Episode 8 - Carnival in Germany

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Dave. I'm Rebecca. And I'm Birgit. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. So welcome to today's episode and we're going to talk about Carnival. So it's Rose Monday today. And why are we picking that subject up? Because it's something special, especially for foreigners maybe who live in this country, or if you go abroad and want to talk about this and tell people what's going on in February. I am coming from the Rhineland area, so I'm a Rhinelanderin. So now I'm going to talk about how I celebrate it. And it is really difficult to explain if you lack the vocabulary and have never spoken about this issue. So this is why we think that might be helpful. And of course, it's coming up every year where after again, and we might address 50 % of our listeners because it's either you love it or you hate it. Some people flee the country. It's like with the Marmite. I would agree. I think there's a lot of love it or hate it. But I have to say as a Brit, when I first came to Germany, I had never heard of, I'd heard of like Carnival in Rio and Venice and stuff, but I'd never heard of Carnival in Germany. I had no idea what it was. And I remember like walking along the street in like January and I went past like Woolworth and there were all these costumes in the window. And I was like, why have they got costumes? It's not Halloween. I just could not get my head around what it was. And then someone explained it to me that it's this huge thing. And it's yeah. And so, but I live in Frankfurt and have to say in Frankfurt, it's not that big. We do have parades. It does exist, but compared to where big it comes from. And I know Dave lived in Cologne. It's a whole different story. So, Birgit, do you want to explain how the Rheinländerin, why it's so important, what you do? Yes. And actually, I had to scroll through the internet and looked up some words because sometimes it gets difficult to explain things. And there will be many words today in this episode, which are new, might be new for our listeners. And it is a huge thing in Cologne. That's what I read then. It's like Carnival in Rio in Germany. It's the Cologne area that's most famous. I mean, there's Dusseldorf and Cologne, of course, but I would dare to say that Cologne is even bigger. And yes, how do we celebrate it? So, I lived five years in Cologne sometime ago, but that's where I really got to love the Cologne Carnival because what the people do is they celebrate their city. So, they celebrate it in their songs, Kölsch songs. And when that comes up every year, again, it's just such a brilliant atmosphere and it's really nice to celebrate it. So, what we do now, now our kids are teenagers and we live nearby, my husband and I. There is a tent celebration nearby where we live. So, we usually go into the tent on Saturday. It's a great party. Everybody's dressed up. And also with a group of girls, we go to one of these Sitzungen. Is it a programmation or something? It's a session. And so, we start thinking about our costumes. So, we obviously would be in the same costume as a group. Start about that really right after the one that's just finished. So, it's just something that keeps us going and it's an excuse to meet and prepare all year long. Rebecca? Yeah, that's just one of the first vocabulary things there. Dress up. So, often people say, how do I say verkleiden? Ich habe mich verkleidet. And of course, we would say to dress up. But dress up is also schick machen, schön machen. Do you know what I mean? So, we also use the word fancy dress. You've probably heard that before. So, we wear fancy dress, which doesn't mean anything like someone said, oh fancy, like schön. No, no, no. Fancy dress is verkleiden. And to dress up is also verkleiden, but it can also be just to dress up and look nice. But yeah, just to clarify, and costume is not a suit. A costume is a fancy dress costume. I also get that. Go on, Dave. Well, as I think you said before, Rebecca, I actually lived in Cologne and Birgit said it as well. I lived in Cologne for nearly 10 years. And from a British perspective, like Rebecca said, I had no idea about Cologne until I first arrived there. It's absolutely incredible what is going on. And at the end of the day, you either love it or you hate it when you live there for so long, which I did. But in the first few years, it's just absolutely hilarious. You can't get your head around it. Yeah, it's amazing. What I'd love to hear a little bit from Birgit, if she could, is just to walk us through the days. Because I think from the average person who has nothing to do with Carnival, they don't really know where it starts, what it's all about. So maybe Birgit, could you just walk us through, there's a Thursday, and then there's a weekend, and then there's a Monday. How does it work? Yes, yes. Okay, I will. The session starts on the Thursday. So the Thursday before Shrove Tuesday, right? Shrove Tuesday, exactly. That's one. Okay. Just to establish which Thursday, you know? Yeah, you're right. So that's Silly Thursday, what you call it, Silliest Thursday. I have no idea what we would call that. I don't think there's really an English translation for it. There is no translation for that, really. So to explain that, you really need to tell people, women take over. So they go into the town hall, and that's their day. So it's a big celebration. I don't go out necessarily. And then there's a lot of celebration going on, for sure, in Cologne. And that's all happening in the pubs and on the streets on that day. So they would go to the pubs at 11 o'clock, 11 after 11, and that would end, I don't know, the next morning, one or two o'clock. I had a client last year, and she lives in Cologne, and she was like, oh, I've got the next few days off. And she was like, I'm meeting my friends at the pub at eight o'clock in the morning. And I was like, what? And she was like, yeah, because you can't get a space, you have to get there really early and queue up just to get in. So she was like, going in her costume at eight o'clock in the morning. Of course. And that's what I wanted to say, so I got a bit mixed up on my thoughts. Because I wanted to say, when I lived in Cologne, what I noticed is, and that's special about Cologne, when you go out on the 11th of November, or on that first day, say you go out onto the street and you're not wearing a costume, you would be the alien. Yeah? Mason The odd one out. Anne The odd one out. Mason Yeah, the odd one out. Anne So you're not wearing a costume. Anne So I would recommend everybody to, well, either you like it or you don't like it, just put on a red nose and you're fine. But there was something, everybody had something. So after this heavy first day, I would say, the Friday is a little quieter. So there's not so much going on, but you do have sessions. All these traditional teams and clubs, they have sessions going on. And then we have the Saturday. That's when a lot of people celebrate, and we have this tent carnival parties and still sessions going on. And the Sunday, a lot of parades on the streets. It's for children, especially in Cologne. So that's when the Fedelzüge go. Anne Frankfurt is also Sunday. The big parade here is also on the Sunday. Mason Yeah. And they would have been preparing this all year long. And then the climax is on Rose Monday. But I would recommend, if you can, don't go there. Well, that's really where all people from outside come. A lot of drinking on the streets is going on. It's still celebrating in pubs. Well, you might get a nice place, but that's really the heaviest day, I would say. I preferred the days before. And then it's, what is it called? The Tuesday after Rose. So in Cologne, is it Faschingsdienstag or Fastnacht or what is it called in Cologne? Faschingsdienstag, yes. Because in Frankfurt, they generally call it Fasching. We don't call it Carnival. We generally call the whole thing Fasching. Actually, we don't call it Carnival. So that's okay. So Faschnacht or Faschingsdienstag is the Tuesday. And that's the last day. Anne Not quite, because at the night of, well, it's a heavy five days going on. At that night, if you can get a place in one of the pubs, they will burn the knobble. Or will they do that on Wednesday? Oh, no, that's on Wednesday. Sorry, what is the knobble? Oh, David, you can explain that. What on earth is a knobble? But anybody who is, any British people out there and you know about Guy Fawkes night, so bonfire night, it is basically something like Guy Fawkes that they burn. And they're supposed to represent all the sins that they did in this fifth season, as they often call the fifth season, where they can do pretty much what they like before Lent, which is the 40 days before Easter. So then they just do whatever they want to do. And then burning this knobble thing. That's Tuesday night, then. That's Tuesday night, Tuesday night, because on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Ash Wednesday. And then the start of Lent. And so it's on the Tuesday night, usually about midnight. At least that's what it was in my part of Cologne, where I lived. Yeah, then they burnt it. And then all everything's better again. I've never heard of that before. I have to say that's new for me. I think a lot of people don't know it. Do you know the song Am Arsch am Mittwoch ist alles vorbei? No. Oh, I'm going to share that with you later, Rebecca. Okay, very good. I need to live in Germany, because that's what's it's going to be a little sad. So all finish on Ash Wednesday, and you have to wait for another year. And as David said, now the Lent season starts. Yeah. So just to explain to the people who don't know what we do in the UK, we do have Shrove Tuesday. So a lot of people think we don't do carnival. We don't do fashing. But Shrove Tuesday, so S-H-R-O -V, comes from apparently a really old English word called Shrive, which is like, the absolution of your sins. So it is this like, all your sins are absolved kind of thing on that day. And that's why we call it Shrove Tuesday. But it's also known in the UK as Pancake Day. Because we have Pancake Day. So it's the same idea that you eat all the sweet stuff, it's Mardi Gras, you eat all the sweet stuff and the things that are not allowed. And then the fasting season starts, which is called Lent, as Dave already said. And apparently Lent, the word Lent comes from another old English word that calls is Lenten, which actually means springtime. So and I think in German there's Lenz, right? L-E-N-Z, which is an old German word for spring, right? For Frühling, sort of springtime. Yeah, I did my homework, checked it out. Very good. And then again, so you would get people giving up sweets and stuff for Lent. But apart from Pancake Day, which is actually a good day. I like Pancake Day. And going on the food thing. So here in Frankfurt, it's a big thing to eat Kreppel during Fasching. Berliner. Yeah. But for us, it's Kreppel. And that's the only thing I do to do with carnival is actually, I go on the Kreppel diet for at least two weeks. So what are these things in English, people? A Kreppel is basically a filled donut. Yes. No hole. No hole. Without a hole. That's important because you've got to have your filling. You've got to have marmalade in it or pudding. Yeah. Here in Frankfurt, you get lots and lots of different types. So you get them with jam, but you can also get them with like Nutella or like egg liqueur, pudding and stuff. I love that. That's so good. So you're really getting rid of your sins, right? I am. I build them up. I build them up to get rid of them. You save them. So it's Berliner or it's Kreppel, but it's also a Pfannkuchen somewhere in Germany, isn't it? Yes. Sometimes. Which kind of fits with the pancake. I don't know where that is, but there's definitely somewhere in Germany where they call it a Pfannkuchen. Oh, I don't know. Kind of like pancake. Yeah. This is really regional. So I'm sure in Berlin, they don't call them Berliner. It might be that it's Berlin. They call it Pfannkuchen. I've got a feeling that I went in Berlin and said, I want a Berlin and they went Pfannkuchen or something. I don't know. We have to check that. But it's very confusing, all the different names. And you know more about the history of carnival because since we don't care, it's just something that they hear. I did look it up. I looked it up because I was like, for anyone who doesn't know, they wear these sort of, a lot of people wear these like almost like military looking uniforms. The main people who were involved in carnival and the prince and power and the dancers and all of this. And apparently it does, it goes back to the French occupation of the Rhineland. So there's different discussions online. Some people say it's to do with the Prussians when the Prussians were in control of the Rhineland. Other people say it goes back to the French actually. So the French forbid celebrating when they occupied France. When Napoleon occupied the Rhineland, the French forbid celebrating, which obviously annoyed the people in that area. And so when it was allowed again, this time then the Prussians were there, they decided they were going to do everything they could to celebrate. And it was a sign of resistance basically against their occupiers. And these outfits and stuff, it is very satirical. Now they also make fun of politicians, right? They have these on the floats. And so this is also a part of safe kind of criticism of the occupying powers, let's say. So that is one of the reasons. And that's why it's so popular in the Rhineland area, because this is where it was occupied by the Napoleon French. And very funny also is that in different cities, they have different shears. So Dusseldorf is Helau and Cologne is Alaaf. And in Mönchengladbach area, where I live now, it's Haltpol. Haltpol? Yes. What does that mean? I think it's like a thing or something. I don't know. I haven't really looked into that. But what I want to say is every area has its own shearing. In Frankfurt, it's Helau. It's Helau. Okay. You take after the... But I know the nearest place for us for fashing is Mainz, actually, because Mainz is only about 20 minutes away. Mainz is big for fashing carnival. But I don't know what they say in if they say Helau or they say Alaaf. I think it's Helau or something like that. Okay. So we've got all this vocabulary. So what we were going to... I just wanted to say before we move on to the vocabulary, actually, Rebecca, is that actually Rosenmontag, so Rose Monday, I would highly recommend going to Cologne, because if you like... You get said don't go. I know, but that's why I'm saying you should go, because if you stand on the streets, they always throw out these things called Camela. Do you know what they are, Rebecca? Camela? Caramels. Sweets. Do you have any ideas? Yeah, sweets. Very good. So they always throw out sweets, and it's a big fight to catch the sweets. You're right. You're right. And you see people with upside down umbrellas to catch the sweets, then they put them in a big plastic bag. So if you want to get some free sweets for the rest of the year, then I'd highly recommend going to Rose Monday Parade. Yeah, I shouldn't say don't go. No, of course. It's something very special, and you need to have seen that at least once. Yeah. Absolutely. Just once in your life is a cool thing. I have to put it on my bucket list. Absolutely. It's a bit like people want to go to Munich in the Oktoberfest. Yeah, I've done that. I think I'd say. Yeah. Anyway, on the topic of vocabulary, I thought ahead and I thought, okay, what vocabulary do people need to know in English or to be able to explain in English if they want to talk about Carnival, in particular from the Rhineland area? So I went to my beloved ChatGPT, and I said to ChatGPT, please, ChatGPT, create a list of 20 items of vocab that you need to know to be able to explain Carnival in English. And so what did ChatGPT do? It gave me a list of 20, which is absolutely amazing. It's really good. So I'll put this on the on the show notes as well. So you've got the list there, guys. And so here's a quick a few ideas for you. What was on the list? Rebecca, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm ready. Are you ready? Yes. Okay. So what is a Jekyn? I like that word. Yes. A Jekyn. Do you know what it is? It's the people who celebrate. Is it a clown? Am I a clown? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're on that way, yeah. It's somebody. Go on, Birgit. Can you say them? Well, I just look at the list now, and I'm fascinated. It's a good explanation. So you'll see. So it's difficult, really, to find the right words. A reveler, a kind of a reveler or enthusiast who actively participates in the celebration. So I'm a Jek during Carnival. Which is you dress up and you celebrate. Then you're a Jek. Yeah, you are a Jek. And you can be a Jek. Yeah. Okay. So, Birgit, this will be an easy one for you, I guess. What is a Büttenreden? Well, yes, that's during the sessions. And that's mostly, you see that on television, because of people who hold a talk. And that would be ironic or funny. It should keep the crowd entertained. And probably they talk about a subject like politics or take the pick of people that everybody knows. And then there's a lot of cheering in between. See, this is the thing I never understand, because I always think that it's like, now laugh, because it's actually not that funny. So you have to tell people when to laugh. I always think that's a bit strange. Like in the sitcoms when they show the signs. So it's like now clap and applaud. Yeah. Okay, well, that was a list. What I also did then is with ChatGPT. And this is great for learners. I think I can highly recommend using ChatGPT for this. I asked ChatGPT to create a short story of a British guy who went to Carnival or experienced Carnival for the first time. Using all that vocabulary and also some more. And you'll be amazed how quickly and how good the actual story was. And I think this is also a great way to practice your English. So if you ever want to train with vocabulary that you've just found out about from a certain topic. So if you want to list the vocabulary, make the list, and then ask ChatGPT to make a text or a story based on this list. Birgit and Rebecca saw the story. I think it's pretty awesome what it did in such a short period of time. The only thing is we did spot one mistake that ChatGPT made. And he actually said, ChatGPT said that in Cologne they say, allow, but they don't. What did they say? They laugh. I love. Very good. I did also notice it was very politically correct as it had a man's name or it could be a man or a woman's name. Actually, it was Alex, I think, which could be female. And it called it them. It used the plural. I was like, wow, look at ChatGPT taking care. That was quite interesting. But how could it get that wrong with allow and allow? So there should be a lot of stuff online. That's not politically correct, is it? No, no, no. But I think it's still amazing what it did. Yeah, no, I think making a story with the vocabulary from, you know, like you say, you've learned something new, you make a list, you put it in ChatGPT and then say, create a story. And then you can read through that. You can get it to play out loud and you can listen to that. And yeah, nice idea. There is another one thing you could do if you're interested is you could then say, make this into an easier text or a more difficult text. So you can ask ChatGPT, let's say, if you are at a certain level in English and you know your level, let's say you're at B1 and you like it at level B1 for your level, you can ask ChatGPT to write it at level B1. Or if you want to challenge yourself, you can try it at a higher level. That's really good. I like that idea. That's cool. That's also or make it easier. And then you can have the three different levels, let's say, and you see, you know, what words are similar and then you can get synonyms from it. So there's actually quite a bit that you can do. And the great, you know, the great thing about that is you're basically creating your own materials. And I think when you're learning a language, you know, you need to do stuff that you're interested in and making your own materials is actually a nice, nice thing to do. Yeah. I'll put the story down in the show notes as well, just so you can check it out, people. And I think you'll like it. Quite cool. OK, super. So this really has been a subject that's an either or. I know a lot of people, they don't like it. They flee. They don't want to have anything to do with carnival. So there's a chance we don't address it to everyone who's listening today. But still, if you are not a fan and you might be fleeing the country or the places, you might want to explain in English why. Why? So, yeah, take it as a chance. Can you now explain in English what's going on in those places and why are you why you don't like it, maybe? So next time we're going to do a session on language challenges. So that means what are the benefits of how to do a language challenge and what are the benefits and our experience. So Dave's been doing the Spanish challenge big. It's been working on a Dutch and I have been working on my Japanese. So we're going to share what we did, how we did it, our experiences, and if we see a benefit or not and what we can share with you. So that will be our next episode. Thanks for listening today. Thank you very much. Bye bye. I laugh. Hello. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions, or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website, 3EnglishExperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.