Signs

So today I asked my supervisor about signs that I've seen around Germany and what they mean.

A lot of them are simple signs saying who has priority at an intersection (right before left is the general rule), but some of them are quite unique.

My favorite example is the speed limit for tanks on small bridges. Yes, they actually have posted speed limits for tanks here. I think that's awesome. See pictures below. You can't drive tanks so easily in the US. Though it's not as though driving them through Germany has always been easy. On one of my bus rides after a particularly long day of biking I snapped a picture of the Panzersperren, the tank blockades that Hitler set up near the border with Belgium during WWII. It was so difficult to remove them that they remain to this day.

Some other signs that I've seen that I've enjoyed are also below.

Truck and tank speed limits for this bridge.

The Panzersperre.

"We would like to take leave of our guests in Aschaffenburg." Supposed to convey they would like to say farewell to those guests departing the train at the next station. Click to enlarge.

No Seats Thanks. Seats. From Brugges.

The Weather Forecast Station near a castle I visited.

It reads like this: Condition; Forecast

Stone is Wet; Rain

Stone throws a shadow; Sunny

Stone is white on top; Snowfall

Stone can't be seen; Foggy

Stone is swinging; Windy

Stone is jumping up and down; Earthquake

A sign hanging in the hallway of my apartment complex showing where the exits are. You should click to view this one full screen.

I don't know why, but I like this poster from Amsterdam.

Another topic of discussion was advertisements.

I really enjoy the ads in German that I can understand because many of them are very clever.

Here's one I managed to snap a picture of. It's an add for a Kölsch beer brand, Früh. Früh also happens to mean 'early' in German. There is a large rivalry between cities and sections in Germany about who makes the best beer. You can imagine it's pretty heated in Bavaria, where the average person drinks enough beer in a year to equate to a half liter per day. There's also a strong rivalry in the area near me between the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf, their characteristic beers being Kölsch and Alt respectively. Alt also means 'old' in German. So now the ad: "Früh, bevor es Alt wird." roughly: "'early' beer, drink it before it turns into 'old' beer."

Früh vs Alt.

You might also know of the Haribo gummi snacks. They're quite good. It's a German brand who has used the same slogan for many decades. When they took it to other countries, they also made sure to find a good translation of their rhyming slogan that still rhymed, rather than simply translating the words. That was a great marketing move.

German: "Haribo macht Kinder froh - und Erwachsene ebenso."

English: "Kids and grown-ups love it so - the happy world of Haribo."

There are many more languages of their ad for you to read here.

Also interesting, though, are those ads that are translated from German to English or vice versa and just not done so well.

Douglas is a perfume and makeup store here. Their English slogan is good: "Come in and Find out." If you want to translate that to German, however, the words don't play together so well. The translation turns into "Come in and Find your way out," which, though very funny, is no longer a good ad.

An oft-used example is a guy who wanted to sell backpacks. In Germany, using English is considered to be cool and you can find English everywhere. This guy decided to translate the words poorly however. Rücksack is the German word. Rück = back, sack = sack. But he used the word "Body" and the word "bag." So... who wants to buy a Body bag?

My boss' first email program was AOL. I was surprised that America On-Line was his first program in Germany to get e-mails. What I wasn't surprised by was that he, too, was always greeted with that timeless and memorable welcoming tone and message "Sie haben Post" ("You've got mail").

The last story for this post also comes from my discussion with my boss. We talked about postcards and mail systems and he shared with me his first impression of the US Postal Service that he got from a true story from one of his friends in high school. His friend was going on a month or two trip through the US, with no definite plans of when he'd be in a certain location. His parents wanted to send him a letter and knew that he'd end his trip in New York City. They told him they would send the letter there. You could send a letter to a city's post office that would be available for pickup when the person to whom it was addressed came in and asked if they had received mail. So, after many weeks of venturing through the US this kid came into the New York City Central Post Office. It was huge. Gigantic. It served millions of people in the area. He walked up to one of the desks and asked if he had received any letters, looking around at the gigantic building and the vast expanses of the building full of mail being sorted behind the desk. The person at the desk asked his name and, after he had given it, the post office worker, without standing up, reached down below the desk, grabbed a letter, and handed it to the German boy standing, in awe, in front of him. It was the letter his parents had sent him. How's that for efficiency?