My days in Germany 1980-81

During my service with BHEL in Bhopal and Bangalore, I underwent basic courses in German language which was required for deputation to Germany in 1980-81 for joint working with Siemens . 

About six months back , after a gap of about 45 years, I felt like brushing up my knowledge of German so joined online course Duolingo.

This reminded me of an interesting incident which took place while I was in Germany ( at Erlangen, Bavaria).

  Members of our engineering team from Bangalore, who were posted, were fairly well versed in German language to manage day to day affairs.

A few of engineers from Bangalore Office, who used to visit on official work for a short term (week or two) , used to be accommodated in a nearby hotel.They were knowing only engineering related German and so not well versed in conversational German.Therefore, they were advised to remember the name of the hotel and name of the street so that while returning from the office they could reach their hotel without any difficulty. ( It was at a walkable distance).

One of our visiting friends ( let me call him X), checked into the hotel in the night and the next day, before leaving the hotel, religiously jotted down the name of the street opposite the hotel on a piece of paper and kept it safely in his pocket, so that he could make use of it , if he forgot his way, while returning from the office.

In the evening, after the office , he started walking towards his hotel but after sometime, he realised that he had lost his way!

He confidently took out the piece of paper and in broken German, tried to ask his way showing the piece of paper to passers-by on the road , but to his consternation, instead of guiding him, everyone just laughed and moved on.

X was upset and confused after this kept happening a number of times.

He somehow reached the hotel and the next day narrated all this to us. We all had a good laugh!

What had happened was this. 

The word Street is called Strasse in German. Like Berlinerstrasse would mean Berlin Street and so on.

This much X knew.
 
So when he found ‘Einbahnstrasse’ written on the street opposite his hotel, he noted it down religiously without realising that this means

 ‘ONE WAY STREET' !



Comments

  1. Hari_AphaleMarch 8, 2025 at 5:06 AM

    Well narrated. An amusing incident. Had a good laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM

    Very flowingly narrated sir. I was trying to decipher ' Mr X' but couldnt. May be when we meet next I will try again with some hints of course. Regards

    ReplyDelete

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