Haribo Gummy Bears and Spezi soda were passed around as the WKU Global Chai Chat began its weekly event on all things Germany.
Wes Watkins, manager of WKU Global Learning and Student Success, shared a short presentation about Germany that included statistics and fun facts. According to the presentation, over 83.2 million people currently live in the central European country, where 35 different dialects of the German language are spoken. Its capital city, Berlin, is nine times larger in size than Paris.
After finishing her presentation, Watkins passed out snacks and began a translation game. German words that ranged in complexity were taped onto each wall of the Global Learning Office in the Honors College and International Center for students to decipher.
While many students easily identified the meaning of shorter words, such as “gut,” “danke,” and “nein,” many were left puzzled by “einhörnchen,” meaning squirrel, and “scharubendreheinsatz,” which refers to a Philips screwdriver. Chinese major Marcus Lum joked about the bevy of syllables that often make up words in the German language.
“How can a parent ask their child to simply hand them a screwdriver when they have to use that entire word?” Lum said.
Lum, 28 years old, is a non-traditional student who arrived in Bowling Green to study Chinese and criminology after serving several years in the military and later working as a police officer. Lum’s native language is Cantonese, but he speaks Mandarin and English as well. He compared the complexities of the German language to his native-tongue.
“Cantonese uses about six different tones, and Mandarin uses four,” Lum said. “Different tones give the same word different meanings.”
Tones refer to the pitch in which a word is vocalized. Lum used the example of the Chinese word 车, which means car or vehicle when spoken in a higher-pitched tone but refers more to a horse-drawn carriage when said in a deeper tone.
Improving his Chinese is allowing him to connect back with his culture, Lum said. Originally from Hong Kong, Lum studied Mandarin in school but didn’t have many opportunities to use it after arriving in the United States. After graduating, he hopes to use his language skills in the workforce, but also intends to pursue engineering.
