The speech has been delivered, having been written last week, rewritten last night and again this morning. I might just as well have left it to the deadline and got it right first time.
I had to open an account with German Amazon today, to send a present from Elle to her father. It's a long story and let's not bother with it. I thought I could bluff my way through reading a number of languages - well no, I can, just not German. Or Dutch or Flemish come to that, and I think I detect a linguistic theme. I remember visiting Weeza when she was working in Brussels and we went out for dinner and I couldn't read the menu at all. I had rather expected it to be written in at least two languages but it was only in Flemish and I couldn't decipher anything to speak of. Well, to speak of, blimey, I wasn't going to even try to pronounce any of it. I pointed and hoped I wasn't ordering horse. It was very nice actually and not a bit horsey.
Anyway, I had great difficulty in getting started because, although I was able to work out that I needed to fill in my name, address and phone number, I couldn't quite cope with my country. Look, how was I to guess the German for United Kingdom? You may know it's Vereinigtes Königreich but I saw no clue in the name at all at the time, although now, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems quite a bit more obvious. And then I had to work out how to put in another delivery address from my own. I got quite agitated. By the time it was finally done, I had little time to scuttle upstairs and put on the Smart yet Appropriate Frock for the Prizegiving, and it was a jolly good job I'd already printed out the speech and put it in my handbag, or I'd have had to ad lib. I'm slightly concerned that I might have signed up for a trial of Amazon Prime in German, but I hope not. I'll ask Elle to check it out when I see her.
I seem to have done most of my Christmas shopping, almost without noticing. I spent five minutes in a shop in the town and cleared up the last three people - well, apart from the Sage and he's impossible so doesn't count. There are only three options for him: clothes, china or vesta cases. I've given him china for the last two years and I think I'll buy him a new coat. He doesn't wear enough and it makes me feel cold.
I had to open an account with German Amazon today, to send a present from Elle to her father. It's a long story and let's not bother with it. I thought I could bluff my way through reading a number of languages - well no, I can, just not German. Or Dutch or Flemish come to that, and I think I detect a linguistic theme. I remember visiting Weeza when she was working in Brussels and we went out for dinner and I couldn't read the menu at all. I had rather expected it to be written in at least two languages but it was only in Flemish and I couldn't decipher anything to speak of. Well, to speak of, blimey, I wasn't going to even try to pronounce any of it. I pointed and hoped I wasn't ordering horse. It was very nice actually and not a bit horsey.
Anyway, I had great difficulty in getting started because, although I was able to work out that I needed to fill in my name, address and phone number, I couldn't quite cope with my country. Look, how was I to guess the German for United Kingdom? You may know it's Vereinigtes Königreich but I saw no clue in the name at all at the time, although now, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems quite a bit more obvious. And then I had to work out how to put in another delivery address from my own. I got quite agitated. By the time it was finally done, I had little time to scuttle upstairs and put on the Smart yet Appropriate Frock for the Prizegiving, and it was a jolly good job I'd already printed out the speech and put it in my handbag, or I'd have had to ad lib. I'm slightly concerned that I might have signed up for a trial of Amazon Prime in German, but I hope not. I'll ask Elle to check it out when I see her.
I seem to have done most of my Christmas shopping, almost without noticing. I spent five minutes in a shop in the town and cleared up the last three people - well, apart from the Sage and he's impossible so doesn't count. There are only three options for him: clothes, china or vesta cases. I've given him china for the last two years and I think I'll buy him a new coat. He doesn't wear enough and it makes me feel cold.
Chrome automatically offers a translation if a web page isn't in English. Mind you, the translation is sometimes harder to understand than the foreign and I'd be terrified of setting up an account in case I got it wrong. Very daring of you!
ReplyDeleteCouldn't you have used an English account and shipped to Germany?
ReplyDeleteI did resort to Bing translate at one point but it didn't make a lot of sense, Mig.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think, wouldn't you, Sarah? i tried that first, but the company supplying it wouldn't ship abroad.
I can muddle by in spoken German, no idea about it written. I understand more than I speak...probably 1 in 6 words. Which is an improvement, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI've got a few more bits and pieces to get and then I am done!
Christmas? What's that?
ReplyDelete