When I first moved to Fürth, in 1987, I lived in a new flat in the south part of the town. Our landlord was Hans Beck, who was famous as the inventor of Playmobil toys. He didn’t, as far as I know, own other flats. He was always very pleasant to deal with, on the few occasions we had any contact with him. He died recently, and I nearly blogged it, but only now have I realized that his obituary has appeared in English in so many papers: the New York Times, the Times, the Independent (the one I saw today) and many others. It’s also been widely blogged.

A query came up on a mailing list today from an attorney qualified in the USA who is about to have to teach something on English law. He wanted to know sources for the courts and the basics.

I will list a few sources here. I go for the briefest and simplest, because I find it easier to learn about a foreign legal system that way. This list is not exhaustive, of course.

Via Delia Venables, a lot of links can be found. Delia was a very early aficionado of law on the internet. It’s necessary to click on Primarily for students, then Resources for law students, then Introductory material. (Via Information for lawyers, you can find a list of legal newspapers and journals, too).

One of the links Delia gives is to a set of resources for school students studying A Level Law: A Level Law Notes prepared by staff at St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in Bristol. These were always useful, but they have not been updated since September 2008.

She also links to a barrister called Nik Nicol, who has elementary materials online (also in Spanish).

Two other learning sites that were new to me and look good are LoretoLore – from Loreto College in Manchester, actually a blog, so you can follow its RSS feed – and Lawbore, the site of the City University in London.

Another good place to start with the basics is Wikipedia, for example the entry on English law.

Another suggestion made on the mailing list was the site of Translegal, who have a lot of teaching resources. They publish books on International Legal English, which are used by many EFL-trained teachers.

Guardian article about the Weinereien in Berlin, where (after 8 pm at least) you pay what you want:

The Berlin Weinerei are the inadvertent brainchild of Jürgen Stumpf, who moved to the city in 1996 from the Bavarian town of Franken, where his family owns a five-hectare vineyard. He opened up a small wine shop selling his family’s wares in the rapidly emerging east of the city, and invited his nextdoor neighbour, Argentinean immigrant Mariano Goni, to cook for guests on Thursday nights.

I liked the ‘rapidly emerging east of the city’ too, and even better ‘Prenzlauer Berg, an area in the former east’.

Whatever happened to British spelling? ‘Reisling’ is traditional Grauniad, but ‘assholes’?

…sometimes there are assholes who spend the entire night here and pay €5,” said Mariano. “Especially Spanish people. …

(Mariano is from Argentina).

The New York Times understood it better:

Their owner hails from the north Bavarian region of Franconia, and more than half the wines are produced in Germany.

In criminal trials in England and Wales and the USA, the defence usually has the last word (not in every state, though). In Germany, it is the defendant in person who has the last word (sometimes along the lines of ‘I’m sorry and I won’t ever do it again’).

In an old entry in Strafprozesse und andere Ungereimtheiten, Werner Siebers tells a story where the defendant should have been forbidden from having the last word.

When three potential witnesses turn out to have emigrated to Israel and the robbed petrol station manager is ill, and on top of that the defendant has been in pre-trial detention for months without an arrest warrant, and the public prosecutor requests an acquittal and compensation (for all three defendants), it is not good for the last word to be ‘And I’m sorry we didn’t pay for the petrol’. (Both the interpreter and the defendant had been told there should be no last word by him).

Das “Letzte Wort” wurde erteilt und gegen die mit der Dolmetscherin und dem Mandanten getroffene Absprache stand dieser auf und begann, in seiner Heimatsprache Ausführungen zu machen. Als die Übersetzung kam, bin ich fast vom Stuhl gekippt. Da hat der sich doch tatsächlich dafür entschuldigt, dass man gemeinsam vergessen habe, das Benzin zu bezahlen.

Erheiterung beim Richter. Verurteilung wegen gemeinschaftlichen Tankbetruges, deshalb auch keine Haftentschädigung. Seit diesem Tag ist das “Letzte Wort” für mich das “Verhängnisvolle Wort”.

Werner Siebers has had a numnber of entries on problems with a Bulgarian interpreter in recent months.

I don’t think this spelling in the Independent is quite right, is it?

Dr Nick Plowman, a consultant oncologist at St Bartholomew’s hospital, who will oversee the treatment, said: “If you get a discreet little tumour in an awkward place, under the liver or next to the kidney, then there’s really nothing better than the Cyberknife.”