Great Opening Ceremony for Europe’s Longest Building

A photo of the building the night before. It stretches many kilometers through Berlin.

(Berlin, April 1) This morning I had the honor to attend the opening ceremony for a new warehouse of the federal ministry of education. This building, situated near to the Janowitzbrücke in the heart of Berlin, is a marvel of modern architecture. It is considered the longest building in Europe, stretching many miles through the city. It was built with the most comprehensive sustainability standards; it will create its own electricity for air-conditioning and lighting with wind turbines and solar panels.
From April 1^st on, the "Wortstock" named building will be the first ever storage place for German compound nouns. These nouns are composed of many smaller nouns, and together they create a new meaning. Some are valued throughout the world for its poetry; many are famous for their intimidating length.
In a special pavilion inside the building, designated as a showcase for visiting statesmen, we saw smaller compound nouns as figurative as Handschuh or Handgemenge, and as witty as Ordnungsamt. In this pavilion the ministry presents also terms for people who the whole nation adores with pride: Fahrkartenkontrolleur (21 letters), a term for an extremely popular type of person in Berlin, or Integrationsfachkraft (21 letters), a term for the men and women who work in Job Centers and who are loved by millions of unemployed people for their compassion and listening skills.
I am very proud that I was part of this event. The invitees were the most accomplished creators of compound nouns, only eleven veteran bureaucrats from all levels of government. We all admire them, these knights of German grammar, heroes of clarity, masters of flexibility.
We took a bus tour to see a couple of long compound nouns. We had the chance to see a short version of the ministry’s name: das Bundesbildungsministerium (25 letters). We saw das Überwachungspersonal (only 20 letters) and das Versuchskaninchen (17 letters). Die Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung (speed limit) has 26 letters and is considered as the first compound noun that gave birth to a compound noun longer than itself. Motorists on the Autobahn who make the effort to read the sign bearing this word will not have enough time to reduce their speed which leads automatically to eine Geschwindigkeitsüberschreitung (30 letters!), a violation of the speed limit, and subsequently to a speeding ticket.
The officials of the ministry presented to us plans for an ambitious project for this summer when Germany will host the 2011 World Cup of women's football (or "soccer" – for my American readers). Twenty-four cranes will lift the word Frauenfußballweltmeisterschaft (30 letters) simultaneously and carry it to the Olympiastadion where it will be wrapped around several times, creating a gigantic bandage that symbolizes the healing power of sports.
After the presentation, we watched as several hundred workers began to assemble a masterpiece of German bureaucratic language, a word with 33 letters. We could only see the first dozen or so letters because of the curvature of the earth but we were told that the word will be "Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz." This is the name of a law that regulates student loans given by the government. The officials assured us that the government will use this word as a stick to beat every student who does not pay back his or her loan on time.
During the tour we were able to witness on TV the groundbreaking ceremony at the other end of the building where an extension is planned. We had to wait for the broadcast through satellite not only because of the service of Deutsche Telekom which is appreciated by the German consumers for its thoughtfulness and its aversion to rush into things, but also because the other end of the building lies already in a different time zone. The extension will be completed by April 1^st 2012. It will eliminate the Alexanderplatz and with this, the world-famous Fernsehturm will go, too. Its ball that has been hovering above Berlin for so many years will be integrated into the building extension and it will store words that run in a circle and have neither a beginning nor an end. Suggestions for these words are welcome.



Welche Farben?

Farbiges Kreuzberg. Graue Autos.

Hommos, Hommus and other nouns with two genders

Most Germans love it but the Duden doesn’t. In Berlin you can indulge in it at every corner but in the 1.216 pages of the standard German Wörterbuch you search for it in vain. Maybe, the experts have not agreed on its spelling while many agree on its taste. Hommos or Hommus is a dish made of cooked and mashed chickpeas with Olivenöl, Zitronensaft and Salz. For Americans this dish is from the Middle East; for Europeans it is from Nahen Osten (Near East) which makes sense, geographically speaking. On menus or signs in Berlin restaurants or Imbissstuben (yes, with 3 s) you can read as many spellings as there are recipes: Houmus, Hummos, Hommous, even Humus. Der Humus means topsoil and should be interesting for gardeners only, not to gourmets.

The leo dictionary engine comes up with two spellings: Hommos and Hommus.

Recently, we wondered during a lesson in Kunger Kiez (wo ist das?) about the gender of this dish. Is it die Hommus? Nein, das klingt nicht gut. Der Hommos? Das Hommus? Beides ist korrekt. This is not the only noun that doesn’t know its gender identity. There are several nouns that can be used with different articles without changing their meaning.

Zum Beispiel:
der/das Keks (cookie)
der/das Liter
der/das Virus
der/das Laptop (as long as it works; otherwise you can attribute a curse word)
der/das Dschungel
der/das Bonbon (candy)
der/das Radar
der/das Jogurt

Guten Appetit!

Was ist es ? (II)

Mein Schüler in Schöneberg hat ein weiteres Rätsel. Es hat ein paar Pronomen (die, ihn, sie):

Die Person, die ihn macht, will ihn nicht.
Die Person, die ihn kauft, benutzt ihn nicht.
Die Person, die ihn benutzt, weiß nicht, dass sie ihn benutzt.
Was ist es?
(Es hat nichts mit den Fotos zu tun.)

Fotos: Janowitzbrücke

Was ist es? (I)

My student in Schöneberg offers this riddle:

Die Armen haben es.
Die Reichen brauchen es nicht.
Wenn du es isst, stirbst du.
Was ist es?

raus, rein, runter, rauf

Sonntag, Berlin-Mitte:  "Alles muß raus" oder "alles muss raus" - was ist richtig?

drunter und drüber

Recently a student of mine stood at the window of the apartment she recently moved into with her boyfriend, looking four floors down onto the street, and mused about the many unt words that have to do with the world down there.

Unten, runter, unter, drunter.

Then she shrugged, and then they became un-words, Unwörter, words that are impossible to use or despicable just because they exist.

Why four words for what is down and never comes up anyway? Sure, they have to do with lower things (otherwise it would be about oben) but they belong to a different category of words, and they describe something different.

The word unten is a "Lokaladverb", an adverb that tells us where things happen, of a destination or a source of something.

Of course, there is oben but also links, rechts, da, drinnen, draussen.

There is a famous book that has four "Lokaladverbien" in its title. It is written by Günter Wallraff and Bernt Engelman and entitled "Ihr da oben – wir da unten."
Published in 1973, it tells about the class system in German society.

The word runter is an adverb that describes the direction of a movement. It is the short form of herunter. There is also a hinunter. The use of these words depends on the position of the speaker. The prefix her- leads to the speaker while hin- describes a movement away from the speaker.

Ahmed sieht Karls Mutter am Fenster.
Ahmed ruft: "Kommt Karl herunter?"
Karls Mutter antwortet: "Ja, er geht in 10 Minuten hinunter."

This is an ideal dialoge in some ideal high-German speaking areas of Germany.
In Berlin and many other places the dialog would be:
"Kommt Karl runter?"
"Er geht gleich runter."

The word unter is a preposition, leading to both, an accusative and a dative which means that unter never stands alone. It comes always with a noun.

Die Katze läuft unter den Tisch.
Warum? Die Maus sitzt unter dem Tisch.

The word drunter belongs to a group of words with the name "Pronominaladverb" which sounds like a new hot pharmaceutical product against cough. It is actually a short form of darunter. It replaces a group of words that is known to the speaker and the listener.

Siehst du meinen Pullover? Ich trage einen zweiten Pullover drunter.

The phrase drunter und drüber describes chaos, lack of organization in a room, on the workplace, in someone's life.

"Hier geht alles drunter und drüber," we have been hearing in train stations and on S-Bahn plattforms all winter and these days.

Ihr or Sie plus? How to address a group

How do you address a group of people who are not your close friends?
A student in Neukölln wondered last week why her teacher in her language school addresses the class with Sie. Shouldn’t the teacher say ihr?
Indeed, we address individuals with the formal Sie and the informal du. If we face a group we have to use the proper personal pronoun. We say ihr to a group of people we individually address with du. If we want to talk to a group of people we individually address with Sie, we say Sie as well.

Personal pronoun, familiar, singular: du
Personal pronoun, familiar, plural: ihr
Personal pronoun, formal, singular: Sie
Personal pronoun, formal, plural: Sie

When you ask a stranger on the street who is with friends, if he or she has a light for your cigarette ("Haben Sie Feuer?), don’t be surprised when not only he or she but also his or her friends start searching their pockets.
Since I arrived in Berlin, I have been noticing that many people say du to me although I barely know them. People I address with Sie quickly offer the du.
I assume Berlin is exceptional in Germany. Life is more relaxed and people are more casual than in other German cities. Also, Berlin is very international. It is easier for visitors to settle on a personal pronoun that appears to be more friendly, more intimate, more cozy. Be advised not to address your boss, police, bureaucrats or your landlord with du. They are less casual and often less relaxed and therefore, less amused. With Sie you are safe – for the moment.

Starting March 21st: German Course for Beginners

From March 21^st onwards, I will be giving a German course for beginners. Everyone with no or little proficiency in German is invited to join the course. It is level A1*.
* 10 weekly lessons, each of 90 minutes for beginners in a group with max. 10 students.
* Learning material will be provided – some from books, some I will develop during the course based on the needs and interests of the students.
* You will speak German as early and as much as possible. You will improve your comprehension, your writing and reading skills.
* The course starts on Monday, March 21, and ends on Monday, May 30 (no class on April 25), 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
* Location: "Gudruns Kulturraum", Böckhstr. 40, Kreuzberg.
For more information contact me, Bernd Hendricks, at (030) 34 71 99 75 or bernducha@gmail.com

*A1 is a learning level according to the European Framework of Reference for Languages. After the course you will be able to

• understand and use familiar everyday expressions and basic phrases,
• introduce yourself and others and ask and answer questions about personal details,
• interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly.

* Price: EUR 12.00 per lesson. The first, introductory lesson is FREE, thus, the price for the course is EUR 108.00.

What this blog is about

This is a service for my students in Berlin, for my skype-students in New York and Los Angeles and for all readers who are interested in learning German.

Hier findest du Informationen
- über die deutsche Sprache,
- über Kurse, die ich anbiete.
Hier findest du Notizen über interessante Themen, die in meinem Unterricht auftauchen:
- Probleme der Grammatik,
- neue, seltsame, lange, sehr lange und sehr sehr lange Wörter,
- Sprüche von den Straßen Berlins und was sie bedeuten,
- Verhalten auf den Straßen Berlins und was es bedeutet,
- was man in welcher Situation am besten sagt,
- Videos, Fotos, Texte für den Unterricht,
- Antworten auf Fragen, die ich im Unterricht nicht geben konnte.

Here, you will find notes and news from German class. You will read about questions and issues of the German language that have arisen from lessons I have given during the week.
- problems of grammar,
- new compound nouns of breathtaking length (for your collection),
- phrases, overheard on the streets of Berlin,
- observations of behavior and habits of Berliners,
- what to say in which situation,
- videos, photographs, texts for class and homework,
- answers to questions I was not able give in class.

Viel Glück beim Lernen!
Good luck with your studies!