Lost in Translation – My Linguistic Experience in Germany

With just 2 days left for my travel to Germany for the EU research project I was asked to pickup some basics of the German language. Next day I bought a book on German language and in the boring Air India flight to Frankfurt, mugged up some basic words.

But perhaps the linguistic confusion was fated to happen. Next morning I deboarded in Frankfurt and stood in the platform to catch the train to Potsdam. There I saw a whole bunch of strange words – on passing trains and the platform. Turning to the gentleman next to me I asked him how I could identify my train. He replied in a coarse voice, “Deutsch”. I said “Oh…ok..Sorry, I English.” Then I headed for a lady. “Mam, can you help me identify my train to Berlin from this ticket?” Within a split second the lady began a lengthy narration which I thought was a sonnet from Shakesphere. She went on and on, for about a minute. Finally when she stopped I asked her the way you generally talk to Koreans, “Train…train to Berlin…which? You knowing?” At this her face grew pale and she threw her hands up in the air and said, “Englishch? Nein.”

There I was, standing in middle of the platform with trains and people zipping around me. Whoa! it was like meeting aliens. Oh God! What if I miss the train amidst all this stupid confusion of languages? I wracked my brains and tried to calm myself. “All is well, all is well,” I said touching my heart. Suddenly I saw a guard standing in front of an ICE train. I showed him my ticket. He nodded and said, “Yes, Yes, this train.” No sooner did he utter that I jumped like a kangaroo onto the train -- bag and baggage.

Description of an an ancient object in a German Museum

Somehow I could manage to reach Potsdam and by then I was confident of managing things. But the linguistic monster struck again! In Potsdam station nothing was written in English. One board said “Ausgang” and another said “Eintrag.” I looked at these terrible words and thought that “Ausgang” perhaps is the name of some shady gang of muggers around and I should avoid it. And the word “Eintrag” appeared something like a ‘Rag’. By then everyone disappeared in the direction of the “Ausgang” but I did not budge. Then I saw someone coming down the steps and asked him the exit. He was a student who knew English and he told me that “Ausgang” was “Exit” in German. Confirmed, I moved on.

The language issue kept haunting me every now and then. One day in Berlin it was quite late at night and I decided to head for the nearest railway station. Suddenly I noticed a “Bahnhof” (railway station). On the entrance it was written “Nichtraucher-Station.” I immediately pulled out my train route-map and tried figuring the station called “Nichtraucher.” I searched minutely but there was no station with that name.

Frustrated I headed for the nearest man I could get hold of. Two or three of them said, “Deutsch, sorry,” and left. Then I saw a young man walking towards me, “Hallo, any problem?” “Ya, this Nichtraucher station is not on the map,” I observed. To this he had a hearty laugh and said, “Nichtraucher station” means “Non-smoking Station”. “It’s the Alexander Platz Station.”

The NETTO store displays name only in German

The most pathetic tussle with language was when I visited a food store near where I stay. The first day in the NETTO grocery store I could not make a word of the food items displayed. All names were strange. I was looking for eggs and so found an executive who again did not understand English. Determined to make him understand I began, “Egglu..no? ok Eggu…Eggti…no? ok…egz..coming out of the hen…” As I tried to give him a whole lot of options…he kept nodding his head in refusal. Frustrated, I pulled out a frozen chicken from the freezer and pointed to its ass and said…”coming from here…round…round.?” “Ah…Eier,” he said and bought me a dozen eggs. 

That was the first day. The second day I thought of acting confident and smartly walked inside the grocery store. There, I picked up a nicely packed Pizza. It read “Pferd Pizza.” I went home baked the pizza, ate it and slept. The next morning I learnt that the pizza was a Horse Pizza, with Horse meat. "Pferd" meant horse and was not the name of a brand. Instantly I could fell a horse yelling from inside me, “Bhaisaheb…mujhe to chor diya hota?”

And here’s the irony that jolted me one day. I learnt that English language originated in Western part of Germany and when some of these people migrated to Britain the language was adopted by the British who modified it further, and so on.