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

and .. just in time .. I turn another page

and of course I'm serious as ever

Oh, I grew up speaking low German. There's even something called Palatine low German, but I don't understand that.

low German people around here speak low Saxon sometimes I watch the soaps in Tweants no, I cannot speak it I'm from Amsterdam, I speak civilised

Knowing low German helps to understand Dutch. I usually get the gist when reading some Dutch text.

funny, I have that with German reading German text I mean .. until they rave on about Halbleiterspeicherbauelementen .. or halbleiterwhateveryoucanthinkfollowingthat

Nothing - my mind draws a blank at such words.

really? Tav knew immediately what it meant

Wasn't it her who invented it in the first place?

yeah, funny that. both bel and tav speak german, but still...

now that i think of it, i grew up with german as well and still understand it - and had absolutely no idea what you were on about

I always think if you have a certain degree of fluency in German and English, Dutch doesn't present too many problems.

Of course, I speak German with a Dutch accent (apparently) so that could be my problem.

.. is speaking German with a Dutch accent a problem??

I'm safe .. I hardly speak any German (language that is)

so I don't have problems

Well, you may be right. I'm relatively fluent in English, and a native speaker for German and low German.

i am fluid in german

the more i drink the better my german gets

The more I drink, the more appalling my typing gets.

mm.. so you didn't have a drink yet

I'm on my second ot third glass of wine (can't remember).

(There, I've started a new journal...)

the most common response I get to that is "no, you're not"

Some people call all German dialects "low German". However, you probably mean Lower Saxon, which is considered a separate language nowadays. Variations thereof are spoken all over Northern Germany, including the area where I live (between the river Weser and the Harz mountains). Actually, it seems that the English language is pretty much a derivate of Lower Saxon, with Celtic and Roman and Norman elements mixed in.

In certain regions of the coast, they also still speak Friesian, which is somewhat similar to Lower Saxon, but actually yet another language.

Any meatballs left?

I've never heard of lower Saxon in my life. It's called Plattdüütsch where I come from, and that's Schleswig-Holstein.