Austrian for foreigners

Today's word is a very important one. According to Langenscheidts Großes Schulwörterbuch it can be the corner of a sheet, the point of a bonnet, the end of a sausage; furthermore it can be meant geological than it is a promontory or a tongue and (of course sexually) it can be translated as penis. That's not all, there is still the verb zipfeln which is translated as be uneven. And this all is just from the good old Langenscheidts. I mean, I don't even have to write more about that. As I have been very lazy this lesson, I have to give you a very hard homework: Think of an English word with that many meanings! If you want to you can use the posing feature, if not it is OK too.

Today I don't have a word for your guys to learn. Today I just want to post a picture to show you how beautiful Austria is. The picture is the Dome of Salzburg and the lights are directed to the Hohensalzburg. Somehow it shows me how the people see god. No lesson, no homework, just enjoy If you are interested to see more pictures, that I have taken, have a look at iStockPhoto .

The winter season 2006/2007 will not go into history of being the one with lots of snow early. It is already January and there is still not a lot of snow. In downtown Salzburg there is nothing at all. My wife is questioning me already if there is any snow at all. So today's word is scheibaln oder schneiberln . How exactly pronounced depends on where you are from. But let's get to the explanation again: The German noun Schnee is snow. The verb schneien is to snow. And there is the soft spot of the Austrians to make things smaller, cuter, even verbs: and then schneien becomes schneiberln . Today's homework: If you can, please build a snow man.

Today's word has a little bit religious background, even though it does not seam so, again. We are talking about hadschen . This word comes from the Muslim Festival of Hajj (in German it is written Hadsch to match the pronunciation better). As the festival is about walking to Mecca (no matter how far it is) the Austrian word hadschen means to walk or in some cases limping.

I don't know who the author is, but I got this e-mailed today. I am sure this is an advanced lesson, but just keep reading my blog maybe one day you might understand texts like this. ÖSTERREICHISCHE MASSEINHEITEN Ich wage zu behaupten, dass es keine Sprache gibt, die so unverbindliche Maßeinheiten hervorgebracht hat, wie die Österreichische. Das Vage und Dehnbare in unseren internen Maßeinheiten scheint mir auch ein Indiz, ja eine Facette des österreichischen Wesens an sich zu sein. Schaun Sie: An der Aufforderung: "Noch ein Wengerl, ein Wengerl sitzen, ein Wengerl da zu bleiben, noch ein Wengerl lustig zu sein" finden wir gar nichts bemerkenswertes mehr, noch dazu wo sich dieses Wengerl auch ausreichend von "ein Wenig" herrührend erklären lässt. Dass ein Weg breit ist, wenn er lang ist, wundert auch keinen mehr: "Heast, wo woast denn? - Na des is a brader Weg!" Dass man endlos wartet und ewig nicht dran kommt, auch daran hat man sich gewöhn...