Fun with Intercultural Communication

Me (at a small food stand where Turkish music is playing): Entschuldigung, was sind Maroni? (Excuse me, what are Maroni?)

Young guy working at the stand: Sie sind ein euro achtzig. (They are 1,80 euro.)

Me: Sind sie Gemuese, Nusse oder was? (Are they vegetables, nuts or something?)

Guy: (smiles, looks confused, serves someone else a bag of 8 Maroni)

Me: OK, Ich probiere sie. Ich moechte acht bitte. (Ok, I will try them. I'll have eight please.)

Guy: (puts the mystery food into a paper sack) Shoene Musik, ja? (Nice music, yes?)

Me: Danke, Tchiuss.



So...I tried the Maroni. They had the texture of a potato and a nut at the same time and were a little sweet--not very good, to be honest. I was just intrigued by these things I saw roasting every day. I found out that Maroni are chestnuts, which I had suspected, since that's one of the only nuts I've heard of that people roast themselves. (Do you know anyone who owns a honey-roaster?)

These pictures are not of the stand I went to. I got them from Wikipedia, where they are not copyrighted (in case anyone is wondering...). The first picture is of a stand in Istanbul, and the second is from Melbourne.

The guy I bought the Chestnuts from from either: 1. didn't know how to describe them to me in German, 2. thought I didn't know how to ask the right question, or 3. thought I was "taking the Mickey out of him" as my roommate, with all of her British-English training, said.

In honor of the Rektor (the Dean) and all s/he does for the education of the students at the Uni Wien, there is Rektorstag tomorrow, so all educational activities will be temporarily suspended. :) Actually, I think there's a speech or several meetings going on. I still have my grammar & stylistics course with Central College tomorrow, but that's in the evening, so I'm going to start reading one of the ten books I have for my literature course. (Most of them are short.)

So far, everything is going well. I understood about 75% of my Education & Anthropology lecture today, which is great, considering that I understood 40% last week. I quickly learned that I need to sit in the front to hear, especially with some professors who just speak loud enough for the first three rows to hear them.

I've also made some comprehension progress in the TV world. I have no problem understanding Spongebob Squarepants (Spongebob Schwammkopf) in German, but I'm still working on Grey's Anatomy. Dr. Stevens speaks too fast. :)