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Posted by Vaughn on September 23, 2008, 9:08 pm
> saddlebag schrieb:
>
> >our hotel after trying to communicate with German speaking bus and
> >taxi drivers for an
> >hour or so,
>
> They just pretend because they are uneasy. Barely anybody passes the
> German school system without a basic competence in English
>
> What your pronunciation does to our place names, streets etc is quite
> another matter... although German pronunciation is actually very easy
> compared to English because everything is more or less pronounced
> exactly the way it's written, no funny
> bough/plough/borough/dough/rough business here, so as soon as you've
> figured out the pronunciation of the individual letters and a few
> special combinations, you're done.
>
> The vowels go more or less like this:
>
> a - like in car
> e - like in celery
> i - like in internet
> o - like gthe first one in Otto
> u - like in unbelievable
>
> vowels with an 'h' behind them (and ie) are long (Very rarely, other
> letters than i also get an elongation e, like the town of Soest.
> Otherwise, adding an e behind an a, o or u is just another way of
> turning it into an Umlaut, only without the funny little dots above
> them).
>
> Evil German Umlauts: =E4 like a in bank, =F6 like i in girl, =FC like oo =
in
> Scottish English ('boot') (that one's typically by far the most
> difficult for other English variants' native speakers, an 'ee' will do
> in a pinch.)
>
> Diphthongs are eu or =E4u (oi), au (like in outch), ei (like in I).
>
> Ch is sometimes close to the French j in jour (but with the tongue
> farther back against the palate) and sometimes rolled verrry
> Scottishly and there is no way to tell when which is which except
> knowing it by heart. sch is always sh.
>
> >gear dealer. =A0And yes folks, this quaint little German village has
> >such a dedicated store believe it or not:
>
> The next chain franchise is usually not far away either, at least not
> by American distance standards, seeing that all of Germany is only
> about as "large" as Ohio, Pennsylvania and upstate NY combined. There
> are basically three decent chains:
>
> http://www.louis.de/http://www.polo-motorrad.de/http://www.hein-gericke.d=
e/
>
> >Anyway, day one turned out to be a cold, rainy ride though the
> >mountains from Germany south to Bolzano
> >Italy that left no one very excited.
>
> What do you expect. In the Alps, you may even get snow in Mai.
>
> There *is* some decent weather to be had in Germany - and there are
> other very interesting areas beside Berlin and Neuschwanstein,
> especially for motorcyclists - but the weather may turn on you at any
> time, even in August, sadly. =A0
>
> Fortunately, there rarely is very much of it, again compared to some
> US conditions of late.
>
> >Fortunately, we had been given very thorough instructions as finding
> >your way through Italian cities is
> >no mean feat...even if you knew the language.
>
> Get a satnav. It's a life saver.
>
> And come back some time.
>
> --
>
> Gru=DF
> Radbert
Nice reply. I haven't had much education in German language, but
during my time there with my wife (who is mostly fluent and loved
teaching me how to correctly pronounce everything through the
autocomm) I was able to understand a lot of German after just 10 days
there. Immersion is the schnitzle. <grin>
+1 on the Satnav/GPS
And indeed, Bavaria is splendid riding. I rode the entire
Alpenstrasse from Saltzberg to Lake Constance, with some side trips
off of it, and it was really pleasant.
The roads south of Baden-Baden, and the baths themselves, were also
extraordinary!
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