Funny/strange Tales To Tell?

Hi all
Thought it was a little quiet on here this week, so...
You are probably aware that I am planning to make the move to Germany this year ...I would love to hear of any interesting stories that may have happened to you when you first arrived, ie. Language difficulties etc etc...I have it all to come...

Don't worry about scaring me...I'm a brave girl

This is a story about Brits Abroad in Germany, not about the Germans themselves, but...

Not long after I started working here, I knew some UK IT Contractors that had come over to do some work. There was one little Welsh guy and 2 other English guys. The English guys made friends pretty quickly with some other German guys working in the same place and went out to the bars, and get to know all about the local drinks, which is best, etc... one night they ask out the Welsh guy (who they didn't really get along with) and recommended that he try one of the great all-time German Beers, known as a 'Radler'. He'd been saying what a connoisseur of various drinks he was and he wanted to see if German beers were all they were cracked up to be... So, he orders a Radler, has a taste decides it's got to be one of the best that Germany has to offer... and continues drinking Radler's for the rest of the evening convinced he's found the 'King of Beers'. Later that evening, after a Radler too many, he's pretty rolling drunk. All 3 guys are staying at the same place, and the 3 English guys help him get into the taxi... when they arrive there, they have to lift him out of the taxi because he's just about unconscious... they drag him to the door where they prop him up... but he falls over into a bush and squashes it flat... so one of them picks him up while the other holds the door open... the one doing the picking up is doing so from the Welsh guys front, so he has his arms under the Welsh guys, with the Welsh guy facing him and pretty close... Taffy says he's dying for a pee... they tell him he's just about into his room... unfortunately... he can't wait... and proceeds to p*** his trousers and because he is facing the guy doing the carrying proceeds to cover the other guy also, with several litres of 2nd hand Radler.

well i thought radler is not a beer but a shandy.
but thats the welsh...
no offence meant to any welsh here

i had a run in one day with a young lady walking her dog in the woods near where i lived many many moons ago. i was talking to my brother about her being top heavy and after about 5 minutes she turned round and told us to P.I.S.S of in perfect english .

my brother would not go into a bakers and ask for 6 bread rolls, he would ask for five and then say "oh no make it one more"

When I first got here, one nice sunny sunday, my girlfriend took me to a small lake on the outskirts of Giessen and of course half the people where stark bollock naked,...that was a lasting impression!!
Thing is though, most of the people naked where fat disugusting old men and women..uuurgh! totally used to it now though.

Haha! Oh please keep it coming! Its brightening up this dull windy day here in England!

This is really daft , but it is true

when I first came here I was in a bit of a techy job which involved screwdrivers ...
unfortunately , due to some brain fart , I kept mixing up the word for screwdriver (Schraubenzieher) with helicopter (Hubschrauber) ... kept my German colleagues well amused

don't worry , they generally seem to have a soft spot (at least in West Germany) for Inselaffen ...

ciao // Ian

With me it was helicopter (Hubschrauber) and ballpoint pen (Kugelschreiber).

Was also fascinated by the words Preishit and Wohnungsnot... okay, okay, I was young and easily amused!

hey joolz,

i went with the misses to one of them places with big fat old people stark bollock naked near Köln, never went again. they were even playing volleyball or was it wobblyball

Give you an inferiority complex, did they?

just thought of something else, first time i was in hospital the nurse came and asked if i had "stuhlgang" that morning , to which i replied "which stool??" she had to explain to me what it was . why dont they just ask if you had a tom-tit then , but then what business is it of thiers

Reggie

it was a bloody cold day...

'scuse me...not being a German speaker...whats Inselaffen?

Inselaffe is the (affectionate) term used by Germans to describe Brits ... it literally means island ape // island monkey and the locals crease up if you use it to describe yourself or your fellow monkeys .. sorry , countrymen ...

gimme a banana ...

It's for the Island Monkeys !!!

When I first started working for a German transport firm my German was limited to say the least, I started out working in the furniture removals department. For me it was a case of being thrown in at the deep end, I either sank or swam. My worst error was on my first day; it really annoyed my fellow German removal men, I was one end of a couch that we were carrying and the word they kept using for down was “ab� which to me sounded like “up� so I’m lifting the bugger while they were trying to put it down, that resulted in them shouting “AB� from somewhere under the couch which I understood as lift even higher.

When I was let out onto the road as second driver in the long distance dept, we were halfway back when the driver pulled into a motorway services and said something like “Ah scheisse, keine dicke frau� which I thought was weird, why does he want a fat woman? Next services the same thing happens, he is still looking for a fat woman, I’m beginning to think he has a passion for fatties until he eventually found his “Dicke Frau� it wasn’t a fat woman after all, he actually said “DKV� which is the diesel credit card but when said with the German pronunciation I thought he was a weird perv!

Slackmack , loved your story

What about local language in different States ...

a bread roll in Frankfurt is a Brötchen , in Bayern they only have Zemmel (spelling?) , if you order a Brötchen you stay hungry

a doughnut in Frankfurt is called a Kreppel or a Berliner ... god knows what they're called in Berlin ... probably not Frankfurter though ...

anyone else got any more ??

Im glad my efforts made someone smile

I'm sure I'll remember a few more over the next couple of days, but I gotta go to Leipzig now.

God...now I'm getting worried! Will I ever be able to speak this 'crazy' language...help!

One memorable mistake when we had only been here a few weeks.
After sampling a few beers I felt in need of a coffee. My boyfriend, (now husband) ordered "ein Kannchen Kaffe" except he actually said "ein Kanninchen Kaffee". The waitress tied not to laugh but I creased up. Needless to say next time it was my turn to do the ordering.

Some weeks later I told this as a funny story in my German class. Another girl said her worst mistake was offering sympathy to a bereaved neighbour. Intending to say "herzliche Beileid" she had said "herzliche Beilage".

Teaching English also generated some laughs. One evening I was listening to a girl struggling to tell the group about a game of badminton. She kept going on about the featherball and not wanting to interrupt her I turned and wrote on the blackboard

Federball = shuttlecock

when I turned back the rest of the group (all women) were beginning to nudge each other and laugh. Eventually the girl talking about badminton laughed too and I realised they were already familiar with the words shuttle and cock and put together they produced a mental image that had nothing to do with badminton.

When they finally stopped laughing they got their dictionaries out to check I wasn't making the word up.

Hi!

Just last week-end, my son was celebrating his 4th birthday and we had invited his friends from Kindergarten. When the mums and dads came back to pick their children up they asked if everything had gone well and I said that yes, we had a lovely time:" Wir haben getanzt und mit Waffe gespielt" A few eyebrows were raised and one of the kids rescued me by explaining it was in fact with "Watte" that we had been playing (the game were they try to make cotton wool balls go as fast as possible with deflating balloons...).
This however pales into insignificance when I think back to my first year in England (I am French). My brand new boyfriend took me to a cricket match where his dad and his dad's mates were playing. This was on a warm night and next to a stream. Asked if I was OK during the evening I complained that I had been bitten by a minge! There was a uneasy silence followed by a lot of laughter but it broke the ice. I of course meant a midge.

I once introduced my boss as a "ein sehr impotent mann in unserer firme", i meant to say important!

Needless to say i have no idea of his sexuality

I had a severe case of the poops once and asked my friends what I should say to the doctor. So off I went and told the doctor I had flitzkake (can't spell it. instead of durchfall. Nice friends eh.

A very good (East German) friend of mine used to refer to it as Spritzwurf, which I thought was brilliant.

One of my non German speaking friends amused some of her students by telling them she had been to the "Nacktcafe" instead of the "Nachtcafe", a bar in Darmstadt !

The plant I used to work in East Germany has a very low standard of English speakers there. When I first got there the words I mixed up were (as someone else posted) Cheers instead Tschuss, and Minge instead of mensch.

The locals picked up on it and still today most say (as a supposed piss-take of me)
"minge" instead of "mensch". They have no idea what it actually means. :$

...And I guess we've all heard the story about a certain BFBS radio presenter who in his first week in Germany was handed a traffic report prepared by his colleagues.

Unfortunately although his German pronunciation was already spot on, his vocab was another story and so he proceeded to tell half the country's drivers about a 7k stau in Fichmichlang.

(Rough translation for Hellie65? F*** me long)

LMAO

Not heard that one, not you was it?

*giggles* Am I to be subjected to this kind of thing when I am learning the language too? *gulp*
Thanks for the translation 'Bloke'

If your ever too hot, do not say the literal translation which is "Ich bin heiss" because that means your hot as in horny :$ somebody will try and catch you out with that on sooner or later

sorry guys, she has already been warned

Slackmack - As if I'd make a mistake like that on the radio in front of millions of listeners... :$

All I can say Hel is if you are talking in English to German people (A big problem when living in Germany and trying to learn the language because as soon as most Germans find out where you're from they all want to speak in English!) don't ever say you are "popping to the shops" and don't under circumstances order "mushy" peas!

I'll leave it someone else to explain - I don't know how to translate without attracting the attentions of the board moderators!!!

Simon, you are cruel

'popping' I know but 'mushy'...yes Simon you are cruel! But I will find out when I speak with my 'German Git' (term of endearment for the beloved)

Mybe I should say Müshy? (Not the correct spelling!) A "term of endearment" for what comes below YOUR belly button but not mine!

We were on holiday at a Robinson Club Resort and we were sat at a table round the pool with about 10 people (all German). I stood up and announced that I was going for my "auspuff" session in the sauna, instantly everybody at the table burst into hysterical laughter. About 5 minutes later when they had managed t stop someone explained to me that "auspuff" was a car exhaust and that I was going for an "aufguß".

I feel sorry for your girlfriend/wife... Never had a muschy come below your belly botton eh Simon .

Even though my wife is German, she was raised in the UK and once made the fatal mistake years ago of refering to our Mitsubishi as her "Mushybushy"

...Doesn't bother me - These days I'm celibate by choice...Other people's.