Is there another way to say Hello? Yes, bonjour, or guten Tag! And of course, a lot more across the world. These greetings are for you, 'cause you're reading this lines and it warrants a big Hello, and a Thanks for your time. I'm Flummi, currently based in Germany. Don't let my location fool you, I am 100% french. And it'll show in my wording - unfortunately. It's why I'm here, to learn from you. Likewise, anybody who needs/wants me looking over a french / german sentence is welcome. Like most of you, I write, I sweat words and push through the pain of editing and I have no idea if I'm on the right track. The idea to share, to discover, to be maybe help and be helped - this appeals to me. Thanks for being there, I look forward to our time together.
Bonjour and Guten Tag back atcha! I visited Paris once when I was a teenager, but much of my youth was in Frankfurt am Main. They tell me I wouldn't recognize the place now. Your English is pretty good (better than my German, most of which is gone now). I'm curious about why you want to write in English rather than French ... bigger market? More interested in Anglophone cultures?
Welcome. All that shows in your English wording so far is sophistication. I look forward to seeing your works in the Workshop, once you qualify to post there.
Hi @Flummi - and a warm welcome from a cold and windy England. It will be nice to have a bit of French flair around - France is one of my favourite places to visit and spend time. Italy probably pips Germany, but if I was going to live somehwere else Germany would beat Italy - all depends what my stupid country does next with Brexit!
Thanks for your warm welcome! JLT, yes, it would be obvious to write in french. However I read - so far possible - in the original language. It means a lot of english books are going through my hands. Besides, the french market is really tiny, and since I spent two wonderful years in Oxford - wink to Hammer -, I just felt like trying my baby steps in english. Hammer, don't sweat about the Brexit - life goes on and, by the end, nothing really changed. The sky is still blue in Italy while it rains in England. I really like your land and cross my fingers that the whole political disgrace will end soon. As a matter of fact, I spent 5 years near Frankfurt. It's unbelievable how fast the building landscape evolves. But if you ask about my favorite place in Germany, it would be München (Munich). We just ended another windy-wet-week with the "Hutzelfeuer". That's a german tradition that is being upheld in Hessen. The christmas trees and loads of kindling are stappled up to six meter high by the firefighter, they put a life-size puppet on the top and... lit it! We drink warm wine in front of a huge fireball and say "Tschüß" to the winter. To all of you: a creative week! Au revoir!
With writing it is easy to know if you are on the right track. 1. If it's interesting, it's just right. 2. If it's right, it's foreseeable. 3. Foreseeable = boring. 4. Boring is not interesting. 5. So it must be wrong to be interesting which is right.* 6. So... You are on the right track only if you are on the wrong track and know it's right because it is wrong. These are of course literary tracks, not moral. If you want to track if you are morally on the right track, then... *I did not mean that you must be wrong to be interesting but that you must be in the wrong track - which is the right track - to be interesting. And being interesting is the right track. So the wrong track is the right track which sounds wrong because it's right (which is opposite to both left and wrong).... So... If you think about these simple instructions about right and wrong - but not left - you can't be wrong. So you must be on the right track. Right?
Hi Alan Aspie I blinked the confusion away and just let my mind wander through your post... Yeah, I kind of see what you mean. Boring is easy.
Welcome from an ex-American living in Scotland (and SO scunnered about Brexit.) I'm always amazed at people who can write in more than one language. Me? I'm still mixing up American versus British spellings. I look forward to your presence.
Yes, it drew me in right away! I've lived here for over 33 years now, and that hasn't changed. I feel very lucky.
My Hessian friend remembers that, although she called it something different. She wrote: "We have something like it in Hessen called: Osterfeuer. The fire fighters collect old xmas trees as well, and build a bonfire. People sit around the fire, and drink the beverage of their choice. So it is more or less just a different name." Never had that in the city of Frankfurt itself, though. Probably too much of a fire hazard, with thousands of trees going up in flames?
