New Year’s Eve – the German Way

In Germany the last day of the year is called Silvester. And that’s not the only thing that makes a German New Year’s Eve special. Below I compiled a few links to point out and explain some the predominant peculiarities. But first, please enjoy what generations of Germans have been watching on this day since 1963: Der 90. Geburtstag or Dinner For One – a TV special that has become a national cult. Produced in Germany with British comedians.
Never mind the German introduction, the sketch switches to English after 2:30 minutes.

Sherry with the soup, white wine with the fish, Champagne with the bird …
The same precedure as last year, Miss Sophie? — The same precedure as every year, James:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Surprisingly, while practically everybody in Germany knows this skit and considers it to be indespensable for a New Year’s Eve, hardly anyone in Britain or the US is familiar with it. Outside of Germany, Dinner for One is also watched in Austria & Switzerland, parts of Scandinavia, South Africa and Australia – a true crosscultural phenomenon.

Why Silvester, you ask?

No your friend isn’t planning to ring in 2009 with someone named Sylvester instead of you. Silvester is the German name for New Year’s Eve – owing to the fourth century Pope Sylvester I. Eventually made a saint by the Catholic Church, his feast day is observed on December 31. St. Sylvester’s day became associated with New Year’s Eve with the reform of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, when the last day of the year was fixed at December 31. But despite the holiday’s Christian name, many German New Year’s traditions can be traced back to the pagan Rauhnächte practices of heathen Germanic tribes, which took place at the end of December and beginning of January.

What else is typical for Silvester?
How about Bleigießen – or melting lead?

Bleigießen (pron. BLYE-ghee-sen)
“Lead pouring” (das Bleigießen) is an old practice using molten lead like tea leaves. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball (der Ball), that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor (der Anker) means help in need. But a cross (das Kreuz) signifies death.

Also quintessential:

• the midnight fireworks
• on Silvester, good luck charms and New Year’s greetings are often exchanged. Acquaintances may give good luck charms to each other in the form of ladybugs, four-leaf clovers, horseshoes and pigs.
• the Neujahrskonzert (New Year’s Conert) of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which is broadcast around the world (usually in more than 50 countries and to an audience of appr. one billion viewers).

In addition to wishing each other Ein Gutes/Frohes Neues Jahr (a good/happy new year), during the last days of December many Germans add the phrase Guten Rutsch! to their greetings. While many Germans now use it to wish someone a good “slide” into the new year, the word Rutsch more likely comes from the Yiddish word Rosch – which means beginning or head.

In this spirit allow me to thank you for reading Southeast Schnitzel throughout the year 2009. Let’s not look back but forward to a new decade.
Prost! to 2010!
Happy New Year & Frohes Neues Jahr to all of you.

You can call be me by my first name

Forget the Umlaut – call be me by my first name

Living with a last name that features an Umlaut can be fun – or annoying, depending on the situation. Especially if you live in an English-speaking country like I do. Here in the U.S. people usually ask, “how do you spell that?” or “can you pronounce your last name again, please?”.

Sure I can. And I really don’t mind you butchering my name, either. I understand: Höferle is hard to say if you are unfamiliar with the German language. Changing my last name’s spelling to the English keyboard-friendly Hoeferle also hasn’t helped. It made for funny moments, though. Something sounding awefully close to “hopefully” or “hofferly” has been the usual outcome in recent years.

No matter how often I tell people to just forget about saying my last name and instead stick with Christian, they still try to get it right. Which is a really nice gesture, I think. To help you understand what these crazy dots over the vowels a, o, and u are about I compiled some background information here.

Find a scientific/linguistic definition of umlaut here.

This video should get you in the mood to try pronouncing these strange sounds:

And if all fails remember: My name is Christian.

Also, dear marketers and copywriters: Inserting umlauts into your American brand names, logos or slogans may help you create some awareness. But it will also let you look really ignorant of other languages and cultures.

Translating humor

When translating humor fails

Arguably one of the best comedy shows on TV these days is 30 Rock. Multiple Emmy Awards prove that I am not alone with that opinion. Now, tell that to the Germans. This week, an average of 30,000 viewers tuned in to channel ZDFneo to watch Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy. That’s a whopping 0.1% market share!

This is what The Hollywood Reporter found out:

’30 Rock’ registers with German viewers
Second showing achieves 0.1% market share

By Scott Roxborough – Nov 5, 2009, 10:27 AM ET

COLOGNE, Germany — Things are looking up for “30 Rock” in Germany. An average of 30,000 viewers tuned in to channel ZDFneo Wednesday night to watch the Emmy-winning sitcom — enough for a 0.1% market share, according to German ratings agency Media Control. While that might not sound like much, it’s a major improvement over “30 Rock’s” free-TV debut in Germany where the show scored a zero rating, a figure that translates to fewer than 5,000 viewers. But other shows didn’t do much better on the digital niche channel, a subsidiary of pubweb giant ZDF, which has been struggling to find an audience since its Nov. 1 relaunch. The share for the ZDFneo premiere of “In Plain Sight” — 0.2% — was barely visible. German crime series “Das Duo” flopped in primetime just ahead of “30 Rock” with a 0.1% share. ZDFneo is being closely watched by the German industry. Germany’s pubwebs have a reputation of being staid and risk adverse with an audience demographic tilting heavily to the over 50s. ZDFneo is targeting a younger, hipper crowd — 25 to 49-year-olds according to the network – with more cutting edge fare. The association of German television and film producers has thrown its support behind the channel, saying it hopes it will become “a motor of innovation” for the local industry. But judging by this week’s start, that engine is still spluttering.

One possible reason for this failure to connect with a German audience may be the lousy translation and/or dubbing of the original episodes. Or maybe it’s just that certain humor doesn’t translate very well. Which, come to think of it, might be the issue with a New York-centered showbiz satire that mines a lot of its humor from semi-obscure nuggets of American pop culture.

Perhaps they need to show the episodes in which Liz Lemon unveils her German language skills. Priceless:

Singing “99 Luftballons”

Bragging about her time in Frankfurt

Germany – breading ground for popcultural tastelessness?

Is Germany a breading ground for popcultural tastelessness?

Remember what I wrote about Germany being a country with a huge guilt complex? That’s still true. For historic reasons, mostly. However, I do think that especially the post-WWII generations should feel a sense of guilt for more contemporary reasons.

If you don’t know what I am referring to you need to watch these videos.

Is “The Hoff” the reason the Wall came down? (Before you think this confirms the common stereotype that it was Germany’s fault Hasselhoff had a career, let me remind you: You too watched Knight Rider and Baywatch!)

I know, it can’t possibly get worse than that. But brace yourselves for this assault on your ear canals:

Why, I ask you, do we Germans always have to be associated with poor taste in music? And why is it that of those German pop artists who became successful outside the German-speaking world so many had to be from the camp of musical cruelties? Just think Modern Talking, Scooter or Tokio Hotel.

It could be so much different, though. German artists have been creating some timeless gems throughout the last 50 years. The good stuff just never reached a big audience.
I’ll try to do some crate digging here in the future and will post the pleasant side of Music made in Germany.

Stay tuned.

Improving the English language for Germans

Improving the English language for Germans

It is old news that the Germans’ use of the English language can be irritating at times. Nevertheless everybody understands them – regardless of how bad their accent or their grammar is (my dad is living proof). A lot of that is owed to the fact that America has always been an immigrant country where many newcomers didn’t speak proper English. American culture is forgiving of this. How about European culture? Just read this little story I found via Twitter. Thanks to Cindy King for posting this.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as re plasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.