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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Social "International Interview" Thread--All Are Welcome!

Discussion in 'FanForce Community' started by Pensivia, Jun 20, 2016.

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  1. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    The Reeperbahn is famous. If one speaks about it, it doesn't need to name the city to know where it is.
     
  2. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    Well, as you may already know,Skiara, I love my city of birth above all: Braunschweig.

    (Even though DarthUncle and I live in Berlin since summer 2013. Oh wait, I left the Netherlands on my own and due to his dad being fatally ill, my husband moved here in December 2014. And we live in Spandau, which is not really Berlin, as we are told non stop.)

    Braunschweig (the old medieval name is Brunswick) is a wonderful place to be, with much history to soak in. Starting in the the early middle ages with monks drying marshy swamp land, up to a teacher who brought the idea of soccer all the way from England during the "Kaiserzeit" until the fatal decision of our city fathers to give a certain Austrian person the German nationality plus a political position as "Ratsherr".

    But the Harz Mountains are also great, having shaped my life in many ways. Especially my faith. ;)

    Well, what can I do? Having grown up between the mountains and the Lüneburg Heath, I can not help to be full of local patriotism. (The Weser Hills were close also and the North Sea actually not that far away. The frontier was also close, very close before it fell in 1989.)

    Even the last daughter of the German Emperor - Princess Victoria Luise - went to live in our city. I still vaguely remember her. A kind old lady with lavender hair. She died when I was four years old. I loved to gaze into her garden when my parents went on a walk with my older brother and me. There was a stone statue of the Frog King. It was always a magical moment for me, when somebody lifted me up and I could look at it.

    Anyway, I also like Hanover, Chilla. And certainly, Hildesheim, Cem_Fel. @MsLanna/ Etain plus Ceillean also would want me to mention Bielefeld, which DOES EXIST by the way.
     
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  3. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Music people know that the Beatles spend some years in Germany and since Berlin is the first german city people think of so would I not be surprised if many think they were in Berlin instead of Hamburg.

    Bowie lived in Berlin in the 70's if I remember right.
     
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  4. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2014
    I was talking about the sausage in a round Brötchen, like this:

    [​IMG]

    This is what I always got when I bought a sausage in the street, and, I mean, why in the galaxy would anyone put a sausage in a piece of bread that's so obviously not meant to hold a sausage? :p

    (Oh, and in case it's not obvious, I'm teasing you.)

    I forgot to answer your mystery words question, so here you go (I'm from Greece):
    The only one I'm familiar with in this list is "handy", which I know to mean mobile phone, so I'm going to take a few wild guesses at the rest:
    • beamer = satellite dish
    • oldtimer = prisoner for life
    • casting show = "talent" reality shows like Strictly, Britain's Got Talent or equivalent.
    • fitness studio = gym
    • office programme = software.
     
  5. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    Well, Chyntuck, ask the 13 kids in my kindergarten group. They simply love a sausage inside a "Brötchen". They rather eat it with "Ketchup" than with "Senf". (And by now I do not need to watch out if our Russian lady cook really just bought sausages made out of poultry meat. For we have this little refugee boy from Afghanistan since a couple of months and pig meat is off the shopping list.)

    Eating a sausage in a "Brötchen" is the usual way sausages are served at the famous Christmas markets all over Germany.
     
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  6. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    @Skiara--I loved your explanation of the "Bavarian veal sausage equator"[face_laugh]

    About the Reeperbahn--so it is still well-known today? For the same reasons as earlier? (being a "wild" place, etc.?)

    About all the English words adopted into German...is there a general feeling that all those English words are "welcome"? Or maybe is there some feeling (maybe more among older Germans perhaps) that there might be too much "Americanization" of the German language? I remember when I was last there (2015) and noticing the many English words used just in the signs at a local grocery store, one of my German relatives (who is in his 70s) told me (half-joking) that "in fifty years there will be no more German--only English!" I told him I hoped that it was not the case! Although all the English words I saw made it easier for me to understand and communicate (since my German speaking is so limited), but also in a way it made me a little sad or something...
     
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  7. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    When I did my university studies for elementary-school level and secondary-school level (at the same place like Cem_Fel actually), I had professors at the German Institute, dear Pensivia, who fear the strong influence of the English language on our native language.

    But I personally think that this happens to "neighbours" (= in this case the English and the German).

    I have seen similar things happen to the Dutch & Belgium people with French words. Could also be that they got occupied centuries ago. The Dutch also have a lot of English words in their language as well.

    And then there is this strange thing, that happens with English natives that lived in Germany for a long time: the Irish-Norman father of my ex-boy-friend, the British ex-soldier who used to own a lot of restaurants in the Harz Mountains and the English bloke that gives music lessons at my kindergarten. They speak Denglish.

    The comedian Gayle Tufts even makes a living with that. She can be seen in this video clip as well:

     
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  8. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Very interesting vid, AzureAngel2...thanks for posting! Yes, that is just what I was talking about. During my last visit, another one of my German relatives (a teenager) showed me some kind of funny music video of a song called "Denglisch"[face_laugh]

    Would you say that there tends to be a generational divide in terms of German attitudes about this issue--with older people more likely to see this as a negative thing and younger people not minding (or even thinking it's "cool")?

    I do really enjoy the German use of the word "handy" for "cell phone"--it just sounds so cute/adorable to my American ear!:D

    Also, this "question" is for any of the German natives in this thread--I would be very interested in any videos of German-language songs by current popular German singers or bands that you like and could recommend. I had my teenage cousin give me some recommendations, too...I'm trying to update my knowledge of current popular German music, since the last time I was aware of German-language popular music was back during the era of Nena's "99 Luftballons," Peter Schilling, and Falco[face_laugh] (when I was a teen!)
     
  9. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    The answer to your first question, dear @Pensiva, is not a light one as far as my own family is concerned.

    Well my parents, both young kindergarten kids during the last days of WW2, are grateful to the Americans saving them. But they do not like their mother language being "corrupted" by the English language.

    This is mostly because they are both refugees from one of the lost regions of Germany: Silesia. Especially for my mother, who got about thirteen "gratis" years with socialism and the Polish language (plus the Russian one) thanks to a famous pact the Allied Forces made in Potsdam in 1945.

    My mother was three years old when she had to march all the way from her village near the city of Oppeln to Prague and back, begot cause the Czech Army did NOT let the entire refugee track - consisting of old people, mothers and their off-spring only - pass the famous "Charles Bridge" into the West.

    Well, it is not the march of about 2x 300 kilometres in dire circumstances (= the cruel winter, the hunger that I can barely imagine, the sick and dying lying in ditches, bombs falling down from military planes, enemy soldiers doing dire things I do not want to mention in detail here).

    It is about the West front that the Russians conveniently had moved. Polish people were forced to leave their homes, making way for Russian civilians. Those Polish people were given new homes in regions that used to belong to Germans. And the ones, that were forced to return, like my granny and her four children, had no homes suddenly. They were foreigners in a foreign land out of a sudden. Their language, their history and their names (= family AND first names) taken away from them. Their language forbidden, because people used to disappear when it was spoken. Or members of the Communist party started hanging around, asking questions.

    When my gran, my mom and my uncle managed to slip through the Iron Curtain in 1958 they all no accepted school education for the German authorities and, especially my mom and my uncle had difficulties with the German language.

    There are even regions in Germany, where people call the WW2 refugees like my dad (who managed to flee from the East front in 1944 with his mom & two older brothers) and my mom, who is regarded as a "Spätaussiedlerin" (= ethic German immigrant/ late repatriate), as... now hold your breath... "Untermenschen".

    This is perhaps why my mom clings on to German music and all that is German. To fit in. Perhaps it is also the fear to be forced to learn a third language!

    My dad has the same attitude, just is more relaxed than my mom when Elvis or other English speaking artists sing their songs.

    **************************************************************************************************************************************

    As for your second question about German music, I am glad that you asking. (My Dutch students were seldom interested in Cultural Studies, especially in the music sector).

    German music is alive and kicking. Just last week I returned with the CD "Song Poeten" from the local library. It features artists like:

    * Tim Bendzko
    * Silbermond
    * Peter Fox
    * Christina Stürmer
    * Joris
    * Annett Lousian
    * Die Fantastischen Vier
    * Lena
    * Johannes Oerding
    and so many others.

    I also love "die neue deutsche Härte" featuring artists such as:
    * Unheilig
    * Rammstein
    * Subway to Sally

    Or medieval rock bands, bordering the Gothic scene and the pagan one:
    * Schandmaul and * In Extremo
     
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  10. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Really interesting post, AzureAngel2...thank you for taking the time to share that family history with me (and for all the German music recommendations--I will definitely be checking those out a little at a time as I have time!).

    We sort of have something in common in that way--my grandfather was also from Silesia! His family lived in or near Reichenbach I think (not sure what the Polish name for that is now). But he came to the U.S. before WWII (he immigrated in the late 1920s). But it's through my grandfather that I have a connection to German relatives today--my relatives are my mother's first cousin (nephew of my grandfather) and his children and grandchildren. I have visited them in Germany (near Essen) several times and recently hosted one of my young teenage relatives (grandchild of my mother's cousin) here for his first visit to the U.S.

    My mother's cousin (in his 70s) also had a difficult experience right after the war. He was just a boy when the family had to move from Silesia to where the area they live in now, and he has told some stories of his childhood memories of that time. (Though unfortunately I wasn't able to understand a lot of what he said, because my German is so limited and the last time he spoke at length about all that, there was nobody in the room who could translate it into English for me...)

    I can certainly understand why your parents feel the way they do about the language issues.

    Yeah, I didn't need a translation of "Untermenschen":( ...that is very sad that those attitudes still exist so many years after the war.
     
  11. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    There seem to be a lot of people around me who have Silesian roots. [:D]

    It is just strange that I, turning 41 in January, seem to be one of the "War Grandchildren" from parents who are both from the "Forgotten Generation". Those two books of the German journalist Sabine Bode helped me to understand who I am and how my family became to be what it is. (At present I am reading another book of hers called "American PTSD and German PTBS" which I can also highly recommend.)

    Perhaps I would not have gone on research if the overbearing "lordish" attitude of a certain Irish-Norman nobleman (aka the father of my ex) and the "warm" welcome of a certain rural community had not shaken me awake at the age of 22.

    After I "travelled" into the past via a lot of books and history documentaries (in lack of a TARDIS... ;)) I can say that I am proud who my people were. And I am especially proud of my maternal grandmother who never showed any body hate. Neither the Czech, the Russians, the Polish people or the citizens of Central Germany. She was a hero of daily life, working hard and never complaining.

    *************************************************************************************************************************************

    As for the musical question, I simply love music. As my Dutch husband DarthUncle was forced to find out after we moved together in summer 2007. :*

    When I was still teaching Secondary School level in the Netherlands, I thought that regular excursions into Germany´s music world with the white board would help to ease the tension. (And me watching the BBC series " 'Allo ' Allo! " would get me a more cheerful attitude.)

    There are things that music cannot fix. For example the bad attitude of teens towards a foreign language teacher from a different country.

    But it were kind comments from Matthew Woods and Steve Sansweet during the Jedi Con 2010 in Düsseldorf/ Germany that saved me as a teacher. And I returned to my home country when I finally got a job offer in Kindergarten education... after a break for 10 years in Secondary School Level.

    Music is still an important part of my life and my kindergarten group profits from it, even though I seldom play to them the German stuff that is "in" at present. But for the recent soccer EM we checked the internet with my mobile phone for German EM songs. And they fell in love with this one:



    To music is something that connects people all over the world and even through the ages... [face_whistling]

    So I am glad you also asked a music question, dear Pensivia.
     
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  12. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    I come back to the other posts later on. Just a word on the bread... My guess is that's a good way to eat the hot sausage while keeping the fingers clean. Plus, a sausage with bread sells better than a simple sausage. And I bet the bread is equally expensive as a paper plate for it. ;)
     
  13. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    ^that's really cool...in getting to know my German relatives, I have been fascinated to learn of the ways in which my own family's personal history intersects with "the history of the history books." My mother (also in her 70s) remembers preparing "care packages" of food and other items that she and her parents sent from their home in the American Midwest to her father's relatives in Germany in the immediate years after the war (when she and her cousin were little kids).

    I couldn't agree with that more! And while I enjoy popular music of various periods very much, I am also really a fan of "classic" music of the past. One of my favorite examples of music connecting people (which happens to very "German-themed") is the famous concert performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Berlin 1989 to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall....when you combine the power of the music, the wonderful text of the choral parts, and the amazing moment of history that happened that year, it's just amazing!



    O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
    Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
    und freudenvollere.
    Freude!
    Freude!
    Freude, schöner Götterfunken
    Tochter aus Elysium,
    Wir betreten feuertrunken,
    Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
    Deine Zauber binden wieder
    Was die Mode streng geteilt;
    Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
    Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.


    [...]

    Of course, since I was young in the 80s and early 90s, I also like this song from the same general period (1991) about all the historical changes going on then:p :



    Edit: and I just realized that my post above is probably a good example of what Chyntuck was asking about before lol:

    :p
     
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  14. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    I can tell you, Pensivia, that I do not overly romanticise Berlin when I am on an overcrowded bus early in the morning TO WORK. Or when I am on another totally packed bus on my way FROM WORK.

    But music helps in this case also as the BVG (the public transport company for Berlin) makes funny clips that I try to remember during such occasions:



    As for my kindergarten group, they also love classical music very much since I introduced it to them. For example:

    * Rimsky-Korsakov´s "Scheherazade"
    * Grieg´s "In the Hall of the Mountain King"
    and so many others...
     
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  15. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    Thanks for the replies about your guesses, Chyntuck and Pensivia. Some gueses were correct! :D
    Here comes the real translation:
    • handy = mobile telephone
    • beamer = projector
    • oldtimer = a very old car (older than 25 years), youngtimer is middle old car (I think it was at least 20 years).
    • casting show = "talent" reality shows like "America's got talent" or "America's next Topmodel" (there are German versions of it as well)
    • fitness studio = gym
    • office programme = software programs
    • live (on tv) = pronounciation like "dive" as well; funny that there are two ways of pronouncing "live" in English as well (I live and live tv show).
    It's really interesting what you would understand when you here those words and I still wonder, if the communication would work, if they get mixed up.


    First, the Reeperbahn is more civilised as in the old times, but still wild and troublesome, not a place to go at night. So it lives from its reputation as well as trying to keep it up.

    In my view the general feeling about using English words in German is not easy to discribe. On the one hand there are many people who don't like seeing English words poping up wherever they can and on the other hand there are some English words that are shorter as the German describtion or there isn't a German word for it. The problem is that English words are often used in bad translated (supposed to be funny) commercials or are used to "proof" ones knowledge (English words are "in" and one can get those "I have no clue what you are talking about, I guess my knowledge is lower than yours"-looks) also the German word would work in the same way or they shall describe a "new" product/idea/etc although it's old. Last time I met this was when I went to a gym class and they told me to make "Burpees" and I was like "huh, what?", but they were an old excerise which I knew by its German name. [face_laugh]
    So some English words are useful and getting more and more English words is one effect of the globalisation, but some people over-use them.
     
  16. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    I'm sure any Texans among you will love to hear that in Norway, "completely Texas" is an idiom meaning something or someplace that has gone completely off the rails. "No no, you don't want to go there, when the queue gets too long it's every man for himself, things turn completely Texas. Go to this one instead."
     
  17. onqun

    onqun Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Apr 7, 2016
    Hello,I'm from Turkey and I want to be added on the list as well.
     
  18. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013

    Great, welcome!:)

    Yeah, I need to get this thread back on track. First there was the holiday break and now my post-holiday workload has really been kicking my behind. Apologies to those who are following the thread so far!

    Skiara has submitted her question for the next interviewee (Chyntuck from Greece)...I just have to ask her a clarification on something and then we should be underway again by next week.

    I hate for the thread to be so sporadic/slow-moving, but it's the best I can manage with Darth Real Life breathing down my neck!

    Stay tuned!!!...
     
  19. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    Thanks for the update, Pensivia! :)
    We are here for the fun of it and no one gets paid, so it's totally fine to keep the pace you can go without stressing out yourself. All I always ask is keeping us (users) up to date, so we know what's going on and when to expect the next step/post/etc. But this you are doing in a great way. :)
     
  20. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Alright, we're underway again:p!

    Our last interviewee (Skiara from Germany) wrote three questions for our next interviewee, Chyntuck (from Greece!)

    I have sent them to her and she will be posting her answers this week. In the meantime, as a little preview and to get things rolling again, here are the questions Chyntuck will be answering:

    *********************************************************************************************************************************************************
    1. In the news Greece is still struggling (although it seems to be less than about two or three years ago, is that right?) and Greece is visited by many tourists. Are you noticing the national problems in one's private/personal life? Did you have the feeling that the rest of the EU tried to help or is the general view of being left alone (I hope not!)? What is the general meaning about German tourists? I heard that German people aren't that much welcomed as other people because of Merkel (nope, I never took that rumor personally, I'm just wondering, if there's a bit of truth about it.)

    2. What should a foreigner do before leaving the country? Like visiting a certain place, eating a certain dish or talking to a certain person or or or...

    3. What is your or the general feeling about Olympia? I mean the place, of course. I guess in the rest of the world is Olympia almost solely connected with the Olympic Games, but is there more? For sure, I guess!
    ***********************************************************************************************************************************************************

    Thanks again to Skiara for providing the questions!
     
  21. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2014
    Thanks Skiara for the great questions and super-thanks to Pensivia who is fighting DRL but keeping this thread alive!

    1. In the news Greece is still struggling (although it seems to be less than about two or three years ago, is that right?) and Greece is visited by many tourists. Are you noticing the national problems in one's private/personal life? Did you have the feeling that the rest of the EU tried to help or is the general view of being left alone (I hope not!)? What is the general meaning about German tourists? I heard that German people aren't that much welcomed as other people because of Merkel (nope, I never took that rumor personally, I'm just wondering, if there's a bit of truth about it.)

    Unfortunately, the situation in Greece hasn’t changed at all over the past couple of years :( The only thing that changed is that we don’t make international headlines anymore. The crisis is still very much everywhere. We got another round of salary and pension cuts a few months ago, and the consequences on the market didn’t fail to materialise – my street used to have a lot of shops, everything from a pharmacy to a plumber to a pet shop, but the last one of those closed during the summer and now all that’s left is the bakery.

    You also see the crisis a lot in people’s daily habits. In the middle class, you’ll find for instance that a lot more people use public transportation now rather than taking their car (which is a good thing in a way, but our public transportation system sucks so it makes people’s lives a lot more complicated), more often than not we invite each other for dinner at home instead of going to the restaurant (which, again, is good for our waistlines but not so good for people who work in restaurants) and cultural life has virtually ground to a halt. The most important aspect of this is that very few people can afford to purchase heating fuel for the winter because it's become so damn expensive. And if you go into the poorest social classes, it’s a terrible situation, and by “poorest” I mean approx. 30% of the population. There’s a family who live near my place whose kids have this habit of bringing their food leftovers for the stray cats I keep in my garden. For the past several months, every single time I checked the bag it was plain pasta. Another example would be my mother-in-law, who is on the minimum pension i.e. €261 a month. There’s no way you could survive on that before the crisis, and even less so now that all the prices have gone up thanks to tax hikes.

    As for how people feel about the European Union right now, it’s a mixed bag. I think that most people are aware now that Greece was made to pay for the rescue of French and German banks, and nearly everybody will agree that those who were least responsible for the particular situation of Greece were made to pay the most, but in the early days of the crisis a lot of people bought into the European solidarity thing. Now however I really feel that anti-EU sentiment is on the rise, but at the same time Greeks are very aware of the total incompetence of our political class and they have bad memories of inflation at the time of the drachma, so it’s difficult to see where all this is going.

    When it comes to Germany in particular, it’s fair to say that Wolfgang Schäuble is the most hated man in Greece right now :p but I don’t see that this would extend to the average German tourist. I know that there have been some demonstrations outside the German consulate a while back, but they were organised by far-right populist loons and very poorly attended. I’m not aware that there were any specific incidents involving German tourists and I know that the few friends I have working in the tourism industry say that people treat Germans like any other tourists, which in general means in a friendly way. (Sorry if I can’t say much about that, I have very little first-hand experience with tourists [face_blush])

    2. What should a foreigner do before leaving the country? Like visiting a certain place, eating a certain dish or talking to a certain person or or or...

    Now this is the happy bit of your questions! As a northern Greece gal, I’m going to say as emphatically as I can that THE place to be in Greece is Thessaloniki. It has the best of what Greece can offer to a visitor and it’s IMO a much nicer city than Athens. First of all, for lovers of history and archaeology, Thessaloniki and its region have everything, from Antiquity to modern history.

    There’s the tombs of the kings of Macedonia in Vergina that are one of the most astounding archaeological sites that you will ever see:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    There’s the Roman city:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    There’s the Byzantine and Ottoman heritage, which in my view is second only to Istanbul:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    And there’s the 19th – 20th century city, with the amazing Aristotelous square:

    [​IMG]

    Furthermore, Thessaloniki was historically a very cosmopolitan city, as opposed to Athens that was really just a village until Greek independence in the 19th century. Thessaloniki was a major trading and cultural centre throughout the Ottoman period, and until the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of the population were Sephardic Jews who had been expelled from Spain after the Reconquista. It also had a large Turkish population, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was from there. His house is now the Turkish consulate.

    [​IMG]

    The population balance changed after the Greek-Turkish war of 1922-1923, when large numbers of Greek refugees came from Turkey and the Turkish residents were expelled back to Turkey, and, sadly, when the Jewish population of Thessaloniki was exterminated during WWII. However, you can still feel the Turkish and Jewish influence very much, especially in the local cuisine, which has got to be one of the best in the world =P~ So if you ever go there, you want to have dinner (among other places) in Negroponte, on the corner of Aigyptou and Tsimiski streets in the Ladadika neighbourhood.

    [​IMG]

    Lastly, the Halkidiki peninsula east of Thessaloniki has some of the best beaches in Greece. In fact, we have a saying in Greek that goes “Σαν την Χαλκιδική δεν έχει”, which means “There’s no place like Halkidiki” :)

    [​IMG]

    Enough said!

    3. What is your or the general feeling about Olympia? I mean the place, of course. I guess in the rest of the world is Olympia almost solely connected with the Olympic Games, but is there more? For sure, I guess!

    I’m going to disappoint you here, because 1. to my great shame, I’ve never been to Olympia [face_blush] or to anywhere south of Patras for that matter (!) and 2. I think that to most people here, Olympia is just another archaeological site, albeit a particularly nice one. That’s what happens when you have so many archaeological sites in your country: you become an insufferable snob :p

    Seriously though, I think that the way Greeks think of Olympia depends on how they position themselves with regards to national identity. For the nationalists, whether hardcore nationalists or small-time nationalists, the ancient Greeks were our direct ancestors, so they would think of a place like Olympia as nearly sacred because of its importance in ancient Greek culture. On the other hand, those of us who opened a history book at least once in our lives know that a lot of different people lived in this part of the world over the past two-and-a-half millennia, so while Olympia is no doubt an important historical and archaeological landmark, it doesn’t have such a big sentimental significance. Oh, and the latter category of people also often find that the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony is the epitome of kitsch :D
     
  22. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    Is the letter X pronounced as latin H? Do you have a sound like the Spanish J in your language?
     
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  23. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2014
    The letter that we write X (lower case χ) is pronounced like a slightly softer version of the Spanish J rather than the Latin H when it's followed by a consonant or any version of the sounds "a", "o" and "oo". So for instance the region I mentioned above, Halkidiki (Χαλκιδική), is pronounced "Jalkidiki". However, when X is followed by any version of "ee" or "ê" it's this funny little sound that I never heard in any other language, and I've never seen a good way to transcribe it. It's a weird combination of the Spanish J and y used as a consonant (as in "yellow"). So the word "snow", χιόνι, is pronounced something like [jy]ee-O-nee, if that makes sense at all (it probably doesn't!)

    And just to make things a bit more complicated, we have another letter, Ξ (lower case ξ) that is pronounced like a Latin X (i.e. "ks") and a letter H (lower case η) that is pronounced "ee". You don't want to imagine the mess before all softwares supported Greek fonts and we had to type everything in transcription 8-}
     
  24. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Thanks for your great responses, Chyntuck! I will be posting some of my own follow-up questions/comments on your answers soon.:D I already know that I need to add Thessaloniki to my "must-see" list of places to visit in the future!

    In the meantime, here are a couple of "update" announcements about this thread in general:

    -- I am still keeping a running list of posters who have volunteered to be interviewed. After Chyntuck's round is over (1-2 weeks), our next interviewee will be DanielUK (from...yeah, the UK!). Then, the current list of future interviewees (listed in the order that they volunteered) will be:

    @Gamiel (Sweden)


    @Snokers (Scotland)

    @onqun (Turkey)

    -- Looking down the road a bit further, I'm thinking of getting opinions from interested readers and participants of this thread as to any possible changes to make to the thread format in the future. I'll be interested to hear if people like the current format or if there are other alternative formats that people might like even more (for example, a "question of the week" format where anyone can share an answer; or, maybe still an "interview" format but set up differently in some way--like the same basic questions for everyone, or longer-format interviews, or some other approach). I'll plan to have Skiara help me set up some kind of poll in this thread to gather opinions (or maybe it would need a separate thread just for the duration of the poll, so there can be discussion of various options without derailing whatever interviews are going on in this thread at the time).

    So interested folks can be thinking about that generally (I'll probably wait until at least sometime in May to start this discussion, as summers are when I have more free time). My main goal for the thread is just to promote fun and friendly international exchanges and connections! So as always...stay tuned!:p
     
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  25. DANNASUK

    DANNASUK Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    HELL YEEEEAHHH!
     
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