Wednesday 12 September 2012

Watching TV Subconsciously...

Another Important Step in Learning German.

Like most married couples who have been together for more than one year, we have our power struggles choosing the TV schedule ! For us, one year was more or less the end of the
" honeymoon " phase and the emergence of the " real " us.
For my part, it used to be " whatever you would like to watch is fine with me, honey ", while slightly cringing inside at the prospect of watching more sport ! For Bob, most likely, he saw far too many romances in our first year of marriage ...But all this is in past !

Saturday evening, one of Bob's favorite movies was on TV ( albeit dubbed into German )...Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. With that in mind, I had free reign with Friday night's TV schedule, and used it well ( Most movies start at 20.15 pm and realistically I only get to see the first 20 minutes, as I fall asleep without fail ).

About half an hour before Bob's movie started, I changed the station onto the right one for Bob. The News ( in German ) was on. I was in the kitchen making our supper and Bob was chatting to me about various things he saw on the News. A curious and funny thing about sound ( for me ) is, that while I am sitting in front of the TV, it seems too soft and I turn up the volume often. Yet in the kitchen, it seems extremely loud.

As I was chopping and stirring the food, I listened to the News and so knew that Bob had really understood most of it ( Bob's been learning German for a year now ). All over sudden, I could hear Bob talking unkindly to the remote ! Finally he asked me,
" Schatzi ( my artistic licence ) What channel is my movie on ? "
" Bob, I already had it on the right channel. You were watching it just now. " To which Bob replied, " It wasn't the right channel. I have been watching the News in English, and the movie is on a German channel. "

Yeah, Bob is already processing German as if it was his native English ! Of course he did not believe me at first, but then when he realized that he watched German but thought it was English, he grinned from ear to ear...

Biggi

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