Subject: No German From Me - Or Not Enough ? - Why Don't I Speak More ? From: German_Complainer@ Sender: German_Complainer@ I append http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/std/why_not_more_german.txt Yes I've been here long enough to learn German, Yes I Can read most German easily, (including business legal contracts, spotting traps & negotiating, including dense newspaper articles: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Streiflicht, excluding insurance policies. excluding medical reports) No, I don't read mostly German, Yes I've spoken & lectured to large audiences in German, No it doesn't scare me, though I know my grammar is flakey (a damn sight easier lecturing than writing business letters in good German grammar!) Why do I think English is often appropriate ? Is it just because I'm English & lazy ? No. That's too easy an accusation, & but a small part of the reason. Consider ... "Horses for Courses !" ;-) Choose your language like a tool: The best tool for the job in at hand: English is my computer industry's language (American actually ;-) (Equally I prefer an American keyboard as the BIOS & base OS expects it, not a British keyboard with lost pipe, or even worse a, German keyboard where half my vital control character are shifted & missing). Eventually speaking or writing German with ever more English computer words & acronyms mispronounced in German fashion gets incredibly ugly, clumsy & irritating, (eg when Germans mispronounce a SCSI LUN as a Loon (pronounced as in Lunatic, & then occasionally a loon ;-) argues they're correct, & English is wrong, despite ... guess which language the SCSI spec. is written in ;-) eg when one hears "Ich habe es ge-initialisiert." instead of ...... "I initialised it." It would be too restrictive using German: I spend all the time at my desk working in English: the language of all the international computer industry documentation, development project mail lists, manuals & web sites I use. If a German asks a question in German on a local list, a few fellow Germans & an Austrian may see it ;-) If a German writes in English (poor grammar or not, irrelevant) to an international list, a whole World of experts can offer advice (even if they too may have Chinese or Swedish or whatever as 1st language), & that expertise is available awake 24 hours a day, no waiting for just people based on TZ=CET=GMT+0100/0200. (Yes I know there's an African or 2 speaks German, & probably a few descendents of old German ex pats down on the River plate ;-) Never noticed any on German computer mail lists though before I stopped using most German lists. If a German mails me in German asking for help, I can't quote bits in German on international development mail lists, without extra work translating, CC'ing become a problem, & maybe I can't forward advice back in English from Russians, Japanese or whoever on international lists, if I don't know if the German can read English well enough. So while it makes sense for some Germans to be on German lists, it makes a lot less sense for me. Germans & other bilingually fluent people say it changes the way of thought, depending what language one think in. (I noticed a difference of thought pattern when I thought in French as a kid sometimes (in Italy!)). More flexibly is the general expectation of English rather than German. Contrariwise, An English Patent Examiner friend considered German a more useful language to precisely phrase patent applications in, so it's not all one sided. In conversational groups of at least 2 Germans & 1 native English speaker, if a German sees a Du/Sie problem approaching with another German, sometimes they'll suddenly switch to English - suiting all more than a contrived rephrasing into a passive context remaining in German (Equivalent of "What might one think if ... ?" rather than "What would 'You=Sie Or Du' think if ?" Personally at work, I use the method of rapidly switching to the other language when you see your computer associate getting stuck, & hope they do the same just as rapidly for you. Usually it's highly successful, we're here to solve the technology, not the grammar ;-) English for me is also partly a convenient filter to ensure I generally mix with more technically competent locals: Within a few months of arrival in '85, it was a German speaking Swiss, who pointed out to me that those who couldn't at least read English simply weren't so good technically ! (How could they cope with all the American computer manuals, books & commented source code ?!) More books are translated now in Germany, perhaps with subsequent less requirement to be fluent in English for younger newcomers to computing ?. Alarm bells still ring though, echoing "Skill level ?" if a German expects me to confine myself to just German for the whole of a computer conversation. Analogies If you were a good tennis player, would you want to play in your free time with Other good players ? Or with people who weren't so comfortable holding the racquet ? If you were an experienced computer consultant, would you want to spend your technical time with Other competent technologists, or people who weren't comfortable reading the industry's base international documentation language ? If you were the tennis pro at the club, you'd be prepared to work with whoever, if you were paid, I guess ? Me too ! Pay me & I'm a lot more flexible. If you want free help, or just to discuss the technology, I generally (not always) default back to the industry's international language. English will be the world language someday I expect, (Romano Prodi, (president of the EU commission) is quoted in Newsweek June 2004 as saying that, adding that it won't be the language of the English, but a changed rationalised English that foreigners standardise on) (Good: there certainly are inconsistencies that could & should be sacrificed to achieve a world language.) I read & negotiate German contracts, technical books, magazines, newspapers, & even novels, but I prefer original texts, not translations, often inferior. German is a more verbose language: (I know, having been responsible for installing translations of English & German in both directions in computer products, & taking account of a translators natural tendency to expand a bit in which ever direction they're going). I have very few computer text books in German on my shelves, those few were first written by Germans In German, & only later translated. But Yes, when a doc is originally written in German, if the translation is poor I certainly Do read the original. Sure there are lots more German computer text books available now, but they're often literally thicker & heavier versions of an English original, or translated later, after the original English is on sale, usually "Me Too" later entries to the book market, selling to those who can't comfortably read the previously published internationally known books in English. Makes sense for the author & buyer, but makes No sense for me to buy such usually entry level books: One can't even quote a page number of a German book to some international project member on an international mail list in America, Russia, or Japan, so such books are only for German beginners IMO. Sometimes being able to read German is a positive advantage: my favourite computer magazine is CT Mag. Those who can only read English lose out not being able to read that. There's nothing near as good on British computer magazine racks ! Local events & business & mail lists of course run often/ mostly in local languages, so one reason to be reasonably fluent in both local & industry international languages. Yes, I probably could restructure this text, but I've got some programming to do ;-) See also http://berklix.com/~jhs/txt/grammar.html See also http://berklix.com/~jhs/mail/no_german.html Need a Computer Consultant ? http://berklix.com/~jhs/cv/ http://berklix.com/ http://bsdpie.com/ Ja, bitte ruf mich an, for a discussion without obligation, moeglichkeiten zu diskutieren :-)