Language trip

By Gaby Feile

Let me start with a warning: For English native speakers the following might be surprising, confusing, useless, hopefully educating or at least entertaining.

Just recently I returned to Dubai from a language trip to Europe. Neither did I plan such a trip nor did I think it was necessary, especially as the language I was being taught was English. This is rather astonishing since I travelled to Germany, Switzerland and Italy. English is not the official language in none of those countries, that is a well-known fact.

Anyhow, I was overwhelmed, if not to say overstrained, with the use of the English language in public. In Germany (where I am from originally) it is meanwhile very common to enrich the beautiful national language with English words. OK, there is some terms that do not exist in German, especially if they come from areas such as IT or telecommunication. Or it is too complicated to say „elektronische Post“ (electronic mail) instead of email. In the last millennium one would have found a German term for everything and also used it. Today, nobody cares but uses terms like check-in, hardware and high end location without even noticing that this is a different language.

But this is not enough! No, people use words that sound English but that are completely unknown to English native speakers. One is the very popular „handy“ which is a mobile or cell phone. „Beamer“ is another one which, when I used it, gave me repeatedly blank looks until I had learned that it is a projector that transfers the pictures to the wall. And during a real language trip some years ago, I called a co-student „sunnyboy“ which caused the British who were present to roll their eyes and mumble something like „those Germans“. Of course, I asked what they meant and in return they wanted to know what a „sunnyboy“ is. I described it with the young Tom Cruise, and the Brits mentioned that it could be an Australian word, they themselves did not know it. If anybody has an idea where this word comes from, please let me know!

That the Swiss, both in their German and Italian part, as well as the Italians do the same thing with the same intensity was completely new to me. No question about it, as a foreigner it always helps you if there is an English sign. Even as a European you do not speak all languages that exist on the continent. English, on the other hand, is spoken by everybody - somehow. At least this is what English native speakers assume. I personally prefer multi-language translations such as one can find in public areas or in good museums.

A good example can be found at the train station of Lugano (Switzerland). Absolutely clear and in four languages:

Also at the St. Paul‘s Church in Frankfurt (Germany) the challenge has been solved very well:

And the advertisement of the department store Manor in Switzerland is also acceptable to me:

The following signs, however, have somewhat surprised me and brought the English language to me in a very new way:

In my home village in Southern Germany, I saw this van, and I am pretty sure that the 2,000 inhabitants do not enjoy business lunch nor have a catering for their event. You English speaking guys might wonder what the rest means and slowly understand what I am talking about here.

This image is from the next biggest town where I guess that this coffee bar is still not open. Maybe they should have included the country code to give a chance to foreign tenants.

Right opposite, this ad was fixed - at least it is partly translated.

The Restaurant International in Munich (Germany) sticks to its name and does not serve German meals or beverages but Lunch, Dinner and a Drink. Maybe in the Coffee Bar?

Tutanchamun would not have understood those hieroglyphics found in the Olympic Park in Munich (Germany).

And the department store Oberpollinger in Munich (Germany) even combined English and French when naming their beauty department.

At least the English sentence „The right shoes for your feet“ was printed in smaller font by this shoe shop, its name somewhat bigger.

The flatrate of this telephone provider in Switzerland hopefully keeps its promise.

And the Italian banks also want to have a word: Let‘s speak English!

Don‘t get me wrong: I like studying and talking languages a lot, but only one at a time. One thing I cannot stand at all is when people mix languages, not because they do not know a word but to aggrandise themselves. Others do it out of laziness and others because it is in fashion. In all industries I have worked, it was very common to „impress“ others with English terms. The challenge always came when corresponding with clients who did not know the term. Quickly, people would do a little survey among the colleagues to translate „no-show“ or „Key Performance Indicators“ correctly.

I find it very confusing that even journalists are not immune to this development. In well-known German papers, magazines or on online news sites people speak and write of mega-cities, homepages or forecasts. And these are still the relatively harmless terms. I ask myself what the generation of our parents and grandparents think, and more important understand, when they read their paper. Not all of them speak English, you know.

It will be very difficult to stop this development, I believe. Anyway, I personally pay a lot of attention to form entire sentences in one language only. Sie haben mein Wort!

And this is what we can learn from it:

English may be a world language, yet in Europe more people speak German.

The German language is not only beautiful but also enough comprehensive to express everything with it.

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