Schtammelbachspike

So now on to some cool, quirky bits of Germany, now that I've probed the scary parts.

Everyone rides bikes in Germany, including a five year old kid we saw today.

There's a lake nearby our flat that looks like Lake Nockamixon in Bucks County, and it's got a landscape that is pretty reminiscent of BC as well. We went out to it with one of our flatmates, her girlfriend, and two of their friends, who were dating, and one was German while the other was Spanish, and our flatmate's girlfriend was Spanish. And we all went out to the lake to have a picnic. It was a thoroughly international picnic.

Everyone has a way of impersonating different languages with jibberish - if I were to try to imitate French without actually speaking any french words, I'd say something like:

Oh la la bou rapapla (phlegmy throat noise) toi.

I asked my German flatmates how they'd do that for English. They responded in two ways. First, to imitate American English, repeat the following phrase:

(said as nasally as possible)

"Rah rah rah rah rah."

To imitate British English, repeat the following phrase:

(as condescendingly as possible)

"Raw raw raw raw raw."

They asked what German sounded like, and my friend and I looked at each other for a split second, then said:

"ACHen de FLACHen BLOOCHen BLACH"

And our flatmate said "that's Arabic!"

Some interesting German words include:

Knoblauch: the word for garlic. It looks like it should be proncounced "Knob launch."

Schtammelbachspike: meaning "the warehouse by the shipping area" or something. It's the theatre were ShakespeaRE: 08 is taking place. It's just fun to say.

Also, the only serious German words I know come from action movies like The Bourne Identity and games like Call of Duty: Medal of Honor, so words like "Schnell!" and "Fruchen!" and "Polizei!" and "Nein!" So my flatmates and I tried putting them together in as many ways as possible. For instance:

Fruchen?
Nein! Polizei!
Schnell?

Nein polizei! Fruchen schnell!

Nein fruchen polizei schnell.

And so on. Can you think of any?

Will write more later.