h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, I'm an ACE. I'll start by telling you that if you have any questions, or want any help, then you can count on me to answer them

So, you're a German guy, right?

I'm English. What are these "skellingtons in the closet" which we have

Enjoy the guide...

Well, just the thing for me to happen. Living in Germany makes me German to every Brit. Around here I utter my sirname once, and everyone goes "AH, your from England - How do you like the Queen?" At least I am enjoying the guide so far, and it has been the most interessting thing sofar that I´´ve found on the internet.

cu

Engländer

P.S. It is funny. German Guy. and thats the problem. Even if I call myself "Engländer"(that is Englishman) as an nom-de-plume.

So, you're a British guy living in Germany, right? Or are you teasing me

This guide has kept me coming back to it for nearly seven and a half months. There is a lot of stuff to see and do. I defy you not to find something of direct interest to you

Any questions or problems, tell me in this forum

That is exactly the question I am on about: What makes you Englisch, German, Marsian etc.? I´ve not found out all that goes with it. I find certain "German Qualities quite helpfull, but I do prefer any cheap british brand of teabags to the stuff they sell here.

It realy is difficult to find your way through national feelings, if you´ve got parents from two countries.

I wonder how much relevance has the "Hitchhikers Guide" have in the entries done in the h2g2.com

Engländer

Well, methinks that if you are born in that country, then you are that country's nationality. Then, you add the nationalities of your parents.
So if I've got 100% welsh parents and am unfortunate enough to be born in england, then it's half-welsh, half english.
If you got half scottish and half irish parentry, and is born in ... yo get my drift, yeah? *^_^*

I can never drink tea...I once had to drink it for breakfast every day for a week when I was in Belguim. So I was dehydrated for half a day...that's no way for a kid to go

Some stuff from the HHGTTG books have had direct influences to guide entries here. Douglas Adams's (aka DNA) entry on the Hitchikers Guide is, if I remember rightly, taken straight from the book. And if you dig through all my hundreds of forums to a thread called "Babel Fish", you will find a guide entry taken word for word from the HHGTTG. I'm sure there are many more.

Funny thing then, National arrithmetics. My mum was born in East-prussia, now Poland. So we´ll take a 10% Discount for being polish. My dad´s from somwhere in Kent, and I was evan born in England, so I should be, wellllll, Oh, I forgot, my granddad, and greatgranddad were born in Ukrainia. Ho hum,and I forgot whitch part of Gondwannaland the Neandertal was.

You don´t half get close to having to wonder, how the Nazi-regime could ever get clear who is who. The latest evidence seams to show, that Hitler himself had "Jewish blood"( THat doesn`t half sound awful)and that he actually didn´t want to kill the jews, but women as such.

Do you know what? We will have to ajust to the thought of being european. (But I am not so shure about wanting to feel that either )

Anti-Europe. A very British train of thought

Interesting family tree you have. More interesting my England-Wales ancestry. Of course, it allows me to take the mick out of both countries

Something I find facsinating about the Nazis is the sheer amount of strange antics they got up to. Everry so often I hear a new story, a new fact, a new article published in a magazine. The latest is abount the lengths that the Nazis went to to prove that they were descended from the Aryan race. Haven't read it all though.

I hope you don't mind me going on about the facists...

Hi. Come and visit me on my page. We have a lot in common.

Do you speak with one of those gorgeous Schwäbisch accents?

(If you follow some of my conversations, you'll see I love all accents, so don't get excited)

Your commas give you away as very germanised.

I live just a little North of Karlsruhe, so depending which part of the Black Forest you're in, that's between 1 and 3 hours' drive.

Don't you find it tedious writing everything in German once and then in English?

I see you haven't logged in - or at least written anything - for a week - hope you are still there. We are starting up quite a network of expat Brits in Germany.

Hi trillians child
wrote a short answer to your forum on bilingual upbringing. The translation thingy is just a little fun thing.

Guten Morgen, Engländer!!

Hi, I've been having a great chat with Trillian's child (which I hope hasn't ended ) about bilingual children. I'm English (through & through - Yorkshire in fact, which is even better), my husband's English (also Yorkshire), my 2 daughters were born here (Waldfeucht) but they're obviously English. Or are they? They're quite small, but speak German and English, both without accent and both with the usual toddler's mistakes. So we'll see..... I'm interested to hear how you feel about "belonging" to one country but living in another - I want to cut off any problems my anklesnappers might run into at the pass.

You're right. Britain has a bloody history. The bloodiest (well, maybe the Vikings were a bit gruesome) but we deal with it by being smug and superior about having civilized the world And then it was (mostly) so long ago that our parents / grandparents can't remember it. And there isn't any Pathé news footage of it. And and and..... But I wish the Germans as a nation would just get on with it. Pay the money to the Entschädigungsfond (sorry, don't know what it is in English) and put a line under it. And the rest of the world should just stop banging on about it and get on with stopping all the stuff that's going on now. Put that's another pet soapbox theme of mine, so I won't keep on.

Btw: What did you do at school when your classmates were doing English??

Nobody really cares about our chequered pastcos it's so old. Who gives a damn about stuff that happened 100 years ago?

That's the point. Nobody cares. So why bother beating ourselves up about it. Eventually everything will settle down again for the Germans, and the next scapegoats will be doing soul-searching and navel gazing to work out how "it" could happen in their country. That's all.

Thing is, I wonder if the English still got plenty flak for their actions 50 years after they happened?

Then again, the Welsh and Scottish still hate us

My perants not only tought me and my brother to talk english, we were able to read and write both languages before we went to school (and on top of that I was a "Kann-Kind)and was allowed to start school three days before I was six. So the question with me was what did I do, whilst my classmates were lerning german...
Of course peope warned my parents, that we would be bored etc, but it seems we´ve coped, languagewise.
I am a bit of a shodder when it comes to spelling. But I think this is due to other reasons and not because of speaking two languages. I do not make any typical mistakes with my spelling. It is worst in french, a language I quite like to speak, but it´s hell to write for me.

I visited the Gymnasium and took French from the 5th class. In seventh grade I took english just as everybody else, and had just the advantage of speaking the language a little better. I had a german girl in the class, who had been brought up bilingual in the US of A. So we used to squabble a bit about pronounciation.

Well, and it was just like having to go into germanlessons. I had no idea about grammer, and as Trillian´s child already comented, my commas do give away my germanism.

In the Oberstufe I took english as a course for the Abitur, just for convienience. I do not know how my classmates felt about me being able to sack in a lot of good marks ( if I felt like it) but I always liked to have a good read under the schoolbench, and I guess I coverd a third of the "Lord of the Rings" in that way. At least I did not have to listen a lot to what went on, and just needed to natter away when asked something.

I sometimes think, my parents made a good start in teaching me two languages. And being able to read and write english so early on gave me a certain feeling for the language, well until my brother went to England to study and came home with a whole new terminology. (I thought it most odd to say "Cheers, mate" instead of "hallo").

The dropdown with me came more of lazyness and just being lucky enough to cope school without doing any effort. So I´ve got quite a bit to pick up going along today.

Spelling in English can be a nightmare, but not as bad as having to pronounce some words (some similar looking words can have up to 8 variations - which is absurd really). But you know what they say about the French: they pronounce a lot better than they spell!

Squabbling over pronunciation isn't restricted to the USA/English thing though. But the child of a friend of mine has an English teacher who must have learned English from both Americans and English teachers. Her pronunciation is ok but she says some things in the American way (which I hate, of course, being English) and some things in the English way. Yuk.

These days (and I don't know how old you are, so it could apply to you too if you're relatively young) you just can't get away with only knowing one language. When I started doing my 'O' level courses and picked 3 languages, everyone thought I was mental. (actually, they weren't far wrong) and now, even though I've forgotten 90% of what I took in, I'm glad. It helped me learn German, because I already understood how grammar works. Sort of. Mostly. And German grammar isn't sooooo bad compared with, say, Russian or Korean.

And don't talk to me about coasting along at school. I did that, but if I had my time again...........

I'm posting here because I want to come back- later. See you all then, I suppose

If you've got any problems with spelling English, just abbriviate it!

If u got any prollems wit' English, jus' abbreviate it!
(and that's before we start getting silly )