Lovejunky said:

Mmm yes ok, I can see that as possible. Thx

Susu1976 said:

CatB said:

She does not speak German. I'd always drop in some German phrases in convos, general phrases that she would know from her time here. But she always went silent after that.

And I agree with what you say, she does not understand what the others on the show talk about. Non-native Germans all have a hard time to understand and learn the language. Everyone who comes here and learns the language talks about that. Even people who have lived here for years. It not just the grammar but German is a very old language and with our history and Germany's different kingdoms, dukedoms, electorats, all those districts, there is not one German. The different districts all developed their own dialects, some of which cannot even be understood by natives of other districts.

Some phrases and expressions are general though and when you lived here as a kid - which she did - you naturally pick them up.

She understood Lanz because he read her book and quoted direct excerpts to her in his questions. It's what he does on his show, he is always well prepared and he does not ask the guests any questions that they didn't talk about before. He does not "call out" his guests. He is politically correct and supported (some say corrupted) by a certain German party. The average Joe here don't like Lanz because his show is not real but controlled by certain people. It's the only Late show on public TV and if someone wants to promote something, they will go on Lanz.

I started German in 10th grade, have never lived in Germany but been there more times that I can count and now that I'm in the States it's an effort to keep that hell of a German grammar and the more advanced vocabulary in my head but as soon as I land in Germany it does come back. The grammar of my mother tongue is more complicated than that of German and one of the most difficult ones to ever learn so I'm used to dealing with shitty grammar lessons. I've studied several languages, not all by choice and speak a few so you kind of "learn how to learn" them. As far as dialects, gosh I can barely understand anything when I'm in München. I've never gotten around to watch Lanz while in Germany. The way you described his show, I'm obviously not missing anything. Yup, it was obvious that she knew everything that was going to be talked about, there were no surprise questions. I haven't read her book so wasn't exactly sure whether they were all straight from the book. Many talk shows, especially the "lighter" ones prep their quests beforehand so no shade towards Mayte there. Mayte advertised her dance class in Berlin to be taught in German alluding that she was teaching it in German. I guess there wouldn't have been much talking during that class... Once again, no shade towards Mayte per se but c'mon. Nobody is going to judge her if she doesn't speak German or did speak it a bit as a kid but no longer does but don't say you speak it when you clearly don't. It seems you are not allowed to say anything that is even slightly critical and warranted about her lest people on this board will jump on you. [Edited 3/22/18 18:59pm] [Edited 3/22/18 19:01pm]

The rest of Germany always joke that Bavaria is not Germany (and it used to be a country of its own) because hardly anyone understands the dialect... lol

As far as I know, her German dance class was to be held in Hamburg, not here in Berlin but yes, she stated before that she might speak German during class. She had told me already a year ago that she was hoping to see me there and I lightly threw in some German again - which she did not respond to.

Nevermind, it is not all too important if she does or does not speak/understand German and I have no intention to criticize anything about it. I'm just sharing what I have observed and experienced but I agree, Mayte (and ones opinion about her) does polarize on this board. But not only here.

Liebe Grüße

CatB said:

Oh, okay. I don't know why I thought it was going to be in Berlin. So you live in Berlin! Been there a few times but it was either during Christmas time, you know the Christkindlmarkt, Weihnachtsmarkt yada, yada or spent a couple of days during layover from Helsinki if I felt frugal and didn't mind the long travel hrs.( It's hell regardless so might as well try to make the best of it. I normally fly through Frankfurt and well, that city is not place you want to spend too much time in...ugh) A good friend of mine with whom I went to school from 1-12 grades has lived in Berlin several years now, East Berlin to be exact. She's an "artiste" type and dislikes West Berlin with passion. I was kind of surprised that there is this East vs. West mentality in the city when she started lecturing (drunk of course) about it.
Writing some of these posts apparently made my phone think to suggest umlauts in every damn word now.
Grüße!

Susu1976 said:

CatB said:

The rest of Germany always joke that Bavaria is not Germany (and it used to be a country of its own) because hardly anyone understands the dialect... lol

As far as I know, her German dance class was to be held in Hamburg, not here in Berlin but yes, she stated before that she might speak German during class. She had told me already a year ago that she was hoping to see me there and I lightly threw in some German again - which she did not respond to.

Nevermind, it is not all too important if she does or does not speak/understand German and I have no intention to criticize anything about it. I'm just sharing what I have observed and experienced but I agree, Mayte (and ones opinion about her) does polarize on this board. But not only here.

Liebe Grüße

Oh, okay. I don't know why I thought it was going to be in Berlin. So you live in Berlin! Been there a few times but it was either during Christmas time, you know the Christkindlmarkt, Weihnachtsmarkt yada, yada or spent a couple of days during layover from Helsinki if I felt frugal and didn't mind the long travel hrs.( It's hell regardless so might as well try to make the best of it. I normally fly through Frankfurt and well, that city is not place you want to spend too much time in...ugh) A good friend of mine with whom I went to school from 1-12 grades has lived in Berlin several years now, East Berlin to be exact. She's an "artiste" type and dislikes West Berlin with passion. I was kind of surprised that there is this East vs. West mentality in the city when she started lecturing (drunk of course) about it. Writing some of these posts apparently made my phone think to suggest umlauts in every damn word now. Grüße!

I first met P and Mayte here in Berlin, so it would've been cool had she given her class here. She also had a date set for Paris, I was in Paris again too but missed her by a few days.

Helsinki I know too. I know what you mean about Frankfurt... our head office is there. Nobody really wants to go there for meetings or anything.

Your friend is right - there still is an East versus West thing and by now all the "Bezirke" compete for the most "Szene" one.

Funny about the Umlaute

CatB said:

I hope you liked Helsinki. It and Finland are my everything. I kid you not, ran into Devin DeVasquez on our independence day and Finland's 100th bday. She and her husband whatshisname were sitting at the table next to us.
Someone in our group recognized him. That soap opera he is on or was is shown in Finland.
Anyway, nobody had any clue who she was and nobody cared.
Then she posted on her Instagram about celebrating with Finland or some such and a Finnish tabloid picked up on it.
"Muusikko Princen ex-rakastajatar juhli Suomen itsenäisyyttä ja 100-vuotisjuhlia Helsingin keskustassa aviomiehensä kanssa". In plain ole English Musician Prince's old lover celebrated Finland's independence day and 100th birthday with her husband in central Helsinki.
And yeah, sure enough there is a video on her Instagram taken right below the steps of the Central Lutheran Church in Central Helsinki.
Why anyone would want to be in Helsinki in early December is a mystery to me.
Don't know anything about her but it was nice of her to post that.
[Edited 3/23/18 1:30am]

Susu1976 said:

CatB said:

I first met P and Mayte here in Berlin, so it would've been cool had she given her class here. She also had a date set for Paris, I was in Paris again too but missed her by a few days.

Helsinki I know too. I know what you mean about Frankfurt... our head office is there. Nobody really wants to go there for meetings or anything.

Your friend is right - there still is an East versus West thing and by now all the "Bezirke" compete for the most "Szene" one.

Funny about the Umlaute

I hope you liked Helsinki. It and Finland are my everything. I kid you not, ran into Devin DeVasquez on our independence day and Finland's 100th bday. She and her husband whatshisname were sitting at the table next to us. Someone in our group recognized him. That soap opera he is on or was is shown in Finland. Anyway, nobody had any clue who she was and nobody cared. Then she posted on her Instagram about celebrating with Finland or some such and a Finnish tabloid picked up on it. "Muusikko Princen ex-rakastajatar juhli Suomen itsenäisyyttä ja 100-vuotisjuhlia Helsingin keskustassa aviomiehensä kanssa". In plain ole English Musician Prince's old lover celebrated Finland's independence day and 100th birthday with her husband in central Helsinki. And yeah, sure enough there is a video on her Instagram taken right below the steps of the Central Lutheran Church in Central Helsinki. Why anyone would want to be in Helsinki in early December is a mystery to me. Don't know anything about her but it was nice of her to post that. [Edited 3/23/18 1:30am]

Well, my grandfather was shot in Finland and I never got to know him but I have many fond memories of HIM, the band, 69 Eyes and Helsinki, so...
Aha, so the Bold and the Beautiful in Finland... yeah, why not lol

CatB said:

Holy shit! Ville Valo is a friend of mine and one of my childhood friends was engaged to HIM drummer Gas (I know him by his real name Mika). I'm not much of 69 Eyes fan but have always loved Nightwish and Sonata Arctica. You get to know all these guys even if you don't want to because the scene is small.
I went to Wacken a few times but can't do that any more. Getting old, I guess.
Sorry to hear about your grandpa. That's horrible.
Well, I appreciate your liking our music scene over there.
Danke schön!
[Edited 3/23/18 6:48am]

Susu1976 said:

CatB said:

Well, my grandfather was shot in Finland and I never got to know him but I have many fond memories of HIM, the band, 69 Eyes and Helsinki, so...
Aha, so the Bold and the Beautiful in Finland... yeah, why not lol

Holy shit! Ville Valo is a friend of mine and one of my childhood friends was engaged to HIM drummer Gas (I know him by his real name Mika). I'm not much of 69 Eyes fan but have always loved Nightwish and Sonata Arctica. You get to know all these guys even if you don't want to because the scene is small. I went to Wacken a few times but can't do that any more. Getting old, I guess. Sorry to hear about your grandpa. That's horrible. Well, I appreciate your liking our music scene over there. Danke schön! [Edited 3/23/18 6:48am]

I knew the guys too. Their manager Silke was from Berlin and Ville & Mige used to hang out here a lot. I walked away when Bam Margera came on the scene and tried to break them into the US-market which changed them a lot, and not in a good way (But they got to play in MPLS which is cool).

Many fond memories. Thanks for that. And about my grandpa.

Peace.

Susu1976 said:

GrayDorian said:

Who cares how good her German is?!

Seriously, I couldn't give a rat's ass how fluent or not she may be in German.

Once it became clear they were conversing in German, I didn't even bother watching the interview, as there's no point. I probably wouldn't understand a word of it nowadays.

Leider ist mein Deutsch sehr schlecht. Ich habe in der schule Deutsch vor vielen Jahre gelernt.

Oh no! That's very probably completely wrong....so drag me out the back and shoot me.

In any case, unless you are genuinely fluent in a language, it's usually a case of use it or lose it. That's my experience with French, that's for sure.

I went on vacation in wonderful, gay Paris in my late teens and conversed fairly easily (I mean by that not fluent at all, but able to think in English, translate in my mind to French and express myself).

I went back to spend almost a month travelling around la belle france a decade later, and, though it was a lot more of a struggle, was pleasantly surprised I managed to get by. Many years later, I can't even watch a French movie without reading the subtitles. I can barely understand a word (albeit admittedly my memory is pretty pathetic...my wife blames my sugar addiction).

I'm not a big fan of Mayte by any stretch of the imagination (never read her book or watched her TV show), but she seems harmless enough to me. I met her once very briefly many years ago, and she was perfectly polite, patient and pleasant.

She seems to me to get more than her fair share of flak on the boards sometimes. Some of the negativity the associates receive gets a bit grating on the nerves. The way I see it, some folks are thinking the very worst, others are thinking the best, and the truth invariably lies somewhere in between.

You missed my point by a country mile. A reading comprehension is a good skill to have. Also,erübrigt sich jede weitere Diskussion.

Ok, fair enough.

I certainly don't want to become embroiled in needless, unproductive arguments with fellow orgers either.

I have apparently completely misinterpreted your post as having a pop at Mayte over her reluctance to converse in a foreign language on national TV, when she perhaps isn't that fluent or at any rate not too confident. Entschuldigung!

Personally I would have thought Mayte was pretty wise to decline attempting to converse in German, if she isn't feeling assured about her grasp of that language nowadays, to prevent any potential misunderstandings or embarrassment. Frankly it still strikes me as a pretty odd topic for you to raise.

After all, some poor folks (myself included ) have enough difficulty conversing in our mother tongue, never mind a foreign language.

In any case, as you have already pointed out, an efficient apprehension of the written word is indeed a very useful skill to possess. I guess I need to do some work on mine.

Susu1976 said:

Nightwish! Love them. My 16 yo son introduced us to them. In fact, we just took him to see them in concert in MD on 3/13. They were fantastic. Sorry, didn't mean to get off topic, but couldn't resist. BTW, my son would love to go to Wacken. He watches lots of YouTube videos of it...

paisleylove said:

That's great! Yeah, not meaning to derail this thread into being about Finnish metal all of a sudden but if you have not, check out on YouTube Nightwish's live rendition of Phantom of the Opera. It's from their concert in Helsinki. I couldn't post the link for some reason. For me the old, original version of Sleeping Sun (sung by Tarja) is the ultimate. Every time I play it to someone who has not heard Nightwish, they get completely silent. The video is a bit off and Tarja still has short hair but it depicts Finnish countryside in a great way.
Wacken is fun when you're young but the whole weekend... I couldn't handle one day nowadays and I'm not a Matuselah.
So, to keep on topic, I hope people in Europe attending Mayte's classes had a good time and got whatever they wanted out of it. I said it before and I will say it again, I don't think that this was much about learning to do belly dancing but rather for some Prince fans to experience something they felt would make them feel close to him. As far as that goes, I will keep my opinions on it to myself.
[Edited 3/23/18 21:50pm]
[Edited 3/23/18 21:57pm]

Susu1976 said:

paisleylove said:

Nightwish! Love them. My 16 yo son introduced us to them. In fact, we just took him to see them in concert in MD on 3/13. They were fantastic. Sorry, didn't mean to get off topic, but couldn't resist. BTW, my son would love to go to Wacken. He watches lots of YouTube videos of it...

That's great! Yeah, not meaning to derail this thread into being about Finnish metal all of a sudden but if you have not, check out on YouTube Nightwish's live rendition of Phantom of the Opera. It's from their concert in Helsinki. I couldn't post the link for some reason. For me the old, original version of Sleeping Sun (sung by Tarja) is the ultimate. Every time I play it to someone who has not heard Nightwish, they get completely silent. The video is a bit off and Tarja still has short hair but it depicts Finnish countryside in a great way. Wacken is fun when you're young but the whole weekend... I couldn't handle one day nowadays and I'm not a Matuselah. So, to keep on topic, I hope people in Europe attending Mayte's classes had a good time and got whatever they wanted out of it. I said it before and I will say it again, I don't think that this was much about learning to do belly dancing but rather for some Prince fans to experience something they felt would make them feel close to him. As far as that goes, I will keep my opinions on it to myself. [Edited 3/23/18 21:50pm] [Edited 3/23/18 21:57pm]

Co Sign...