Die Kaffeestube - German and Austrian cyber Kaffee und Kuchen

[admylin]

Kaffeeklatsch for anyone in a German speaking country or interested in German, Kommt herein und setz euch!

How annoying about the dust, admylin - imagine if you had a dust allergy. I would be sneezing for weeks.

at your crazy duck-watching life, Gator. DS saw a duckling rescue operation at the local park last week, complete with fireman swimming around in the lake, and I think it's been the highlight of his year so far.

Nutella I've been to Hannover quite a few times as my best friend at university did her year abroad there, met her future DH and moved straight back there after university (we're going to visit them again next month, in fact). I don't really know any locals (other than her DH, who's very nice), but I think she herself would admit that she's quite into finding things for low prices - maybe that's what attracted her to Hannover?

Linzer if she starts all her restaurant recommendations with "you get a really big portion and it's really cheap" I would probably tell her she's been here too long :o

Sorry, about my Hannover bashing.... back to being pregnant... crazy dreams! What is that all about! DP can't wait to feel the baby, think we've agreed on a girls name. But we both feel it's a boy (I know, every crazy parent gets to think this though right? [hhm] ) and have absolutely no agreement on boys names!

DS loved the different ducks! (I think because there were more of them than in our little park). He is having a phase of not wanting his nappy changed at the moment and sort of flips over onto his belly like a trout and crawls off at high speed. I'm feeling ridiculously proud of actually getting a nappy onto his at the moment. I think I deserve a Brownie badge :)

admylin Hope the coffee gives you the energy to tackle the dust again. Nothing wrong with sandwiches for lunch! Call it British Day or something...

Linzer Enjoy your trip! I realised I actually know two born and bred Hannoverians and they are both perfectly normal and lovely. I may quiz them on bargains and portion sizes next time I see them just to check.

Nutella We were the exact opposite - we had loads of names for a boy and none for a girl. We found out the gender at the 20 week scan so that saved us the problem of finding a girl's name, and when the midwives asked what we would be calling him just after DS was born, we realised we only actually really liked one of the names off our list anyway!
Do you think you'll find out the gender in advance?

Gator did you intend the Brownie badge as a rather amusing double entendre?
No I don't want to find out, I want the surprise! :o
DP wanted to find out; but since I don't I've given him the job of announcing at the birth what baby is. He really likes it, that he has a job to do now in the delivery room and it's a very special task :o

At last I´ve got a keyboard that works properly. so I can post again.

Nutella We didn´t find out what we were having with our first. We only had a girl´s name, so I was really relieved when dd arrived although I´m sure I would have been equally delighted with a boy. By the time ds arrived we´d agreed a name and decided to find out the sex before the birth.

Linzer I hope you enjoyed your child free time yesterday. DD is off to friends this afternoon and I´ve been encouraging ds to go to a friend, but he´s just not interested. I´m sure I´ll be listening to an afternoon of, "What can I do now?" It drives me insane.

admylin I really sympathise with the dust. We´ve had our kitchen ripped out and the dust has managed to spread through the whole house even though they sealed the room with plastic sheeting.

We went to Movie Park in Bottrop yesterday, The dc had a great time, but we found it horrendous. It was full of teenagers on end of school trips. It was also really warm and I don´t think one of them was wearing deo, so the smell as we queued was rather over powering.

Nutella

Nutella Yes, I can imagine her writing that. To be fair, I used to be the same until DH corrupted me with his spendthrift ways. (Tbh anyone would look like a spendthrift compared to my family.)

I was convinced that DD1 was going to be a boy, maybe because I was secretly hoping for a girl (although I know I would have been thrilled to have a boy too once he was actually born) - also, I'd been told in Germany that the baby looked more likely to be a boy, so was to be told by the sonographer in the US that she was 99% certain that it was a girl. I'd have quite liked the surprise of finding out at the birth, but just couldn't contain my curiosity!

Gator Ah, I remember those days of trying to get a nappy onto a crawling baby. I really struggled with boys' names and am still not wildly enthusiastic about DS's full name, but he only ever gets call by the shortened version in English, which I do like.

hupa As much as the constant squabbling drives me mad, I often find it easier when at least two of them are at home - if there's just one, they'll often complain that they don't have anyone to play with (DS in particular would nag me to phone up a friend to come and play; I'm obviously not good enough ).

My child-free afternoon was lovely as I spent virtually all afternoon in town with a friend; we met for ice cream followed by shopping followed by coffee. I didn't manage to get anything done round the house, as I'd hoped, but that can wait until this afternoon - they're all going to a friend's house, although it's DS's first time there so I don't know how long he'll want to stay.

Have spent about half the morning redoing two tax returns, which I managed to mess up first time round and which are going to cost us ???. The only silver lining is that I discovered my mistake before the tax office did. Have also only just realised that the lowest tax rate here is 36.5%.

hello!! havent seemed to find much MN time this week - too busy running around trying to find the right bits to bastel ds2's Schultuete and then to get all the bits in place for our visitors at the weekend. A friend is flying over with her 5 month old ds - dont think there's ever been a baby staying in this house - and obviously we are well past having baby stuff so I've borrowed everything she might need. Was trying to cause the neighbours to gossip about whether we were havign another baby but no-one saw me coming in .

Had a fab time at silken's last weekend. And her new house is absolutely stunning. Was beyond jealous. The view is just so beautiful too. I just kept saying "wow" the whole time.

linzer - glad you're enjoying your child free afternoons - are you surviving the holidays so far? Didnt know that about the lowest tax rate being 36.5% - that seems really high if you had a low paid job.

gator - really laughed out loud at your crazy wild life - I sometimes feel like that about playgrounds and get excited if we find a new good one [need to get out more emotion]. But glad your ds enjoyed the new ducks. I had problems with all 3 dc at that age not wanting to get their nappies on - used pull ups for a while I think since they didnt need to be lying down (oh apart from when there's poo everywhere of course!)

aaahhh hupa - the smell of teenagers. I imagine thats what dd's classroom smells like. How's the kitchen going?

nutella - we didnt find out at the 20 week scan with dc1 but then had a repeat scan at 34 weeks and our curiosity had got the better of us. We had a definite boys name (which we gave dc2) but really struggled with a girls name. By the time dc3 came along we had no idea what to call him and like linzer i'm not 100% satisfied with the name we gave him but my MIL said she hated the name we wanted to use and I always wish I'd just ignored her. Actually if he came along now, I'd call him Nico - I hadnt thought of that name at the time.
Carry on as much with your pregnancy stories - I'll never be pregant agin so its nice to live thro someone elses.

admylin - how's the dust today?

waves to anyone I missed!

Dd came home with an English test - she did well but just want to ask what you all think the missing word is in the text.

"The Penroses are a nice family. There Pat, the mother, Colin, the father, and the 2 boys, David and Mark."

Is it "is" or "are"?

Oh it took out my missing lines - the word between There and Pat is missing - is it "is" or "are"?

Ploom I think I'd say "There's Pat..."; both "there is" and "there are" don't sound quite right - not much help, I know! But if the sentence started with "the 2 boys", I'd say "There are the 2 boys, ...". I suppose "there are" is grammatically correct as there's more than one family member (or should that be "there are more than one family member"?!?) but starting off the sentence with "There are Pat ..." just sounds wrong.

Am quite enjoying the holidays so far, thanks - have had two afternoons in a row to myself and get longer child-free mornings than during term time. Plus no homework or piano practice to nag then DC about.

Oh, and the lowest tax rate is 0% - it's just that if you earn over a certain threshold (which I'm now just over), it shoots up to 36.5% (isn't it something like 20% in the UK or am I very out of date?).

Ploom Hello :) I hoping to have a short list by the time LO shows up because I always remember my Mum saying she wanted to call one of my older brothers Bradley but when he arrived he really didn't suit it. I don't know if other people have a feeling that certain names are wrong for their newborn but it wouldn't surprise me if it pop out and suddenly I need to call it something completely different to what we planned.... hmmmm

Oh and for the English test I'd definitely say "there is Pat..." but I'm not sure what the correct answer is (I'm a great English teacher :o )

Linzer I have no objection to cheap, we don't have a lot of spare cash (soon to be OMG the baby needs more nappies, clothes, shoes, food..... etc etc etc ) we like to enjoy things. while we still can :o
For example, (the worst offenders) one couple drink the cheapest coffee they can find, maybe I'm a snob (I said maybe), I like to enjoy a coffee. So I will pay a bit more for it and don't normally buy it repeatedly at a place where it has no flavour or it tastes burnt or the customer service is dire just because it's the cheapest.

My Mum rang me today and sent her love to me and DP and asked me to pat the bump even though she already has two grandchildren I think her daughter being pregnant is very special

15 weeks pregnant today :)

Thanks you two - dd wrote "is" and I thought "is" was right but the teacher corrected it to "are" & dh thinks "are" is right. I know that I dont always speak grammatically correct English so i sometimes find it difficult to tell what's correct. Funny tho that altho something might be grammatically correct but no-one would ever say it.

Ploom you've really got me curious. I need to know why "are" might be the correct answer.... I reckon it is a poorly worded sentence and that here the punctuation affects the grammar e.g.:

The family members are Pat, the mother, Colin, the Father.....
There's/There is Pat, Colin, David and Mark

hmmmmm.... can you guess I was an awkward student?? :o I'm not a proper profi reached but I love to find the best answer for my students.

Also, normally "there is" is used for uncountable nouns (there is only one Pat) and "there are" for countable (there are six bananas)....

If anyone knows a grammar guru I need them!!

D'oh - meant to say I'm not a proper profi teacher [eye roll emoticon]

I taught the children in DD1's class the difference between there is and there are not long ago: you obviously use "there is" if it's followed by a singular noun (there is one book on the table) and "there are" if it's followed by a plural noun (there are twenty children in the class). However, what you do when you're talking about a list of singular nouns, I'm not sure. Would you say "There is a pen, a ruler and a rubber in my school bag" or "There are a pen, a ruler and a rubber in my bag"? "There is" sounds better to me (I'm sure I'd always use "There's" in speech). "There is a pen and two rubbers" or "There are a pen and two rubbers"? Starting a sentence with "There are" plus a singular noun just sounds wrong.

Nutella Hmm, not sure about Pat. Obviously you can't talk about "a Pat" etc., but if you substituted "a girl" for Pat, it would definitely be a countable noun. But I could well be wrong - my brain is already shutting down for the day.

FWIW DH said straight away that it should be "There are", but he only got 6 out of 10 in that citizenship test I posted on FB the other day ("Who do you think you're kidding, Mr Kipling?" anyone?) so I wouldn't set too much store by his opinion.

But you're right Nutella, you would always use "There is" with uncountable nouns (there is butter/grass/water, etc.)

Right, here is my thinking (helped by ):

"There is" when followed by a singular noun or a list starting with a singualar noun ("there are" also acceptable in the latter case, but "there's" sounds more natural)

"There are" when followed by a plural noun or a list starting with a plural noun

I'm glad that I'm not the only one this is bothering :o

Linzer please enjoy your on my behalf.... it's just started to absolutely chuck it down here and a nice glass of wine would be lovely. Guess I'll have some juice instead...

I'd have had another glass for you if I'd seen your post, Nutella. I'd already broken my no-wine-during-the-week rule - so in for a penny and all that.

I just couldn't concentrate on Have I Got News For You, as I was sitting there muttering "There is a pen and book on the table... there are a pen and book on the table..."

English Grammar in Use is no help, I'm afraid. I would actually stick my neck out and say that if we all instinctively feel that a sentence beginning "There are Mum,..." is wrong, then it is wrong. Language is something that is constantly changing and is defined by its speakers, not by the torturous logic of a non-native speaker.

Ooh, I think I've worked it out: if you were pointing ar the people, you would say "There is Pat, there's the mother, there's Colin, etc." So it's actually shorthand for repeating there is each time. You can say "Look, there are the Penroses", but as soon as you start to single them out, you have to use is .

I'd have said there's too but you can't change the way the school grammar is marked. It's frustrating for your dd Ploom but you can tell he she is not alone in her native speaker sufferings at Gymnasium! Dd once wrote 'I have one brother' but was told it's too american and they have to say 'I have got one brother' and had one point taken off!

Nutella good luck with finding names, and remember the name has to sound OK in Germany and in the UK! Dh wanted Florian for ds, then his second choice would have been Fabian - can you imagine taking your new born to meet the family in England and saying Fabian?! Both these names are fine in Germany of course.

I made the mistake of using a 'Y' in dd's name and not realising that they would say it so differently. It drove dd mad in Berlin at school and she holds it against me (depending on her mood) even now!

I saw the name Florian on a "who on earth gives their DC these names"-style thread recently - I don't particularly like the name, but I've got used to it (it's DH's godson's name) and it doesn't seem particularly awful any more either.

You don't always think about how names will "translate" when they're born though, do you admylin - especially if they weren't even born in a German-speaking country. I've never seen your DD's name spelt with a y before (admittedly, I've come across it more here than in the UK) but I hadn't thought about how it would affect the pronunciation.

I wish I'd lived in Austria before DD1 was born as I would have pushed a bit harder for my preferred (but too English for DH) names if I'd known that they're actually used here too. I still have to spell out DD1's name as people tend to leave the e off the end otherwise - and if they see it written down, they often pronounce it as if it were an a.

Linzer there are loads of Florians in ds's age group, it's not that bad as a name but just not if you think you might end up moving to the US or back to the UK - same with Fabian!

Alot of people use an 'i' in dd's name but somehow the y version is the one I knew and liked! We also had to find names that dh's family could cope and there are quite a few variations of dd's name in his family but all pronounced differently!

Sitting waiting for Klempner again, he's an hour late but hope he'll turn up eventually.