(Though they didn’t even roll that many nines this time around. Is the curse broken?)

[Episode 6] [Episode 5]

Again, not
a lot of German going on this episode! I think I heard Liam utter exactly three words of German this time, “Verdammt”,
“Entschuldigung” and “Acht.” Now “acht” is the German word for eight. If you’ve
followed along these posts, you might have seen my previous attempts to explain
“ch” sounds, and this one is another one of the throaty coughing noise from
hell that non-natives have trouble with. But Liam tried! That’s great!

“Entschuldigung”
means sorry, I’m sorry, or excuse me. Sometimes abbreviated to “’tschuldigung”
because it is a bit of a mouthful. For that same reason, many Germans,
especially younger ones, just say sorry at this point. With our dry, throaty r-sounds
that to this day have made it impossible for me to properly roll an r in any
language.

In a
previous episode, Sam tried saying the same, but said “entschuldigen” which is
actually also a real German word. It’s the infinitive of the verb to apologize.
Actually, had he said “Sie” after that, he’d have properly asked for forgiveness,
even. And politely at that.

Verdammt
means damn. Or damned, literally, but it is used like damn. Add that one to
your list of German curses! But since it’s an adjective, there’s declinations
happening when you use it to describe something and not just as a one-word
expletive. Not gonna go into that can of worms, though. Oh boy.

Shakäste might
be a good opportunity to talk about Umlaute (not Ümläuts, people), the funny
letters with dots on top of them which make a U look like a smiley face – Ü.
But these are a thing in a bunch of languages, and that particular name was
very clearly not inspired by anything German, and consequentially, the ä wasn’t
pronounced like it would be in German. Which is basically like you all pronounce
your regular a. Like in Vax.

And I’m
gonna close this out with a German joke or pun or whatever you’d like to call
it, that is totally educational, too! If… You remember all the German words I’m
gonna throw at you now.

So in the
beginning, I think Sam called the columns they saw stalactites, which made me
recall how my grandfather taught me how to differentiate between stalactites
and stalagmites.

So the
German words are Stalagmiten and Stalaktiten. Wow, I have never seen these
written out before and was about to make a joke about how it’s weird to have a
g for one and a c for the other, but hey, we do that, too. Okay, anyway.

The -miten of Stalagmites is pronounced like
the German word for rents (Mieten). And the rents are going up. Now more than
ever, but apparently already a thing 16 years ago. After that, the other
present family members hushed my grandfather, and me, being a wee little thing
of 8 years with little to no knowledge of the world or anything, took a few
years to figure out why.

The -titen
part of the other ones isn’t exactly pronounced like the German word for tits
(Titten), but close enough, apparently. And, well, tits sag. It appears my
family tried to shelter me from this realization, though I have no idea why. Or
maybe they didn’t want to hear their otherwise rather dignified and proper
father say the word tits at the dinner table. Or wanted to spare my grandmother
from having to hear it. Anyways!

With this
nifty German trick (we call them Eselsbrücke!), you too can remember that stalagmites
are the things rising up from the ground (like rents), and stalactites are
coming down from the ceiling (kind of like boobs, if you squint)! This… has
been a PSA? I guess?

PS: The real fun starts when you notice that the Dutch word for rents is “huren” which is the German word for whores. Makes for a fun experience when you’re in some fancy church in Amsterdam and notice that all the pews are whored out.