**German Chat**everyone welcome* - macht es euch gemütlich

[ZZZen]

reden wir weiter...

dh recounted the story when in Switzerland he worked in a team of 4. 3 of them were invited out to dinner by boss. very formal occasion and formally invited to use 'du' and 1st name, was a big thing. (dunno why herr 4 wasn't invited). Also, in his office, if they speak to dh in german, they use sie & Herr x, but when they speak to him in english, they use his 1st name. How weird is that?

That's one clutural thing I just can't get my head round. I sort of automatically use Sie, but then I find people calling me 'du' like in KG & wonder if I'm makeing a faux pas and being considered standoffish or unfriendly. So I use 1st name with the Erzieherin and wonder if I'm being too informal. gah, I can't get it, even after 8 years. also there are so many subtle differences bwn DE & CH & can't witch, or I've finally learnt something & find here I'd doing it all wrong.

We have the same thing in Welsh; ti and chi and you're suppposed to use chi with elders and betters but then you have to guess whether someone is older or not and then the get all huffy cos you think they look old and they're not. Ernest is right; it's a cultural minefield. And sooooo pointless too!

I know the basic rule of du with kids, friends, family, Sie is formal & polite so with adults you don't know/not on 1st name terms with, but eg with mothers at KG, like I say, shifting sands, moving goalposts, subtlties that as a foreigner we haven't learnt about or picked up on. headache

Minefield is exactly the right word for it. I hate it when I realise after 5 minutes of talking to someone that I´ve been using du, but should really be using Sie. I never know whether it´s best to carry on or change to Sie. Will the person be more offended that I haven´t used Sie or is it worse that I was willing to use du and then change my mind half way through the converstion - nightmare.

Dh has flown of to Majorca today with friends for the weekend. I´ll admit to being just a bit as I stare out of the window here and watch the rain come down. Mind you I´m off to visit my brother in München tomorrow, so really looking forward to that.

ooh ooh you're coing to suuny München tomorrow?

Dh had his first suspected scweineflu patients yesterday. A couple had arrived back from Mexico feeling ill. It turned out they just had bronchitis. Luckily their daughter had phoned to say they were on the way, so the Arzthelferin was able to whisk them off to a seperate room. If the daughter hadn´t phoned they could have ended up sitting in the waiting room for ages infecting everybody else if they´d been positive.
In case anyone´s interested the doctors here have been recommended to do a schnell test for influenza A and only if that is positive do they need to take blood for further testing and inform the Gesundheitsamt.

Hupa - it forecasts rain for Fri and Sat in Majorca, so don't be !

Ernest -it´s not so sunny at the moment is it? We´ve got terrible weather here at the moment. I´m hoping it improves before the weekend.

Thanks for that Frosch - I´m feeling happier already, although I do want dh to have a good time.

na not really sunny hupa, was lying. It is in fact p*ing down, but sunny in my head.

It's definitely gettting warmer because last night I found my first mosquito bite on my foot. It itches like hell, so I guess it's time to dig out the Autan and the net.

Have the Scottish contingent any tips? You are, after all, experts with the Midge!!

Hupa - what is your DH's opinion on face masks? Useful or pointless?

I don´t really know. I presume for medical personnal it´s a sensible precaution. I know looking at pictures from Mexico he said there´s no point wearing one if you´re not going to cover the mouth and nose as there were quite a few people with them only over their mouths. I´ll ask him if I remember when I phone later. He is really relaxed about the whole thing generally. Germany has quite a large stockpile of antivirals, so even if people get ill, they should be able to get quick access to doctors and the appropriate treatment.

Thanks Hupa; I'm getting annoyed with the hysterical news coverage and it's nice to hear a sensible, relaxed view!

well, remember all the fuss and drama about bird flu and that didn't amount to much, certainly in proportion to the hysteria. I remember one day I received a parcel by special UPS delivery. I opened the cardboard box to find inside a couple of face masks, a bsmall bottle of hand steriliser and a couple of hand packs of tissues, sent by dh's employers (height of bird flu hysteria) . How many £££££ they must've spent sending their employees a blinking packet of tissues?! Not even one each for each family memeber. Perhaps they only wanted to save him. I wondered how high up in the firm you have to be in order to get the special delivery.

Don't watch the news as a rule. Is the UK news being more or less or the same OTT hysterical as the German news?

The only English tv programme I get is Sky news which I hate with a vengence. They sensationalise everything and by comparison the German news I´ve seen has been much more restrained. I always get the feeling with Sky that they want the worst possible senario to happen because that makes "better" news.

Is dh still with the same employers? If he is maybe you can judge how well they regard him by how many packets of tissues they include this time .

I watch CNN and they are going the full hog with special programmes and breaking news about the first death in the US (a 23 month old boy in Texas).

na, he left to come here, but we didn't have to pay the tissues back, so I hope the swineflu respects the birdflu box i have

We'll know it's serious if the likes of Hupa's dh start to worry or I'll be watching to see if my h gets any warnings sent as he works in a big hospital and has contact with patients, nurses, doctors but also virus and bacteria in the labs and reasearchers.

glad its not just me that worries about the du/Sie thing! i've got BIL and his girlfriend coming for the weekend - would automatically use du with him but i've only met her once 18 months ago - what to use? no idea!
but i'll def not be calling her frau Y!! she'll be family in a few months!!

nice to see some perspective about swine flu on here - have seen some really funny ha ha threads about it on MN as to whether peppa pig started it! LOL!

I was just looking at my emails, I am in the Swiss Moms group on Yahoo and there are some women exchanging tips on where to buy masks to protect themselves from Pork Flu (as it is known in our house)

Good to get some first hand advice from someone in the know. (Or second hand I guess but certainly much better than the Eyeore-esque the sky is falling down reporting on the news)

I found it difficult at the beginning of Kita until I just hit on the formular of saying Du to everyone and saving Sie for the Erzieherin. The less German you speak the better in this case, I think, as they are more willing to make allowances.

DH's company, they all use first names but address each other with Sie. Very strange.

"Dieter, haben Sie das gesehen?"

"Nein, Jürgen, das wollten Sie mir aber senden."

(DH is not called Dieter or Jürgen, they were the most German names I could think of)

He does say Du to some of his colleagues though.

Canella
I would say inside the family, always use Du.

yes, in this case, def du

Afternoon all. Am still here but had to ban myself from Mnet over Easter cos I had loads of marking to do. The pupils I teach did their Abitur exam before Easter and I had to then mark it it. Just finished it today which was a huge relief but now scared s**tless that I've got it all wrong.

Have just about finished reading everyone's news. Good for you, admylin, making the decision to go back to the LD. I hope the move goes smoothly for you.

The du/Sie thing is a nightmare, isn't it? I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it. I would say du as well for family but when I met dh's parents I had to say Sie to them, I think until we were married!

This week I had a meeting with one of the other teachers at the school where I work and near the beginning she used 'du' once but then later switched to Sie. I was totally confused. What strategies do all you native speakers use for knowing which one to use?

I think with BIL's girlfriend you can just greet her and say straight-away: "duzen wir uns?" since you are welcoming her into your home, I think it quite nice to do that. I really don't think she would be offended (unless she is over 40 or something and you are a lot younger?)

On the whole I try to AVOID it with new people, not using any pronoun and it makes for very contrived speech and I wait to see what they say, in the end they will have to say du or Sie at some stage then I follow their lead.

I knew a Danish guy who spoke excellent German but in Denmark they are not into this Sie business (if indeed they even have it, everyone is per du there). He got on a bus and addressed the bus-driver with du. Since he doesn't look or sound foreign, the driver took it as an insult, stood up and went beserk at him. I keep that story in mind and err on the side of formality. You can say Sie and look very friendly at the same time and it softens it a bit (at least that's what I try to do).

You can also come straight out and say, should I be saying du or Sie here? I never know because we don't have this in my language. Germans are not really a huffy lot