sign?

I have already started and dropped out of TWO uni courses... perhaps as the saying goes "third time lucky". I don't know how on earth I would fund this, though we ARE in the EU for the time being, so I ought to be eligable for local as well as European funding, especially as I would be studying two European languages. German tuition fees are a fraction of those in Britain (which are about to skyrocket). The only way I can think of paying my way through without ending up in huge debt would be to write a bestseller.

If this course is so unsuitable, I don't understand why I keep coming back to it in my mind. I've not found one like it anywhere else.

As the saying goes WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY. And you're supposed to keep your eyes on the goal, not the obstacles.

My legs are almost healed now. Valium Marilyn whose eyes are up the wall has STILL not seen a doctor. I told her to go to her own, who knows her, knows she hasn't got a "lazy eye" and will see straight away what's wrong, and probably know what it's likely to be.

Sprache, Kultur und Translation Brochure (sorry only in German) http://www.fb06.uni-mainz.de/fbpubl/brosch/FTSK-Broschuere.pdf

A degree of competence is required ...

MY EMAIL GOT READ OUT ON THE BBC (AGAIN!)

Anne Diamond, former presenter of breakfast TV, was standing in for Vanessa Feltz who's on her hols. I've phoned in and spoken to Anne Diamond before now and have to say she's very engaging. I can see why she's such an illustrious track record in presenting... Anyway here goes. A level results were out today. The conversation yesterday (on BBC London radio 94.9) was about young people going to university and the extortionate cost of this:

Good morning Anne
In days gone by ~ generally speaking ~ a degree was was a luxury. Three years off in which to delve into a subject of personal interest. The resulting degree proves to future employers that you're intelligent enough and have the sticktoitiveness to achieve a bachelor of arts or science.
With the exception of some science subjects and perhaps law, the degree never was meant to "qualify" you for anything in particular.
The problem nowadays is that with so very many young people going to university, a degree no longer sets you apart. As far as I can see, in most cases it merely gets you into debt.
In my day~ two decades ago ~ the standing joke was "What do you say to a sociology graduate? Burger and fries please." Change that to "media studies" and you're bang up to date!
Nearly 20 years ago I read modern languages at uni, but sadly had to drop out due to health difficulties. Knowing what I do now, I would advise a young person to take a vocational course with a clear career goal at the end of it, or to do languages. At least languages are useful and open up opportunities to work abroad.
I would dearly like to go back and finish my languages degree, but this time I'm working on getting my German fluent enough to get on a mother tongue German course actually in Germany ~ where tuition fees, incidentally, are a fraction of what they are here.


The health problems that forced me to drop out were basically depression. I was signed off an entire term on medical grounds at one point. When I left, I was coming to a point where I had to go to Berlin ~ a year to which I'd really have looked forward, if I'd only been in my right mind. But I was not in my right mind at all. Taking a year out or "intercalating" was not an option as I had no means of support and the DSS did not at this time pay benefits to anyone who was a registered student ~ whether actively studying or not.
All modern languages courses require a year out in the appropriate country. The only course I've ever come across that doesn't is Burmese at SOAS. The Burmese language has the world's most beautiful system of writing. And a degree in Burmese ain't gonna be any less useful than one in English literature or sociology, is it..?.For obvious reasons, a year spent in Burma is not too practicable.
And it was indeed the idea of doing a German degree again that got me reading and blogging in that language. I remember my former counsellor, who'd done BA French, informing me it was quite normal for degree students to rely on English translations when doing European literature. Which I found truly pathetic. (I thought it was just me and my dreadful command of languages who was reduced to this, but apparently not at all...)
So I decided if I ever did go back I would know German well enough to surf through all books in the original first time around. And no reference to any translation. At all. Ever ...


ENYA: EXILES
I've found this tune going round and round my brainbox of late. Cold as the northern wind and December mornings ... It matches my mood ... For a couple of weeks now I've had an unaccountable autumnal feeling, despite it still being "summer". Summer is over for me. Darkness surrounds us. I feel it. O, how I feel it..



COMPETITION ANSWER:
No prize, except the satisfaction of knowing how knowledgeable y'are... the squiggles are GABELSBERGER SHORTHAND in the German language. Unlike traditional English language systems which are geomatric (Pitman, Sloane-Duployan) or cursive-geometric (Gregg), Gabelsberger's method employed a full shorthand alphabet (as the hieroglyphic-looking Teeline system does in English), giving the squiggly appearance. It has been praised for having "a beauty of form and outline that is unsurpassed". it can also be squiggled, so it is claimed, at speeds of up to 500 syllables per minute, which ain't bad!

Reading materiell

TODAY I found a bookshop with several shelves of foreign languages. The German section was all mixed up with Dutch and Scandinavian. C'mon ~ German doesn't have struck through Øs or Ås with little halos on top!
Every single volume of slightest interest that I didn't buy I made careful note of inside the paper bag my methadone came in. Author, title, price... I'm the character Oscar Wilde was speaking of when he famously remarked on the price of everything and the value of nothing...
But prices aside, I carefully checked everything on display. What I wanted more than anything was something nonficitonal and rivetting. For a novel to hold my attention it has to be really special. Otherwise my attitude pretty much goes: this isn't even TRUE, yet you think I should be leafing forever onwards through your tawdry tale? The only novels that have grabbed me in recent times are thrillers. When I heard you could make £20k writing romance and that top writers knock out five or more a year I bought one for 20p. I seriously could not make it past page one. I have an idea (amongst so very many) for a crime series. Who knows, I might one day even put pen to paper (or digits to keys)... As it is I'm mired in my present project which is slowly ongoing. My characters are so real to me. Their story HAS to be told....
Anyway I perused carefully through this not-too inspiring selection of German books and came away with a Collins Gem German dictionary for £1. It's tiny but I quickkly realized on getting it home that my vocabulary has outgrown it. My favourite German word, klitzeklein which means teeny-tiny wasn't there, because the book is too klitzeklein itself!
Most of the novels were translations from English, whcih seemed the biggest waste of time. I want to know I'm experiencing something unique. So I chose a thriller by Volker Klüpfel and Michael Kobr called Seegrund which means Bottom of the Lake. Paragraph one I understood perfectly... because it was somebody speaking English! But I found I also understood paragraph two just as well. This is seriously freaky.
I was about to take my purchases to the till when I realized that behind me was another mixed language pile of children's picture-books. And here, finally, the book I've long been searching for ~ an illustrated encyclopedia of science. As well as all types of animals and plants, we have the Solar System, the sun, the stars, asteroids and meteorites, comets; the weather, the human body, some amazing star maps and the cutest photograph ever of a family of golden bears crossing the ridge of a waterfall, Mummy Bear glancing back to make sure her babies aren't tumbling over the side... This is the book I've longed for ever since I took up German again. It gives all the basic vocab on everything. It's dead easy to read and beautifully illustrated. My best spent £2 in a long, long while!
Though I still feel full of unaccountable gloom whenever I stop, I'm determined to keep on running so my misery won't bite me on the bum and eat me. Perhaps there's no magic cure for depression, but at least knowing that you're accomplishing something, even if it is just learning to speak over again... That does help a little.
Now I must ping. it's nearly 4am. I'm only awake due to my broken sleep cycle.
Apart from books, my best news is THE HEATWAVE HERE IS OVER! Normal cool weather is resumed! I couldn't be happier.
Wishing y'all a cheery day :-)...
PS Chogstable the nightingale is trilling and tootling his klitzekleine head off in the cherry tree outside, the feathery swine!

German Keyboard!


HAVING irritatedly spent the last month or so laboriously copying umlauts äöü, ÄÖÜ and ess-zed, the weird blobberous ß thing, by sucking them in and out of my mouse, I have finally added German and French keyboards to my machine.

The weird German quotation marks that look like double commas I have yet to find. I believe even the Germans have given up on these.

Mz biggest problem now is that I am tzping in a strange foreign accent, as on German kezboards Y and Z swap places!

Which is resulting in biyarrelz Polishßflavoured tzpos all over the place.

Several common punctuation marks appear nowhere to be found. Central European characters with cuckooßclock vowels appear in their places. Even the opening bracket is where the closing one should be...

This is going to take quite some getting used to...

ßs are now everzwhere, because essßyed is where mz old hzphen used to be...

... and what on earth has happened to mz beloved "swung dash" Iäve absolutelz no idea...

And all I can saz now is "auf Wiedersehen!"

LINK: international keyboard styles

Famous German and Jewish American names and their meanings...

Calvin Klein, celebrated fashion designer. Klein means SMALL
Lucianne Goldberg, literary agent, famously embroiled in President Clinton's extramarital scandals in the 1990s. Goldberg means (surprise-surprise) GOLDEN MOUNTAIN
Dustin Hoffman, Academy Award winning actor. Hoffman means HOPE MAN
Jeff Katzenberg, film producer, studio-head, co-founder of Dreamworks SKG. Katzenberg means MOUNTAIN OF CATS
Helmut KOHL, German Chancellor 1982-1998. Kohl means CABBAGE
Judith Krantz, bestselling author of romantic sagas in the 1970s and 80s, married to film producer Steve Krantz. Krantz is an anglicized spelling of Kranz, which means GARLAND
Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor 1998-2005. Schröder derives from a Middle-Low-German root meaning TAILOR
Stephen Spielberg, film director extraordinaire and founder of Dreamworks SKG studio. Spielberg means PLAY-MOUNTAIN
Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur. Of Dutch origin, "Byltye" meant a little hatchet or bill, so the name translates: OF THE HATCHET
Elizabeth Wurzel, author of the original self-indulgent misery-memoir Prozac Nation. Wurtzel is an anglicized version (with added T) of the German word for ROOT

A big welcome to Sam, my 100th Follower!

Ach!


HOW TYPICAL of me to put my foot in it. (Again.) I thought I was simply quoting the German National Anthem. Little did I know that in modern times only stanza three is sung. You can read more about the Deutschlandlied here. I didn't realize my posts might have been offensive (because I posted it up in German too!!) so I altered their titles to Deutschland über England.

News? No news. Unconscious practically all day with sheer exhaustion.

And the weather is sweltering hot ~ still.

Found a brilliant book about the origins of German words and expressions in German. So I'm (slowly) reading that.

Now I've got to run. It's 01:37am! Night night all. Or good afternoon if you're in Australia.

Warum die Amerikaner an meinen Lieblingsvogel lachen

GESTERN war ich so erschöpft, ich schlief pracktisch den ganzen Tag lang, und wachte um 04:00 Uhr.
Chogga die Nachtigall könnte ich nicht hören, weil der morgendliche Gesang der Gartenvogel noch angefangen hatte. Dies nennen wir hier the dawn chorus ~ der Chorgesang der Dämmerung. Er ist eine der spektakulärsten Phänomene der Natur.
Abgesehen von der Singvogel, meine Lieblingsvogel sind die Meisen, besonders die Blaumeise und die Kohlmeise.
Sie sind die minute federartige Akrobaten des Gartens, die behaglich am Fütterhäuschen umgedreht speisen.
Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kann ich nie sicher sein, dass meine amerikanische Leser glauben, dass ich scherze nicht.
Die Blaumeise ist nur ein Nord- und Zentraleuropäischer Vogel; das Habitat der Kohlmeise weitet süd und ost nach Indien und genau Japan. Aber in Nordamerika sind diese Vogel unbekannt.
Also wenn ich ihnen mit ihren richtigen Namen nenne, the blue tit und the great tit ~ dann verstehen meine Amerikanische Freunden, dass ich etwas über Frauenbrüste spreche: die blaue Titte und die Großtitte.
Kein Wunder lachen sie so!


ACHTUNG!
GRAMMATISCHE KRISE! Bitte helft mir!
Welcher ist korrekt?/ Das erste? Die zweite? Oder etwas anders? Wie sage ich:


Sie sind die minute federartige Akrobaten des Gartens, die behaglich am Fütterhäuschen umgedreht speisen.
Sie sind die minute federartige Akrobaten des Gartens, die behaglich auf dem Kopf stehend am Fütterhäuschen speisen.

Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kann ich nie sicher sein, dass meine amerikanische Leser glauben nicht, dass ich scherze.
Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kann ich nie sicher sein, dass meine amerikanische Leser glauben, dass ich scherze nicht.
Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kannich nie sicher sine, dass meine amerikanische Leser
nicht, dass ich scherze glauben...


... oder was?!
Ich bin ganz verloren!


Blaumeise füttert ihre Babys
Bluetit feeds chicks:



Minute Kohlmeise sitzt auf dem Hand, isst und zirpt laut!
Tiny great tit sits on hand, eats and cheeps loudly:



Blaumeise, Kohlmeise, Sperling und Eichelhäher
Blue tits, great tits, sparrows and European (not blue) jay
Unlike the American blue jay, the European jay is rare and shy ~ it is considered a blessing to see one



Befreite Blaumeise isst Wurmchen in menschlichem Haus
Rescued blue tit eats little worms in humans' house:



Blaumeise spielt Propeller im Vogelbad
Blue tit goes for a splash in birdie-bath:



RATHER than do the translating myself, here for the English-speaking majority is some special entertainment performed by Google:

Why the Americans laugh at my favorite bird
YESTERDAY, I was so exhausted, I slept practical at all day long, and woke up at 04:00 clock.
Chogga I could hear the nightingale, not because the morning song of the bird garden had begun. We call this the dawn chorus singing the chorus ~ dusk. He is one of the most spectacular phenomena of nature.
Apart from the singing bird, my favorite bird, the titmouse, especially the blue tit and great tit.
They are the spring-minute acrobats of the garden, feed the comfortable Fütterhäuschen turned on.
As I sign this fact on my blog, I can never be sure that my American readers do not think I'm joking.
The blue tit is only one North and Central European bird, the habitat of the great tit is expanding south and east to India and Japan carefully. But in North America, this bird are unknown.
So if I call them by their real names, the blue tit and the great tit ~ then understand my American friends that I talk about women's breasts, the blue tit and the Großtitte.
No wonder they laugh like that!


Bilder: deutscher Text: Blaumeise; englischer Text oben: Kohlmeise; unten Blaumeise
Illustrations: German text: blue tit; English text top: great tit, bottom blue tit


LINKS:
10,000 Birds blog: blue tit post
Blue tit fact sheet
BBC: great tits: facts, pictures, video

Was Gledwood zunächst tat/What Gledwood did next

FOR ENGLISH, SEE UNDERNEATH:

Heute schlief ich fast den ganzen Tag lang. Ich wachte nach 16.00 Uhr.

Zuerst musste ich zur Apotheke, um mein Methadon abzuholen.

Dann ging ich in den Supermarkt, und kaufte eine Pizza. Sie war sehr frisch und nett.

Am Bahnhof, hörte ich das Zirpen noch einanderer Nachtigall!

Sie klang genau wie eine Spieldose.

Flapper sa
ß noch auf der Fernsehantenne des Nachbars.

Ich denke, sie liebt das Digitalfernsehen über alles. Das hat ihr so vielen Luxus-Barsche gegeben!


I slept nearly all day today, waking up after four in the afternoon. First I had to go to the chemist's to pick up my methadone. Then I went in the supermarket and bought a pizza. It was really fresh and nice. At the railway station I heard yet another nightingale chirping! It sounded just like a music-box. Flapper was still on the neighbours' TV aerial. I think he loves digital television more than anything. It has given him so many luxury new perches!


Blogpost of the day: Caving, Philippines-style!

Gledwoods Vogelein

HIER ist mein besonderer deutschsprachiger Artikel über den kleinen Vogel in meiner Straße.
Dieses Jahr, scheint es mehr Vogelarten als je zuvor zu geben, die von den Bäume und Dachern zwitschern.
Vor zwei wochen zeigte sich eine Ringeltaube, die auf der Fernsehantenne meines Nachbars sitzt.
Ringeltauben sind eher flatterhaft und schüchtern.
Sie gurrt und gurrt praktisch der ganzer Tag. Ich ahnte, dass sie in mir verknallte sich. Jedesmal wenn ich die Haustür öfnete, oder die Straße entlang trabte ~ da war sie! Hinter der Mülltonne meines Nachbars, hinter dem Kirschenbaum... immer hinter etwas. Sie tat, als ob sie im Gras pickte; dann sah sie ganz erschüttert aus. Sie klappte die Flügeln und auf dem Dach verschwand. Deshalb nannte ich sie "Flapper".
Letzte Woche fand Flapper noch einandere Ringeltaube. Sie sitzen einander gegenüber und girren den ganzen Tag lang.
Mein anderer Lieblingsvogel ist eine Nachtigall, die Chogstable oder Chogga heißt.
Ich nannte sie Chogga nach ihrem Lied, das geht:
twit twit twit
jug jug

mit vielen komplizierten Triller darin.
Als ich das Thema googlete, fand ich, dass die Nachtigall in England überwintert, und dann im Sommer nach West- und Zentralafrika fliegt.
Sie seht sehr unwichtig aus ~ ganz klein und braun. Aber ihr Lied ist eine der schönster aller Vogellieder.
Chogga lebt oben im Kirschenbaum neben meinem Haus, darin Flapper auch saß, bevor sie ihren Partner fand.
Im Winter sah ich Chogga im Gebüsch meines Nachbars. Heutzutage sehe ich sie nicht. Aber ich höre sie laut und klar!
Die ganze Nacht, und fast den ganzen Tag lang zirpt sie ihr tranzendent melodische Lied, und ich fühle, als ob ich von einem romantischen Gedicht träume!


J W VON GOETHE

WANDRERS NACHTLIED II

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;

Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.




LINKS ÜBER ZWEISPRACHIGKEIT
Bilingual myths: http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/myth.html
Bilingual Confusion blog: http://bilingualconfusion.blogspot.com/
Multilingualism (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism
Bilingualismus (Wikipedia; Deutsch): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualismus
Languages of Belgium (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium
Situation linguistique de la Belgique (Wikipedia; French): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_linguistique_de_la_Belgique
Languages of Switzerland (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland
Sprachen in der Schweiz (Wikipedia; German): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprachen_in_der_Schweiz
Langues en Suisse (Wikipedia; Francais): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_en_Suisse
Code-switching (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
Code-Switching (Wikipedia; Deutsch): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-Switching

The Nightingale

Befiederter Samstag ~ die Nachtigall
Feathery Friday on Saturday




Romeo und Julia
Akt 3 Szene 5

Julia:

Willst du schon gehen? Der Tag ist ja noch fern.
Es war die Nachtigall, und nicht die Lerche,
Die eben jetzt dein banges Ohr durchdrang;
Sie singt des Nachts auf dem Granatbaum dort.
Glaub, Lieber, mir: es war die Nachtigall.

Romeo:

Die Lerche war´s, die Tagverkünderin,
Nicht Philomele; sieh den neid´schen Streif,
Der dort im Ost der Frühe Wolken säumt.
Die Nacht hat ihre Kerzen ausgebrannt,
Der muntre Tag erklimmt die dunst´gen Höhn;
Nur Eile rettet mich, Verzug ist Tod.

Julia:

Trau mir, das Licht ist nicht des Tages Licht;
Die Sonne haucht ihr Luftbild aus,
Dein Fackelträger diese Nacht zu sein,
Dir auf dem Weg nach Mantua zu leuchten;
Drum bleibe noch; zu gehen ist ja noch nicht not.

Romeo:

Lass sie mich greifen, ja, lass sie mich töten!
Ich gebe gern mich drein, wenn du es willst.
Nein, jenes Grau ist nicht des Morgens Auge,
Der bleiche Abglanz nur vom Cynthias Stirn.
Das ist auch nicht die Lerche, deren Schlag
Hoch über uns des Himmels Wölbung trifft.
Ich bleibe gern; zum Gehen bin ich verdrossen.
Willkommen, Tod! hat Julia dich beschlossen.
Nun Herz? Noch tagt es nicht, noch plaudern wir.

Julia:

Es tagt, es tagt! Auf! Eile! Fort von hier!
Es ist die Lerche, die so heiser singt,
Und falsche Weisen, rauhen Misston gurgelt.
Man sagt, der Lerche Harmonie sei süß;
Nicht diese; sie zerreist die unsre ja.
Die Lerche, sagt man, wechselt mit der Kröte
Die Augen; möchte sie doch auch die Stimme!
Die Stimm´ ist´s ja, die Arm aus Arm uns schreckt,
Dich von mir jagt, dass sie den Tag erweckt.
Stets hell und heller wird´s; wir müssen scheiden.

Romeo:

Stets heller - und stets dunkler unsre Leiden.



Im Winter gab's eine Nachtigall, die hoch oben im Kirschenbaum lebte.


Am 4 oder 5 Uhr morgens, als ich Schokoladenkeks einkaufte, laufte sie die Straße entlang, und dann sitzte sie im Gebüsch meines Nachbars.


In winter, we had a nightingale, who lived high in Flapper's cherry tree.

When I used to go out to buy chocolate biscuits at 4 or 5 a.m. there he was, running along the street. Then he would go and perch in my neighbour's bushes.



Das Lied der Nachtigall ist einer der schönster aller Vogellieder.
The song of the nightingale is one of the most beautiful of all birdsongs.

NIGHTINGALE SINGING CARTOON
ZEICHENTRICKFILM: SINGENDER NACHTIGALL



Romeo and Juliet
Act 3 Scene 5

JULIET

Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO

It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET

Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.

ROMEO

Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go:
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.

JULIET

It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,
O, now I would they had changed voices too!
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

ROMEO

More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!



HÖREN SIE DAS LIED! ERSTAUNLICH!
HEAR THE SINGING! AMAZING!

Eine außerordentliche Aufnahme (kein Video).
An excellent recording (no video).

 
Penyamun