I told you so!

Sometimes, it's not great to be right after all.

The local adult education school (VHS) finally managed to move into its newly renovated premises - only 8 years after the initial idea and about 2.5 years after the planned opening. A sum of 10 million euros was spent on renovating the building and €4 million will have to be spent on the lease every year; and it's a 30-year lease. I know my maths isn't very good, but even I can calculate €120 million!! I was shocked by the figures here. How can this go well, I thought. They've spent too much. It's not like this is the only school that is having money thrown at it. Off the top of my head, I can think of three secondary schools that are being rebuilt or built new in this town. I did mention to the Head of English that I feared for the future of this particular school. And it seems I was right to be fearful.

With a four-million price tag for the building's lease every year, that means that the roughly 50,000 students a year contribute €80 each to cover that cost.

The reason for moving into the building in the first place was two-fold: firstly, they wanted to amalgamate three sites and bring them all together in one place; secondly, they wanted to attract younger students and the new location is next to a management school and a university of applied sciences.

Unfortunately, this town is now drowning in debt and late last week, all English teachers got an e-mail saying that, since the town has to make savings across the board [global, allgemein] the courses offered would be affected. There wasn't enough money to pay all the teachers.

In the English department, that means that courses in the categories of "English Extras, "General Business English", AND "Professional English" will ALL be cut. Completely. Some of the other, more general courses will disappear, too, or be shortened. And yet....at the same time... the powers that be [höhere Mächte] have increased the price they pay each teacher by one euro per 45-minute lesson. As the Americans say, "go figure" [Wahnsinn, oder? Stell dir vor].

I'm still trying to figure out how cutting business English and professional English is going to attract the younger students that the move to the new location was meant to attract.

And why pay more money per lesson when you are forced to cut the number of courses because you can't pay the teachers?

Mind-boggling. Irrsinnig!

The Germans have a word for it: fremdschämen

A lot of people see German as an ugly language. It doesn't sound nice - all those throat-clearing 'ch' sounds, for example  "mit Ach und Krach" (by the skin of one's teeth). There's a video on YouTube on the various European words for "butterfly", which are all supposed to sound pretty until you come to the German word for it: "Schmetterling". 

How to pronounce butterfly in five languages

However, German has one major advantage and that is you can slam two words together to make a new one. And it can encapsulate in that one single word a concept that would take several words to explain in English. One of the most famous examples of this is "Schadenfreude" (literally "damage delight"). If you look it up, you'll find a definition along the lines of "taking a malicious delight in the misfortunes of others".

In this little series entitled "The Germans have a word for it", I'd like to share a few German words that I've collected over the years and for which the English-speaking world has no word.

The first in the series is "fremdschämen", a verb. It's relatively recent, having made it into Duden, the famous German dictionary, in 2009. It means that you yourself feel embarrassed on behalf of another person who is behaving in such a way that should make them feel embarrassed - but they're not. One possible translation is "vicarious embarrassment". LEO - an excellent online dictionary, one I often consult on a daily basis - suggests that "zum Fremdschämen" could be translated as "cringeworthy".

                    Die Rede des Politikers war so schlecht und peinlich, dass der gesamte Auftritt zum Fremdschämen war.

                    The politician's speech was so bad and awkward, that the entire performance was cringeworthy.

Back from 17 minutes in New Zealand

 And how did I manage to spend a mere 17 minutes in New Zealand this morning? Well, it's all thanks to the gym - and the cross-trainer that has a special screen which allows you to select various options to keep you occupied while trudging hard and going nowhere.

Only, today, I did go somewhere. I recently found out that one of the things you could choose from were walks from all around the world - Alaska, north-west USA, Hawaii - and New Zealand. So I chose New Zealand and did three trails before getting too bored. 

It was lovely - the greenery, the geology and the little bits of information that popped up as I went along the trails. 

I look forward to walking in Hawaii next. A mini-holiday without the need to pack and get on a plane.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the end of the second trail (or as they say in New Zealand 'tramp'):

Why?

Why is it that, when I have a day off, I wake up at 4.30 a.m. and can't get to sleep again, no matter how I try, so I get up and do stuff, but when I have to do work, I sleep until 6 a.m. and am then so groggy that I can't get myself into gear [mich aufraffen]? I then lie in bed for an hour or so, semi-comatose, unable to move, incapable of even opening my eyes - despite the fact that work awaits me.

It's so unfair.

The morbid nature of the Germans

 Last Friday, I did a short 11 km walk which nearly killed me, so hilly it was. Since I had about 40 minutes to kill before the train came, I rewarded myself with a nice cup of tea in a newly opened cafe. At least...I thought it was going to be a pleasant sit-down in the place.

Unfortunately, I can understand German perfectly and there was a 74-year-old man, talking to a 42-year-old women (so detailed were they that I got all this information within a minute or two) about ill health, strokes, and "Scheintod", or "apparent death". 

He went on about how people have been buried alive and that was only discovered when they had to open the casket or coffin again long after the burial. The people who opened the coffin found scratch marks on the inside. Ugh!

Could I ignore the morbid nature of the talk? Could I heck. They were the only two other guests in the smallish place. After a few minutes and a couple of glares in their direction, I picked up my stuff and the tea cup and moved outside. 

Oh, what a difference. Sunshine. Peace. And pleasantness restored.

The actual cafe: Café Alma am Mariendom in Neviges.

I feel bereft

 Yes, bereft [beraubt] is how I feel.

A couple of weeks ago, I wondered why I hadn't had any articles on the subject of stationery [Schreibwaren] to translate for a while and looked up "Insights-X", the name of the stationery trade fair [Messe] organised by the people in Nuremberg. I discovered that, after 8 years, it had been discontinued. How sad.

I mentioned this to the agency that had given me the articles to translate and got another piece of bad news. The organisers of one of the largest trade fairs in Germany - the Spielwarenmesse or International Toy Fair - had decided to use artificial intelligence, AI, to translate all the articles in the future. The trade fair company offered the agency the chance to "tidy up" the translations, which they refused. 

So now, I feel bereft. No longer will I learn about the innovations in the world of model railways. Never again will I be in the know when it comes to the latest board games, new toys for toddlers, smart building blocks, creative games, learning games and the like. And I shall never hear of the latest trends in stationery either: scrap-booking, calligraphy, marker pens and diaries... 

One thing I like about translation is that you're never quite sure what you are going to get from one day to the next. One minute, you're translating something relating to the environment or economics and the next text to come along is all about glitter pens or jigsaw puzzles.

Life has become just a little bit more boring and flat.

TV series recommendation: The Other Bennet Sister

The BBC has come up with a little gem: an eight-part series based on a book by Janice Hadlow called The Other Bennet Sister. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the works of Jane Austen will instantly recall that the Bennet family crops up in her novel Pride and Prejudice, and, indeed, this story is a continuation of that book.

The first two half-hour episodes basically recap [zusammenfassen] the tale that Jane Austen wrote. It's as of episode three that the story gets really interesting and answers the question of what happened to the unmarried, plain Jane [Mauerblümchen] sister called Mary. Bookish, a bit gawky, not at all girly, she doesn't fit in with her sisters, and doesn't sparkle like they do - much to the despair of her mother, brilliantly played by Ruth Jones.

The actors in each role are credible, just right for their roles, the costumes are wonderful and the sets have been dressed to perfection. You can almost imagine that it was filmed on site in the past. Almost. Two things didn't seem quite in keeping with the rest. One was the scene at a gathering in a private house when everone chants "Sing, sing" over and over again. I didn't think people would do that in those days. Secondly, we sometimes see the London street she ends up living in: it's too clean. In those days, it would have been filfthy, what with all the horses for one thing. As it is, there's not a speck of dirt or a scrap of waste. Too unbelievable. But those are minor faults and, overall, the effect is pleasing.

But it's the blossoming of the little "ugly duckling" that is so wonderful. From an awkward and gauche young woman lacking any kind of confidence, unaware that people are actually on her side or interested in her, we see that she finally grows comfortable in her own skin and realises that she is likeable and welcome and even lovable. That sounds very serious, but, believe me, there are plenty of laughs along the way.

What makes me so fascinated by the story is that I can identify with the main character so well myself: nose in a book all the time, socially awkward, believing no-one could put up with her and with an overbearing [herrisch] mother who never failed to indicate when she was disappointed in her daughter.

This is why I cheer Mary on, why I want her to come out on top in the end. I want her to have a happy ending, and, without wishing to give anything away, a happy ending is what she gets. Hurray! At least there's some good news on the small screen these days.

Is it any wonder that I'm watching it for the third time already?

Guess which one of them is Mary?

But can the actress playing the role - Ella Bruccoleri - really be called plain?