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Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!howland.erols.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: soc.culture.german,soc.answers,news.answers From: lutterdc@cs.purdue.edu (David Lutterkort) Subject: soc.culture.german FAQ (posted monthly) part 2/6 Followup-To: soc.culture.german Summary: These postings contain a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) posted to soc.culture.german. Please read them before you post a question. Reply-To: scg@watzmann.net Organization: Watzmann Operations Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Lines: 1287 Message-ID: <A2Fk7.2911$IP6.305569@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 06:03:12 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.175.109.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 999496992 216.175.109.125 (Sun, 02 Sep 2001 23:03:12 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 23:03:12 PDT X-Received-Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 22:59:37 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu soc.culture.german:249473 soc.answers:15791 news.answers:214493 Archive-name: german-faq/part2 Last modified: 2001-09-02 Posting-Frequency: monthly URL: http://www.watzmann.net/scg/ Version: 2001-09 This is part 2 of the ASCII version of the FAQ list for soc.culture.german. Find the WWW version at <http://www.watzmann.net/scg/index.html>. The FAQ is posted on the first of every month. Table of Contents for Part 2 ============================= 5. The Internet 5.1 Side Remarks on the Structure 5.2 Finding Germany-Related Information on the Net 5.2.1 Search Engines 5.2.1.1 Germany-Specific 5.2.1.2 Libraries 5.2.1.3 Generic WWW Searchers 5.2.2 Country Codes etc. 5.2.3 Cities 5.2.4 Companies 5.2.5 Miscellaneous Collections of Data on/from Germany 5.3 List of Anonymous ftp Servers in Germany 5.4 Dedicated People's Pages 5.5 Email in Germany 5.5.1 Finding Email Addresses 5.5.1.1 College Students' Addresses 5.6 Getting Internet Access 5.6.1 Universities 5.6.2 Internet Provider Lists and Searchers 5.6.3 Private Networks 5.6.4 T-online 5.6.5 Public Unix Systems 5.6.6 Your Local BBS 5.7 de.* Newsgroups 5.7.1 Page comments 6. Geography 6.1 Statistics 6.1.1 The 16 Federal States 6.1.2 Cities with >100,000 Citizens 6.2 Daylight Savings Time 6.3 No AM/PM -- 24 hr! 6.4 Maps online and on paper 6.4.1 Online maps 6.4.2 Maps on paper 6.5 World Wide Weather 6.6 Astronomy, As Observed in Germany 6.6.1 Page comments 7. Language 7.1 Internet resources for learning German 7.2 Learning German as an Adult 7.3 What does the Adjective 7.4 German is so Strange...or is it? 7.5 Duden Editorial Board 7.6 German Words in English 7.7 Tongue Twisters 7.8 Platt 7.8.1 FOLKHART 7.8.2 Listserver LOWLANDS-L for Friesisch and Niederdeutsch 7.8.3 Page comments 5. The Internet A great source of information on the Internet in general and the Usenet in particular are the FAQs posted to the newsgroups news.answers and alt.internet.services. Obtain basic information <ftp://ftp.sura.net/pub/nic/network.service.guides/how.to.email.guide/> on email on the internet. 5.1. Side Remarks on the Structure o WiN <http://www.dfn.de/> is the Wissenschafts-Netz, connecting universities, Max Planck institutes and other science-related institutions. Run by Deutsche Telekom for the DFN-Verein <http://www.dfn.de/dfn/home.html>, it currently <http://www.dfn.de/pictures/dfn-pictures/win-status.gif> has backbones with bandwidths of 1.92 MBit/sec; some are already, many lines are going to be expanded in 1996/97 to 34 MBit/sec. 1996-07 Connections from WiN to US-based networks usually are 1 to 6 Mbit/sec fast. o DE-NIC <http://www.nic.de/> the network information center for the *.DE domain. Their main task is the coordinated distribution of internet numbers and services. They also prepare statistics about the hardware constituting the net. In Nov/95, for instance, there where some 400,000 machines with internet access in Germany, 2 million in Europe; growth is exponential with a doubling period of little more than a year. 1995-12 5.2. Finding Germany-Related Information on the Net 5.2.1. Search Engines 5.2.1.1. Germany-Specific o web.de -- Deutschland im Internet; <http://Web.de> points to German language information pages. 1996-04 o DINO page <http://www.dino-online.de/> o BundesDatenAutobahn <http://www.bda.de/> o Quantum Server <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/> 5.2.1.2. Libraries o U Karlsruhe; The WWW Virtual Library: German Subject Catalogue <http://www.rz.uni- karlsruhe.de/Outerspace/VirtualLibrary/index.en.html> 1996-02 o U Duesseldorf; Virtual Library <http://www.rz.uni- duesseldorf.de/WWW/ulb/virtbibl.html> 1996-02 o TU Darmstadt; Libraries in Hessen <http://www.tu- darmstadt.de/ze/lbs.html> 1996-05 o U Cologne; university libraries <http://www.rrz.uni- koeln.de/bibliotheken/index.html> 1996-05 5.2.1.3. Generic WWW Searchers Since there are so many of these robots, <http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/faq.html> I will only give Meta searchers -- pointers to pointers... o German metasearch <http://www.metager.de/> o Metasearch <http://metasearch.com/> o CUSI <http://pubweb.nexor.co.uk/public/cusi/cusi.html> o Ralf's collection of spiders, robots, crawlers, etc. <http://www.physics.purdue.edu/~vogelges/searcher.html> 5.2.2. Country Codes etc. o phone country codes; from Germany <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/vorwahl-de-int.html> o phone country codes; to Germany <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/vorwahl-int-de.html> o country codes <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/country.html> o ISO 4217 currency codes <http://www.xe.net/gen/iso4217.htm> 5.2.3. Cities o Arthur Teschler (email Arthur.Teschler@uni-giessen.de) provides a neat mailserver which allows for substring as well as soundex searches in a database of than 50,000 entries of municipality data. Results provide: Gemeindekennziffer, county, region and state, zip code, population, geographical location, topographical maps. For more information send email: To: Arthur.Teschler@uni-giessen.de Subject: _GEO_ 1st line: INFO 1996-02 ok o postal zipcodes <http://www.quantum.de/cgi-bin/plz> o international airports <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/airport- int.html> o phone area codes <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/vorwahl-de.html> o geographic coordinates <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/koord- int.html> o license plate numbers <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/kfz-de.html> 5.2.4. Companies o a nice collection <http://www.corporateinformation.com/decorp.html> of web-pages to search for and research German companies. 1998-04 o email-addresses of companies <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/firmen- email.html> o zipcodes of companies <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/plz- gross.html> o European Banks <http://www.wiso.gwdg.de/ifbg/bank_eur.html> 1996-04 o German Banks <http://www.dino-online.de/seiten/go13cb.htm> o bank routes (<EM>Bankleitzahlen</EM>) using postal codes <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/blz-plz.html> o Bankleitzahlen pur <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/blz-noplz.html> 5.2.5. Miscellaneous Collections of Data on/from Germany Before I re-invent everything <http://userpage.chemie.fu- berlin.de/adressen/brd.html> ...I'll much rather tell you where to find original sources ;-) The CIA world factbook has a section on Germany, <http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/gm.html> too. Dino online <http://www.dino-online.de/> is also a real saurus... The Kassandra Project has a number of nice links <http://www.reed.edu/~ccampbel/tkp/links.html> for various topics. 1996-03 5.3. List of Anonymous ftp Servers in Germany Christian Hettler ( hettler@ask.uni-karlsruhe.de) maintains a list which you can get via ftp <ftp://ftp.ask.uni- karlsruhe.de/pub/info/ftp-list-de> from U Karlsruhe or at its WWW version <http://www.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/ftp/ftp-list-de.html> or through an email server: send an email (leave subject blank) To: mail-server@ask.uni-karlsruhe.de begin send /pub/info/ftp-list-de end 5.4. Dedicated People's Pages Here are quite a few people who collect their own URL's on German resources. Chances are, you'll find a lot that is not included in this FAQ ;-).. o Katharina Davitt's Deutsches Eck <http://www.german-usa.com> 1996-10 o Stephan Gloge's Homepage <http://www.cris.com/~mrglueck/> 1996-02 o Gary Kemper's German Resources <http://www.deltanet.com/users/gkemper/ger.html> 1996-02 o Carl Butler's collection of German newspapers, magazines, etc. <http://www.duke.edu/~cgv/library/> 1996-04 o Axel Boldt's thoughts on cultural differences between the USA and Germany <http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html> o Nikolaus Duttler's Munich complete guide <http://homepages.munich.netsurf.de/Nikolaus.Duttler/munich.htm>, with valuable information on Munich, Bavaria and the Oktoberfest. 5.5. Email in Germany The pointers and tools described here are mostly of general interest in the sense that their scope is not restricted to Germany. 5.5.1. Finding Email Addresses If the resources listed below don't help, you should, no have to, read the excellent How to find people's email addresses <http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/finding.html> FAQ maintained by David Alex Lamb. You should probably read that FAQ in any event. It's good. Another very complete answer is the FAQ: How to find people's E-mail addresses, frequently posted in the newsgroup news.answers and also available by sending email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the line send usenet/news.answers/finding-addresses in the body. As a last resort, you can post an I'm looking for a friend - note in an appropriate newsgroup. Don't tell them I said that ... Email search engines on the web o The most convenient search engine is the Meta Email Search Agent <http://mesa.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/> at the Universitaet Hannover. The agent queries several email search sites at the same time --- you only need to fill out one search form ! 1999-08 o The Germany-specific search engines suchen.de <http://www.suchen.de/> and the email directory <http://www.email-verzeichnis.de/> of Deutsche Telekom. o US-based services such as Yahoo people search <http://people.yahoo.com/>, switchboard.com <http://www.switchboard.com/bin/cgiemail.dll?LNK=3:17&MEM=1> and Lycos' WhoWhere <http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/> 1999-08 General search engines Of course, you might be lucky and your long-lost friend has a web-page, and it belongs to the 30% of the web that search engines index. In that case, using the usual search engines like AltaVista <http://www.altavista.com/> or Google <http://www.google.com> might get you somewhere. Usenet If you have a hunch that the person you're looking for is posting on Usenet, try to locate them through DejaNews <http://www.deja.com/usenet>. WHOIS queries If the person you are looking for has their own domain (something like dein-freund.de or your-friend.com) you might be able to locate them through WHOIS. Depending on the domain name, you have to look at different WHOIS servers. Use Network Solutions' web search <http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi- bin/whois/whois/> for .com,.net or .org domains. For European domains such as .de,.at or .ch use Ripe's WHOIS servers <http://www.ripe.net/db/whois.html>. The more information you know about your associate (name, place of business or school, and so on) the better your chances are! 5.5.1.1. College Students' Addresses Try a second source <http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/college- email/college.html> to find the email address of a certain college or university. It contains only a few German addresses as of now <http://www.cs.queensu.ca/FAQs/college-email/country/Germany-C.html>. If your university is not listed, send a detailed description of how to find email addresses at that place to dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca. If you have a person's name and their academic location in Germany, you may try a netfind for the domain name o uni-stadt.de for Universitaeten o fh-stadt.de for Fachhochschulen o tu-stadt.de for Technische Universitaeten o th-stadt.de for Technische Hochschulen where stadt is to be replaced by the name of the town where the person lives. For example, the domain of the Universitaet Karlsruhe is uni- karlsruhe.de with the main web-site at http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de 1999-08 5.6. Getting Internet Access The indispensable Heise Verlag <http://www.heise.de/> maintains a newsticker and a comprehensive list of ISPs in Germany and their rates on this page <http://www.heise.de/itarif/>. A lot of the bigger cities have Internet cafes that let you surf the web and write email, for a fee, of course. One particularly nifty outcome of the deregulation of the German phone market is that some phone companies provide very useful services: Arcor <http://www.arcor.de> provides PPP service without any signup. To use it, configure your PC's PPP software to dial the number 01070 0192070, username arcor, password internet, DNS server 145.253.2.11. The cost of 6 to 10 Pfennige will appear on your next phone bill. This will most probably not work in hotels as it selects Arcor as the phone company with the 01070 prefix, which hotels often disable. But asking can't hurt, either. 5.6.1. Universities Statistics about University-Originated access to the Net Ralf Taprogge is conducting a survey about internet accessibility at German universities. He posts his results <http://www.uni- muenster.de/Publizistik/MAG3/ifp/taprogg/> on the WWW. As of early December 1995, the following data had emerged: For those 47 Universities that had answered... o Some 800,000 students were enrolled total. o About 120,000 students had email accounts. o More than 85% of the universities offer SLIP/PPP for modem access. o More than 50% offer students to create WWW-pages. 1996-1 If the university offers Internet access, you can be sure that the services are not very much like what American students are used to. For example ftp might be very(!) restricted. Usually you'll have to be a student, postdoc, etc. to be entitled for email access at your university. Ask for email at your local Rechenzentrum. 1994-3 5.6.2. Internet Provider Lists and Searchers Unfortunately, flat rate internet access in Germany is still not available, or if you find it, you pay a king's ransom (something like 100 DM/month) for it. Not only do you pay the phone company per minute while you are online, you have to pay your internet service provider per minute, too. A typical offering is the one by T-Online <http://www.t-online.de>, which charges you 8 DM/month and then 0.03 DM/min while you are t-online. Fokus <http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux/linux-net.html> has a good list of ISP search engines. That page lists ISP search engines for Germany, Europe, the USA and the whole wide world. 1999-08 Among them are the ISP search page <http://www.heise.de/ct/provider/> for German Internet providers by the computer magazine c't. A similar page <http://www-cache.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/such-prov.html> exists at the Universitaet Hannover.1999-08 The pages of 56k.com <http://www.56k.com/> contain very comprehensive lists of US Internet service providers. Network USA's overview over internet-providers around the world <http://www.netusa.net/ISP/> contains also pointers to German providers. <http://www.netusa.net/ISP/49.index.html> Wolfgang Sander-Beuermann used to maintain an FAQ on Internet access in Germany <http://pcdis.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/inet-zu-de.html>. He stopped maintaining it in November 1998, though it's still available. 1999-08 Read de.etc.lists (see `The Internet' on how) Look for Jan Richert's list publicuucp. And finally look for Benoit Carl Lips' list of dial-in connections in Europe. Obtain the latest version from the USENET groups alt.internet.access.wanted and alt.internet.services. 1995-4 5.6.3. Private Networks There are a number of ways besides university connections to stay on- line. Truly commercial providers (like UUnet, etc.) may be a little too complete in service and price for one's personal email and news service needs. Private BBS-based networks like FIDO, MAUS, Z-Netz, Comlink... offer cheap connections to Internet and USENET. Their news and mail service should be satisfactory; IRC, WWW, ftp, and such services are usually not provided. Be aware; the telephone bills from the German Telekom could prove to be nasty. :-( MAUS.NET, SUBNET, INDIVIDUAL.NET To get access to a NON COMMERCIAL BBS (like MAUS-NET). You can only read or write messages or use email. Most of these feed into SUB.NET or INDIVIDUAL.NET (IN) ... which is why you might want to consider getting their services directly; their internet connection is also faster and more complete. Sub.Net SubNet e.V., Geschaeftsstelle c/o Heiko Rupp, Gerwigstr. 5, 76131 Karlsruhe, fax +49 721 661937, email info@subnet.sub.net 1994-10 Individual Network About 40 DM/month for IP, possibly less for news and mail only. Regional differences apply in price and service. 1996-07 Email in-info@individual.net or write: Individual Network e.V., Geschaeftsstelle, Scheideweg 65, D-26121 Oldenburg, Germany, tel +49(441)9808556, fax +49(441)9808557 1994-6 Maus.Net Their official homepage <http://www.maus.de> is now available. 1997-10 If you happen to know the license plate id <http://www.physics.purdue.edu/~vogelges/kfz.html> (Search for KFZ-Kennzeichen <http://www.quantum.de/zahlen/kfz-de.html> at the quantum server.) for the area of your interest try the following (note that this method is not guaranteed to work!) SYSOP@license plate id.MAUS.DE example: SYSOP@K.MAUS.DE for service in the Cologne area. In the body of the message ask for the telephone number of your local BBS box. 1994-2 5.6.4. T-online All over Germany you can take "Deutsche Telekom" directly with its t- online service. The price for T-Online access is DM 8,-/Month access fee (including two free hours) and DM 0,03/min usage fee (including phone costs!). 5.6.5. Public Unix Systems The following represents a condensed version of the dial-in access possibilities in Germany as cited in Benoit Carl Lips' list (see `Lists of Public Unix Systems') APC/Comlink e.V. Emil-Meyer-Str. 20, D-30165 Hannover email support@oln.comlink.apc.org CUBENet GmbH Ohlauer Str. 74, D-80997 Muenchen email info@cube.net DFN-Verein e. V. Pariser Strasse 44, D - 1000 Berlin 15 email dfn- verein@dfn.dbp.de UUnet Germany (UUnet Deutschland GmbH) Emil-Figge-Strasse 80, D-44227 Dortmund email info@de.uu.net homepage <http://www.de.uu.net/> 1998-03 GeoNetn (GeoNet Mailbox Systems) email GmbH@geod.geonet.de <mailto:GmbH@geod.geonet.de> Individual Network (IN) Scheideweg 65, D-26121 Oldenburg email IN-Info@Individual.NET access: Aachen, Augsburg, Berlin, Bielefeld, Boeblingen, Bonn, Braunschweig, Bremen, Chemnitz, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Dresden, Duesseldorf, Duisburg, Erfurt, Erlangen, Flensburg, Frankfurt/Main, Friedberg, Giessen, Goettingen, Halle, Hamburg, Hannover, Heilbronn, Jena, Kaiserslautern, Kassel, Kiel, Koeln, Konstanz, Leipzig, Ludwigshafen, Luebeck, Lueneburger Heide , Magdeburg, Mannheim, Muenchen, Muenster, Nuernberg, Oldenburg, Osnabrueck, Paderborn, Passau, Pforzheim, Pirmasens, Regensburg, Rendsburg, Rostock, Ruhrgebiet, Saarbruecken, Schauenburg, Sauerland, Schleswig, Schwerin, Stuttgart, Tuebingen, Ulm, Velbert, Weser-Ems, Wetzlar, Wolfsburg, Wuerzburg, Wuppertal Interactive Network Information Systems GmbH i.Gr. Spohrstrasse 24, D-60318 Frankfurt am Main email info@nacamar.de, WWW, <http://www.nacamar.de/> fax 06103-966127 Chemnitz, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Bielefeld, Hannover, Kassel, Duesseldorf, Aachen, Bonn, Gau-Algesheim, Koeln, Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Dreieich, Kaiserslautern, Saarbruecken, Darmstadt, Nidderau, Aalen, Stuttgart, Heilbronn, Augsburg, Muenchen, Nuernberg, Weiden, Wuerzburg Interactive Networx GmbH (unlisys InterNET Services) Hardenbergplatz 2, D-10623 Berlin email info@unlisys.net INS Ruhr-Area, Germany email info@ins.net CompuServe Germany tel +49(130)864643 (toll free), +49(89)66550-111 access: Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Duesseldorf, Koeln, Frankfurt/Main Karlsruhe, Muenchen, Nuernberg Lemke & Fuerst GbR Kleinknechtstrasse 35, 70567 Stuttgart email info@lf.net NACAMAR Deutschland Kirchweg 22, D-63033 Dreieich (near Frankfurt) email landi@nacamar.de NCS GmbH Amalienstr. 17-21, 26135 Oldenburg email info@nordwest.de NET GmbH Figarostr. 3, 70597 Stuttgart email info@n-e-t.de Netzwerk und telematic GmbH, Geschaeftsbereich Xlink" Vincenz- Priessnitz-Strasse 3, 76131 Karlsruhe email info@xlink.net, or no sales@xlink.net their web site <http://www.xlink.net> tel +49(721)96520 fax +49(721)9652210 1995-4 For my taste a truly exquisite WWW-server finder is http://www.entry.de/ <http://www.entry.de/> 1997-05 5.6.6. Your Local BBS If you don't have email access, you might want to pick up the latest issue of C'T computer magazine <http://www.heise.de/ct/> to look up the list of phone numbers of all network systems. Then dial into the appropriate BBS and ask the local sysop about fees for connection. Cost? A typical user, reading news from de.* and sci.* might want to expect about 10DM connection fee and 15DM in telephone charges (using an off- line reader!) 5.7. de.* Newsgroups The de.* newsgroups are a good idea if you would like to know more about Germany and you are able to read and write German try the newsgroups in the de.* hierarchy. Those newsgroups are mostly available in Germany and at some sites in the US. Specifically parts of the hierarchies maus.*, fido.* and cl.* are fed into international news channels. (Note that these groups usually converse in German-only mode...) 1994-11 NNTP You can try and nag your sysadmin or Internet Service Provider into carrying the newsgroups you are interested in. This will be the easiest way for you to gain access to the de.* hierarchy. Failing that, there are some providers that let you use their news servers. One of them can be found at http://news.cis.dfn.de/. This web page contains instructions on how to get access to the news server. The service is free, but requires registration by email. 1999-04 HTTP DejaNews <http://www.deja.com/usenet/> archives pretty much all the newsgroups known to mankind. You can search and browse their archives to your hearts content, or simply read one of the de.* groups with your web browser. 1999-04 5.7.1. Page comments View/add comments <http://www.watzmann.net/comments/list.php?page_id=9> 6. Geography 6.1. Statistics 6.1.1. The 16 Federal States As of July 1999, the parliament resides in Berlin, but some government agencies still remain in the old capital Bonn. State Area km^2 Population Capital ISO 3166 abbrev. Baden-Wuerttemberg 35 751.85 10 426 040 Stuttgart BW Bayern 70 548.00 12 086 548 Muenchen BY Berlin 890.77 3 398 822 Berlin BE Brandenburg 29 475.84 2 590 375 Potsdam BB Bremen 404.23 667 965 Bremen HB Hamburg 755.20 1 700 089 Hamburg HH Hessen 21 114.82 6 035 137 Wiesbaden HE Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 23 170.31 1 798 689 Schwerin MV Niedersachsen 47 613.35 7 865 840 Hannover NI Nordrhein-Westfalen 34 078.68 17 975 516 Duesseldorf NW Rheinland-Pfalz 19 846.86 4 024 969 Mainz RP Saarland 2 570.10 1 074 223 Saarbruecken SL Sachsen 18 412.16 4 489 415 Dresden SN Sachsen-Anhalt 20 446.56 2 674 490 Magdeburg ST Schleswig-Holstein 15 770.49 2 766 057 Kiel SH Thueringen 16 171.57 2 462 836 Erfurt TH total 357 020.79 82 037 011 Berlin DE The 16 federal states in overview (population figures for 1998). Source: Global population project <http://www.koeln.netsurf.de/~stefan.helders/r/r_de.htm> 6.1.2. Cities with >100,000 Citizens 6.2. Daylight Savings Time From 1996 on, daylight savings time will start on the European continent on the last Sunday of March 1:00 UTC (2:00 MEZ) and end on the fourth Sunday in October 1:00 UTC (3:00 MESZ). At these times all clocks are to be set one hour spring-ahead or fall-back. 6.3. No AM/PM -- 24 hr! Although most everybody in Germany will comprehend (esp. when printed) the AM/PM scheme for the time of the day, the 24hr notation is much(!) preferred. (And no, 19:30 is not pronounced neunzehn hundert dreissig Stunden; it is neuzehn Uhr dreissig.) 1997-01 6.4. Maps online and on paper 6.4.1. Online maps Goodness, yes, there are maps... tons probably... like this zoomable world-overview map <http://mapweb.parc.xerox.com/map/ht=90.00/lat=52.50/lon=10.16/wd=180.00?280,106> or this monster of political map (257kB) <http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/europe/Germany.jpg> A very nice overview of all German states <http://userpage.chemie.fu- berlin.de/adressen/bl/bundeslaender.html> also gives you a lot of WWW pointers to more information by-state! Check it out! 1995-5 And this map of German WWW servers <http://www.entry.de/> lets you click for information on individual cities. 1999-04 The best source for city maps (Stadtplaene) is Falk Online <http://www.falk-online.de/>. They publish maps of all major German, Swiss and Austrian cities. For looking up a specific address, you can try your luck with MapQuest <http://www.mapquest.com>; their collection of Germany maps isn't half bad. 1999-04 Quite a number of historical maps, which might also be useful in genealogical research, can be found at the FEEFHS web site. <http://feefhs.org> 1999-04 Rank Name Population 33 Aachen 246671 29 Augsburg 264764 81 Bergisch Gladbach 104991 1 Berlin 3475392 18 Bielefeld 324674 16 Bochum 401058 20 Bonn 296859 67 Bottrop 119676 30 Braunschweig 256267 10 Bremen 551604 55 Bremerhaven 131492 23 Chemnitz 279520 59 Cottbus 128121 9 Duesseldorf 574936 52 Darmstadt 139754 7 Dortmund 601966 15 Dresden 479273 11 Duisburg 536797 39 Erfurt 200799 82 Erlangen 102383 6 Essen 622380 75 Fuerth 108097 5 Frankfurt/M. 659803 40 Freiburg/Breisgau 197384 58 Goettingen 128419 22 Gelsenkirchen 295037 64 Gera 122974 37 Hagen 214877 21 Halle/Saale 295372 2 Hamburg 1702887 43 Hamm 182390 12 Hannover 524823 53 Heidelberg 139429 65 Heilbronn/N. 122396 44 Herne 180539 79 Hildesheim 106303 74 Ingolstadt 109666 84 Jena 100093 4 Koeln 962517 83 Kaiserslautern 102370 24 Karlsruhe 277998 38 Kassel 202158 32 Kiel 248931 73 Koblenz 109807 31 Krefeld 249565 36 Luebeck 217269 14 Leipzig 490851 49 Leverkusen 161761 46 Ludwigshafen 168130 28 Moenchengladbach 265312 45 Muelheim/Ruhr 177175 3 Muenchen 1255623 27 Muenster 267367 26 Magdeburg 270546 42 Mainz 185487 19 Mannheim 318025 78 Moers 106631 13 Nuernberg 498945 50 Neuss 148560 35 Oberhausen 226254 70 Offenbach/Main 116870 51 Oldenburg 147701 47 Osnabrueck 168078 56 Paderborn 130130 69 Pforzheim 117450 54 Potsdam 139262 61 Recklinghausen 127150 62 Regensburg 125337 63 Remscheid 123610 77 Reutlingen 107607 34 Rostock 237307 41 Saarbruecken 190902 68 Salzgitter 117684 66 Schwerin 122189 72 Siegen 111845 48 Solingen 166064 8 Stuttgart 594406 71 Ulm 114839 57 Wuerzburg 128875 25 Wiesbaden 270873 80 Witten 105807 60 Wolfsburg 128032 17 Wuppertal 386625 76 Zwickau 107988 total 26027788 Source: Fischer-Weltalmanach 1993-12 6.4.2. Maps on paper The Mercedes Benz among German city maps are made by Falk Verlag <http://www.falk-online.de/>. Their "patent folded" maps are available in almost all airports, train stations etc. and make finding your way around a city a pleasure. 1999-04 For driving around the country, several oil companies publish their own collection of maps, leading to such luminaries of German vacationing as the Shell-Atlas or the Aral-Atlas. All of Germany is available on topographic maps of 1:25,000 scale, and a large part of it even on 1:5000 scale. Find the right map for you by using `Arthur Teschler's' email-server, (see Internet/Search Engines) then contact the corresponding Landesvermessungsamt; they are in the state capitals. 1996-02 Another option is to contact an international map shop, like RV Geocenter Munich, tel +49(89)431890 1995-3 6.5. World Wide Weather German weather forecasts are provided by donnerwetter.de <http://www.donnerwetter.de/> and wetter.de <http://www.wetter.de>. The Metereological Institute <http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/> of the Free University in Berlin provides a page with additional links <http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/english/Wetter/index.html>. For a spiffy satellite image of all of Europe check out the MeteoSat 5 images <http://www.meteo.fr/temps/europe/modele/sous_panneaux.html> of Meteo-France. 1999-08 6.6. Astronomy, As Observed in Germany Astronomical events, <http://members.tripod.com/~apd2/apd.htm> visibility and positions of heavenly bodies, calculated for your location in Germany, international holidays and anniversaries, local festivals, birthdays of famous Germans, religious holidays and feasts ... all in a handy pocket diary. For a German/English version email norb@kcbbs.gen.nz 1999-01 6.6.1. Page comments View/add comments <http://www.watzmann.net/comments/list.php?page_id=10> 7. Language 7.1. Internet resources for learning German University of Victoria's German for Beginners <http://castle.uvic.ca/german/149/> is one of the first online- courses. 1996-10 The Internet Handbook of Grammar <http://www.travlang.com/languages/german/ihgg/index.html> provides an introduction to the fundamentals of German grammar (intended for beginning students)... ...so does the German Grammar <http://www.wm.edu/CAS/modlang/grammnu.html> site 1996-10 The newsletter Der Weg and its associated website <http://www.derweg.org/> are a great resource for anybody who wants to learn German {[dash ]} if you already know some German since it is entirely in German. It also has a very strong Christian slant. 7.2. Learning German as an Adult Summary of experiences as reported by various readers of s.c.g (winter 95) Courses and tapes recommended o Berlitz Think and Talk German o InLingua o The taped exercises with the Deutsch 2000 course; available at better stores in the US o The Goethe Institutes <http://www.goethe.de/> (find their addresses in `the section on Goethe Institutes') o Mind Extension University (cable TV) has about 1.5 hours of German language a day, and sometimes even have German classes; get info at +1(800)777-MIND o Concordia language camps in Minnesota. Excellent immersion camps.1995-10 o The National Registration Center for Study Abroad evaluates and coordinates immersive study programs at a variety of language schools around the world, including Germany. You can get more information from their web page <http://www.execpc.com:80/~nrcsa/> 1995-10 o The Volkshochschulen <http://www.vhs.de/> offer courses for foreigners. 1995-11 Reading Reading German as a means to learning spoken German was high on everyone's list. The following were recommended: o children's books o comic books o trash novels o Schau Ins Land - a monthly small magazine and cassette out of Nashville is good for building vocabulary once you are at an intermediate stage. o the German edition of Mad Magazine. o annotated anthologies Factors to success o be motivated o set goals o some period of total immersion in the spoken language o visit Germany o unlike English, German is pronounced as written; learn the pronunciation of letters and diphthongs o work through and learn German grammar; there is no way to escape this o do a daily word list o work in a language course trip to Germany o let your ear govern whether or not your mouth is doing the right thing o remember the article for every noun! Miscellaneous experiences: I am learning German in the US, and though I have the bene- fit of a German wife, she speaks such good English, that we never talk in German. I get children's books from the library (including picture dictionaries!), and I try to watch as much German TV as we get on cable: (Mind Extension University.) We also get the international channel, which has other German shows. Also, get a short wave radio and tune into Deutsche Welle, which broadcasts worldwide. I decided that it's like learning a language as a kid. Kids hear the language constantly, and absorb it all like sponges; kids don't even speak until they've been hearing a language for 12 to 24 months, so i figured I'd do the same, and did a lot of listening, so it would seep into my soul, and now, about a year later, I'm starting, with croaking voice, to speak, and it's fun. I learned German as an adult through a language 'school' called Inlingua (they're like Berlitz). They offer instruc- tion by native speaking teachers and it is taught by the best method to learn although it can be expensive (my com- pany picked up the tab). If taking a formal class such as I did is not an option, I strongly suggest that while you are learning German through tapes, community college courses, etc., take every opportunity you can to speak German. In the car, to spouse/kids/partner/ roommate, family, or even to yourself. I would come home from class and tell my wife, in German, what I learned in class or did at work that day. I got some strange looks, but it really helped me to start thinking in German. When you start dreaming in German, you'll know you making good progress. I have had German exchange students, and have had great experiences with them. I would not recommend them as a way to learn German, however, as they are interested only in speaking English. I learned to speak German in a small village outside a city that had itself a rather boese dialect. I learned the local platt, and found that I got on better with that than I did with my attempts at high German. When speaking dialect I was always mistaken for someone from a farm town over the next hill, however on the rare occasions when I tried to speak High German, I was spotted immediately as an Ami. I've had good experiences renting from the German Language Video Center (see `Audio / Video Tapes'.) They also sell documentaries from Deutsche Welle TV for US$16.95, which I think is the same price Deutsche Welle sells them for. You can also get the documentaries on some PBS (Public Broadcasting System) stations - in the San Francisco area, channel 60 broadcast two episodes of Schauplatz Deutschland starting last night at 11 p.m. It's in German with English subtitles. 1995-3 After I had gotten somewhat into the basics of the language, I started to read books that I had already read in Norwegian. This enabled me to keep most of my mind on the language, since I already knew what the story was. In addition to this, it would come in handy if you can listen to German on the radio, and after some time, and practice, you should of course go to Germany for a month or three. NB: When going to Germany, go alone! I was in Germany once, travelling with a group of other Norwegians, and whenever we were two or more Norwegians in one spot, we would speak Norwegian. I therefore made it a rule for myself to keep away from my fellow travellers as much as possible. Otherwise I would not have gotten full benefit of my stay. 1996-07 7.3. What does the Adjective German Mean? The origins of the German language are quite manifold as various peoples have influenced it throughout history. Conversely, there is an impressive variety of expressions for the meaning of the adjective German in those languages. 1. The German deutsch or (ancient) teutsch, has developed through history in several stages, referring first to the language, then to the people and finally to the territory. It stems from the old German word thiutisk or theudisk, which the West Franks used since the 9th Century to refer to their language, the common language, as opposed to the educated language Latin. Karolus Magnus (Karl der Grosse, Charlemagne, Charles the Great, 742-814 AD) took it to name his multilingual and multicultural empire as deutsch because this did mean just the people and had no specific reference to any particular nation living in his empire. Other derivations from theudisk found their way into a number of other languages, as well: o Scandinavian: Tysk o Italian: Tedeschi o Dutch: Duits 2. Tribe names; many European peoples adopted the names of Germanic tribes living close to their own territory: o Latin; germanus in Latin meant the tribes settling in central Europe. Probably originally adopted from the Germanic expression spear-bearer (ger-man.) o The English word Dutch is related to deutsch and originally meant German. Since Holland became an independent country in the 17th century, it was used for that former part of the German empire only. The new word for Germany in English was adopted from Latin. o French, Spanish and Portuguese: Alemans was the name for the southwestern German tribe, next door neighbour to the French. o The Baltic peoples picked a different German tribe as a word for all of Germany: Saksalaiset. (Hence the Saxons as in Anglo- Saxons...) 3. In Slavic dialects, the root *nEm- generally means "mute" (unable to speak), dialectal data and the Church Slavic literature strongly suggest that this root also means incomprehensible for the listener, and, by extension, speaking a foreign language. o Russian: Njemzij o Polish: Niemzij o Tchechian: Nemci o Slovak: Nemec o Croatian: Nijemac o Serbian: Nemac 1996-06 o the Magyars took this term and called them Nimetek 1996-1 7.4. German is so Strange...or is it? Long Words!, The notorious Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensmuetze in all its possible extensions is often cited as evidence how the German language uniquely burdens all non-native speakers with what seems to be nothing but curious absurdities. What do you know? English, does not, either, regard this type of word as excessively sesquipedalian...Richard Lederer (in Crazy English) tells us that even antidisestablishmentarianism is not very hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian. -- Hmm? Oh, German words are simply concatenated? Well, that, as well, is not that unique. Ponder, for instance, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis ... it is not to be floccinaucinihilipilificated! Really, very very very (...you get the picture) long words are not used in German, despite their possibility -- anything comprised of more than two parts (like Gedanken-anstoss) is rare. 1996-07 7.5. Duden Editorial Board The most widely accepted authoritative answers to questions about the German language are provided by the Sprachberatungsstelle der Dudenredaktion, Postfach 100311, 68003 Mannheim, Germany, tel +49(0621)3901426 1996-03 7.6. German Words in English Oh my -- there are so many...and yet, there are so few, compared to the rest of all the English language. English has been influenced by so(!) many languages, that each makes but a more or less insignifcant portion of the whole. (Hope I don't insult any Latin speakers;-) As languages do so often (except for esperanto, I am told;-) I shall define a few arbitrary categories under which to collect some of those words. (Apply the usual "include, but are not limited to"...) Also, it should be noted that many of these words are of Yiddish origin -- according to Webster's dictionary, which I shall take as the definitive reference. Yiddish and German have had a somewhat symbiotic relationship over the centuries, with German words making it into Yiddish (e.g., Scheitel, Geld) and Yiddish words of differing origins being added to German ; in both cases, Yiddish is the link between quite a few German and English words. Commonly known words angst, blitz, bratwurst, geld, gestalt, gesundheit, hinterland, kaffeeklatsch, kindergarten, rucksack, sauerkraut, schadenfreude, umlaut, wanderlust, weltanschauung, weltschmerz Words of scientific origin ansatz, bremsstrahlung, eigen- (value, vector), entgegen and zusammen, leitmotiv, reststrahlen, umklapp process, zwitterion affenpinscher, deutsche mark, doberman pinscher, festschrift, gegenschein, groschen, kaffeeklatsch, kirsch, kitsch, meerschaum, putsch, putschist, schilling, schlemiel, schlep(pen), schlieren, schmaltz, schnaps, schnauzer, schnitzel, schnorkel, schnorrer, schnozzle, schorl, schottische, schuss (Skiabfahrt), schwarmerei, tusche, wiener schnitzel, blitzkrieg, ersatz, katzenjammer, kibbutz, kibitz, kibitzer, pretzel seltzer, sitz bath, sitzkrieg, sitzmark, spitz, switzer, waltz my personal favorite Gemuetlichkeit, zwieback 1999-04 7.7. Tongue Twisters Challenge your German pronunciation skills with these... o Fischers Fritze fischt frische Fische. o In Ulm, um Ulm und um Ulm herum. o Der Cottbusser Postkutscher putzt den Cottbusser Postkutschkasten mit Cottbusser Postkutschkastenpaste. o Der uralte Riese Ruebezahl zaehlte rote Rueben im Riesengebirge. o Zwischen zwei Zwetschgenzweigen zwitscherten zwei Schwalben. o Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid. o Hob's B'steck z'spot b'stoet. (Ich habe das Besteck zu spaet bestellt.) o Ob er aber ueber Oberammergau oder aber ueber Unterammergau kommt, wuesste er noch nicht. o Wir Wiener Weiber wuerden weisse Waesche waschen, wenn wir wuessten, wo warmes Wasser waere. o Es klapperten die Klapperschlangen bis die Klappern schlapper klangen. o In Mischa's Schischuh schwimmt ein Misch-Masch aus Sushi-Sossen. o lilafarbenes wollenes Flanellaeppchen Not strictly tongue twisters, more brain benders: o Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach. o Wenn hinter Robben Robben robben, robben Robben Robben nach. o Wenn hinter Griechen Griechen kriechen, kriechen Griechen Griechen nach. (This one is particularly funny in Saxonian dialect) 7.8. Platt Platt is the kind of German spoken mainly in northwestern Germany. It is almost ununderstandable to people who only speak "high" German, since it is very similar to Dutch and English; indeed, the transitions between many Germanic languages are rather fluid and Platt is part of the fluid link between Dutch and German. 7.8.1. FOLKHART FOLKHART <http://members.aol.com/folkhart/index.html> is an ongoing project of a group of American (mostly Midwestern) descendants of Northwest German immigrants whose ancestral language is/was Low German (Plattdeutsch); it was founded to provide an online vehicle to help to learn/preserve/share/promote Platt (Low German). Sacred Seasons and other classical texts present introductory Plattdeutsch language as well as North German culture. There is also an adjunct project called WIND-MILL <http://members.aol.com/gowindmill/index.html> online. 1998-02 7.8.2. Listserver LOWLANDS-L for Friesisch and Niederdeutsch This email forum discusses those germanic languages and cultures that originated from costal areas around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, including Frisian, Dutch, Lower Saxon, Afrikaans, and more. To subscribe to the listserver... send email To: listproc@lists.u.washington.edu with body subscribe lowlands-l For more information email H.A.Y. Wolf <mailto:H.A.Y.Wolf@stud.let.ruu.nl> 1996-1 7.8.3. Page comments View/add comments <http://www.watzmann.net/comments/list.php?page_id=11>