For tourists

Visiting Prague over the weekend, I noticed how differently English was used there than it is in Berlin. I noticed that I felt very different, walking through Prague and seeing English, than I feel in Berlin. In Prague, the English on signs and menus was very clearly targeted to tourists. This probably has to do with the fact that Prague is a more touristy city than Berlin is, and that far more people learn German as a second language than learn Czech. All of these photos are from Berlin, and they show English in the places you might not find it in Prague. In Prague English was visible on menus, on tourist t-shirts, on "open" signs and the innumerable money exchanges. "FitnessFirst for ladies", though, is the kind of thing that is clearly targeted to locals--most people don't go to the gym while they're on vacation--so why is it in English? If the English in Berlin isn't for tourists, who is it for? As always, Berlin is more complicated. All I know is that I felt very different navigating Prague and its English than I do interacting with the English in Berlin.

Imports and Exports

All four of these signs were from a short walk through Prenzlauer Berg, where English seems to be particularly popular. I don't know how most Germans feel about the prevalence of English in their daily lives, but I do wonder if it makes a difference that in the places it is primarily visible, it is commercial. I mentioned my project to my German language partner, and the example she immediately thought of was "sale". When German shops want to get rid of last season's stock, they have a sale--and they advertise it as such. I have to wonder what it says about English-speaking cultures and the English language that it has been absorbed into other languages for commercial uses. English steals vocabulary from other languages all the time, but the main example I can think of is Latin, and Latin appears in English mostly in religion, law, and academia. We import other languages mainly for specialized uses, but we export it in the true sense of the word--in business.

Sale on steaks and nails

Yet more English signage, all of these on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse near Alexanderplatz. I went into a souvenir shop underneath the Fernsehturm, and eavesdropped on the interaction between the woman in the shop and a couple of tourists. The tourists weren't speaking German (Russian, maybe?), but they also clearly were not speaking English--yet the woman chose to address them in English. I don't think I ever realized until I got to Europe how much English has become a lingua franca. This makes me look back to interactions I've had, where I speak to someone in a shop in German, and they answer in English because they know my German isn't very good. I always assumed something about my accent told them I'm an English-speaker, but now I wonder if it's just that that's the language you switch to if you know someone doesn't speak German but don't know what language they do speak. Another instance of English as lingua franca was at the Humboldt's language party, where English was the only language we all spoke, even though no one but me was a native speaker.

I'm now wondering how much the prevalence of English signs is influenced by English's status as a lingua franca.

U9

Yesterday I rode the U9 from one end to the other and back again.

First I took the U8 to Osloer Strasse, which is sometimes its end point when it doesn't go all the way to Wittenau. I was on one of the older trains, where the cars are separate and you sit facing people in groups of four rather than in rows along the walls. On the way there a group of people got on the train, blasting music and singing along to it. One of them wished the train a "Happy Halloween!" although he was obviously German--apparently that phrase is too concrete to be translated into German. After they got off everybody else on the train sort of laughed together. That's probably the only time I've seen a train car full of strangers really interact.

 I'd never been to Osloer Strasse, so I left the train station and wandered around. The neighbourhood seemed slightly similar to our neighbourhood, with quite a few Turkish shops and apartments above them, but it had a somewhat different feeling to it--wider streets, and maybe less of a concrete identity. I circled the block and then got back on the U-Bahn, this time the U9 to Rathaus Steglitz. In the U-Bahn station at Rathaus Steglitz I saw signs pointing to Das Schloss. Naturally, I assumed that if I followed the signs they would lead me to a castle.

They led me to a shopping mall.

The area around Rathaus Steglitz was an odd mix of new stores, old buildings, and historical sites. Wikipedia tells me this is Berlin's second largest shopping area, which I didn't know beforehand. That big brick building (the Rathaus itself, I believe) in the last photo had cafes and a U-Bahn entrance at the bottom. The square, bordered by shops, had a Holocaust memorial. Across the street from the mall was another old building, the Schwarze Villa.

Maybe I've spent too much time on the east side of the city and haven't explored the west enough, but areas like Steglitz or the Ku'damm feel much less Berlin to me. Malls in general always feel oddly American, even if many of the stores in them wouldn't be found in the US. Architectural cohesiveness aside, places in Kreuzberg or Mitte I've spent time in feel much more cohesive in some indefinable way. The combination of crowded shopping area with beautiful old buildings here feels strange in a way that isn't present in other areas.

I didn't spend very long in Steglitz. Malls make me uncomfortable.