Archive for July, 2009
Useful Lists on English Contacts
Recently I started a little research to get a list of English roundtables in Ruhr. I wrote an Email to all four contacts and the result was a surprise. Wolfgang Wosmann from The Social Club Mülheim an der Ruhr sent me a list with a lot of them. (Many thanks!) But he also added that not at all of them native speakers take part. Anyway, it will add a lot of items to my list.
The list of ‘English Speaking Clubs in NRW’ is provided by the British General-Consulate in Düsseldorf. It is last updated in April 2008. The website of the General-Consulate contaings further ‘Useful Lists‘. Have a look at them.
Is there something like this from any other English speaking country, it’s embassy or a consulate?
European Capital of Culture is a multi-lingual project
At least “European Capital of Culture” indicates that the city granted the title offers a lot of English language activities. Pam and I just have been to Linz, European Capital of Culture 2009. In my opinion Linz’09 seems to focus three things: sound, light and electronics.
Some of the offers of Linz don’t need language at all, e.g. the daily organ concerts at different churches. For a lot of the museums, there are offers of weekly English public guided tours. We went to the ‘Landesgalerie Linz’. The nice thing was that the guided tour just was for the two of us. We were told that this is not always the case. But I also heard about Austrian groups booking English tours. We also had an English language tour through the Ars Electronica Center. It could only cover party of it. Therefore, we returned. To get an idea of the Ars Electronica Museum, you may want to watch the following video.
You don’t need a guided tour through the Ars Electronica Center. All installations and descriptions are bilingual – in German and English. When I recall what the highlights of European Capital of Culture Ruhr.2010 will be, I am sure that they will be bilingual, too. Just have a look at the route of industrial heritage: the signs are all bilingual. I hope there will be more. I am sure there will be.
Ruhr.2010 will bring a lot of English language offer to our Region – the metropolis Ruhr. European Capital of Culture are always a good place to expect English language offers.
We also watched a show – “Clownerie” – which contained music but no language.
Upcoming: A new Englishman in …
But for now we have to live with his “The Genglish Diary“. It is also written by his German sweetheart. The author is going to move to .. (the Ruhr area?) in September. The project of the diary – a blog – is about intercultural experiences. Yes, I know what they are talking of. Pam and I have the same experiences. Especially interesting are those little things which are considered to be same but just aren’t.
Some examples:
- How to put the silverware? (The toilet paper discussion seems to be more a male-female topic.)
- How to dress? Why is waving to American relatives more appropriate than shaking hands?
- False friends: “corn” is not “wheat”, “sensible” is not “sensitive”
- Most Germans like (unisex) sauna (do they) or at least, they are not completely terrified by it.
- Some really don’t like David Hasselhoff.
- No, he will wear a suit for the wedding. (Not Lederhosen.)
- Baking powder is easy to get. For baking soda you’d better go to the pharmacy and ask for “Natron”.
- Bratkartoffeln are not limited to breakfast.
- In Germany, it is legally allowed to not finish a beer.
- The locks close and open the other way around.
I will try to follow the diary of Anja and Ali.
Boring ‘Very British’-Festival
Here’s my report on the ‘Very British’-Festival at the Rhein Ruhr Zentrum shopping mall in Mülheim an der Ruhr. I had announced it here. It was only okay and not really worth going there. The trick worked – we did shopping 
Kasper reloaded – Punch and Judy in Afghanistan
FIDENA – “Puppet Theatre of Nations” ist the title of an institute and a festival for international puppeteering in Bochum (Ruhr). This years festival takes place from August 29th to September 4th. There will be four different plays, some premieres and a play in English Llnguage. Anyway, you can visit nearly any of the plays because most of them don’t need any language. As an exception to the rule, one play affords knowledge of English language. It’s »Punch and Judy in Afghanistan – When East meets West, who will be laughing in the End?«
“Punch and Judy” are brother and sister to the German “Kasper und Grete” (Kasperletheater). This is connected to the headline of FIDENA in 2009: “Kasper reloaded” meaning “‘Punch and Judy’ reloaded”. This “Punch and Judy” will be performed by the Australian actor and puppeteer Neville Tranter who runs The Stuffed Puppet Theatre in the Netherlands. Well, I don’t want to summarize other pages, even if there seems to be only a German article on Wikipedia. On youTube, there are two videos from two different shows. One was part of the Ruhr Trienale. Here is the other video. It helps to understand what you will expect when you are thinking about visiting the shows on September 1st to 3rd. We already ordered tickets.
Neville Tranter and The Stuffed Puppet produce this Punch and Judy for the European Capital of Culture Linz’09. There will be a festival in November. The German premiere (not language but state of first show) will be in September in Bochum (European Capital of Culture 2010). We are going to spend a few days in Linz to learn about the Cultural Capital Project.
English Theatre Company Essen
“Practise English with Theatre” is the motto of this company in Essen. They use the stage of Stratmann’s Theater on Kennedyplatz in Essen. Due to the company’s webpage, they are going to play more in schools. The plays are somewhat adapted to be easily understandable by pupils. You can order textbooks of the modified play from the company.
Looks to me, that they aim on the audience to prepare the play at home before watching it on the stage. Due to the use of ‘theatre’ in URL and name, I guess they focus British Englisch-
Next winter they want to start with “Romeo and Juliet” again.
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