Keller, Evangelisches Bildungswerk, Erlangen, 26. April 2005

Transblawg too is on the blog list at YouReadMe, and so are some German weblogs:

bq. We’re lazy. There are just too many blogs out there. No mortal can read them all. And let’s face it, only a handful of the millions of blog posts each day are really worth reading.
So we created YouReadMe and let the computer do the reading for us. It reads tens of thousands of blogs multiple times throughout the day and finds the really important posts: the ones linked to the most by other bloggers. Now we can read the “hot” posts, see what people are saying about them, and have a much more complete view of what’s going on in the blogosphere.
YouReadMe is the first public project released by XB Labs, but you shouldn’t click on that link because there’s nothing there (yet). We will be adding a range of new and exciting features in the weeks to come, so keep checking back. And we welcome any thoughts you may have on how to make the site more useful. Send any comments, suggestions, or criticisms to info@xblabs.com.

(Via netbib.weblog)

Actually I’m rather ignorant about the lives of the Romantic poets, but I suspect with a modicum of knowledge this test becomes rather transparent.

You are William Blake! Wow. I’m impressed. Not
only are you a self-made artist and poet, but
you’ve suddenly become a very trendy guy to
like. It’s not that we doubt that you have all
your marbles, it’s just that we’re not quite
sure what you did with them to come up with
those terrifying theological visions. The
people of your time were nowhere near as
forgiving as that, and all your neighbors
thought you were a grade-A nut job. But we
love you, so rest happy.

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Via Cobwebs of Petty Inquisitiveness, aka Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

John Leigh and David Woodhouse, Football Lexicon, ISBN 057122797X
(note that at amazon.de there is a hardback version slightly cheaper than a paperback).

On foreign players:

bq. Can they perform “week in week out”? Will they deliver on a “Wednesday night in Rochdale” or a “Tuesday night in Grimsby”? (“the location is usually northern, the date invariably midweek”).
Commentators also enjoy greeting “a particularly robust tackle which leaves a debutant (usually a fancy foreign player)…with the cheerfully ironic words: ‘Welcome to the Premiership Juan Sebastian”.

On feet:

bq. Left feet can be educated, cultured or trusty. “Right feet are never favoured in the same way. Are the owners of such left feet more thoughtful or are the feet themselves somehow endowed with these attributes?”

(Via The Language Legend, via kalebeul).

Das Bildungswesen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2002 – PDF-Datei(en) von der Kultusministerkonferenz.

Grundstruktur des Bildungswesens in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Diagramm). Stand: Dezember 2002. Bonn 2003

The Education System in the Federal Republic of Germany 2002 – PDF file(s) from the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs.

Basic structure of the educational system in the Federal Republic of Germany (Diagram). As at December 2002. Bonn 2003

The English terms are accompanied by the German terms in brackets. I noticed that there was a lot of reference to Fachhochschulen, using the German term in italics, but at one point the dubious but ‘official’ university of applied sciences was put in brackets after it. Terms must be taken with caution, but at least there are many attempts. Handwerksordnung I would say is not Handicrafts Code (Bastelarbeitsgesetzbuch? – well, OK, handicrafts is not that bad) but perhaps Crafts Act. I see Berufsakademien have become professional academies, which is better than universities of cooperative education, although the latter may be a later term, which would be unfortunate.

Here’s a sample:

bq. Apart from Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium, almost all Länder have Gesamtschulen (comprehensive schools), albeit in some Länder in only very limited numbers as a special type of school. Several Länder introduced types of school, with particular names which differ from one Land to another, in which, however, the traditional courses available at the Hauptschule and the Realschule are brought under one organisational umbrella – these include
Mittelschule, Sekundarschule, Regelschule, Erweiterte Realschule, Verbundene Haupt- und Realschule, Integrierte Haupt- und Realschule and Regionale Schule. Grades 5 and 6 at all secondary schools can be organised as a phase of orientation (Orientierungsstufe/Förderstufe) with the choice of school career being left open until the end of grade 6. In 2002 in some Länder the orientation stage is a separate organisational unit independent of the standard school types. In this case the secondary schools subsequently attended will begin with the 7th grade.
The various types of school will be described in more detail in chapter 5.3.1. as part of the description of secondary education.

Via the website of BDÜ-Bayern (members’ area) and Sprachrohr, the periodical of the Rhineland-Palatinate section of the BDÜ, edited by the well-named Karin Marx.

Erika Fuchs, who died this week at the age of 98, began translating Micky Mouse and Donald Duck comic strips in 1951.
She was famous, especially because:

bq. she didn’t translate to convey the original as minutely as possible, but to make the German fun to read, even if this meant changes
(perhaps that’s why, as Scott says, adult Germans are much more interested in Donald Duck than adult Americans)

bq. she gave the characters individual voices, unlike the original

bq. all Germans have heard of Entenhausen, but who has heard of Duckburg?

bq. like Luther, she extended the German language through her translations. She created the verb form used in emails and online messages:

bq. EN <G> DE <grins>
The verb is grinsen (to grin), the first person ich grinse, and the email form (called after her the Erikativ) is grins.
The form can be expanded: *schreiunddurchdiewohnungrenn* (scream and through the flat run)

Note: grins can be in asterisks or in angled brackets. How do I do angled brackets in html?