#deutsch/german

[trashyswitch]

When Opposites Attract

Henrik and Shawn are placed at a table, so they can meet each other and get to know each other. But the person that brought them together, decides to leave the room to go play games. So, Shawn and Henrik decide to team up.

Guess who got their 4th covid shot yesterday, and is now achy and exhausted? This girl...Fucking hooray.

This fanfic was suggested by Shannon. I hope you enjoy!! <3

Henrik looked at Shawn, unsure what to think of the person across from him. Shawn bit his lip, not used to being out of his room. Chase was currently trying to introduce the two of them, and get them to learn about each other. 

“So…This is Henrik. Henrik, this is Shawn.” Chase told them. 

“Hallo.” Henrik said to Shawn. 

“Hi…” Shawn said quietly. 

“Come on, Shawn. You can do this.” Chase encouraged him. 

Shawn was fiddling with his fingers, not sure what to say. “......Okay.” Shawn replied, sitting up a bit and looking over at Henrik. 

“Alright. Now converse.” Chase said, before getting up and walking away. 

“Vait, VHAT?!” Henrik reacted, looking at Chase with shock. 

“Seriously?!” Shawn reacted, throwing hands. 

“What? Am- Am I expected to stay?” Chase asked. 

“YEAH!” Henrik and Shawn replied at the same time. “YOU ARE.” 

“To hell with that! This is gonna be awkward as hell. I’d rather not.” Chase told them before walking off. 

Henrik looked at Shawn with shock on his face. Shawn was looking at Henrik with the same shock. 

“Vell damn…” Henrik muttered. 

“Wanna kill him when he comes back?” Shawn asked. 

“Kill him? Nein. Slap him? Ja.” Henrik replied. 

Shawn chuckled. “Slap him till he realizes how much of a dick he’s being.” Shawn added. 

Henrik chuckled as well. “Maybe later.” Henrik decided. 

“Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t saying right now…” Shawn told him. 

Henrik nodded and took a sip of his drink. “So…Your name is Shawn?” Henrik asked. 

Shawn nodded. “And you’re Henry?” Shawn replied. 

“Henrik.” Henrik clarified. 

“Henrik.” Shawn repeated. 

“Ja.” Henrik replied. 

Shawn nodded and thought for a moment. “So…What do you do?” Shawn asked. 

“I’m a doctor.” Henrik told him. 

Shawn nodded. “Cool! Much cooler than my gig.” Shawn reacted. 

“Vhat’s your ‘gig’?” Henrik asked. 

I’m a toy-maker at Joey Drew Studios.” Shawn replied, waving off his job like it was nothing. 

“Yoey Drew Studios? You mean…Bendy zhe devil and Alice zhe angel?” Henrik asked. 

Shawn nodded. “Right on the money.” Shawn replied. “I painted some of the dolls and the different merchandise that came out of the company.” Shawn told him. 

Henrik tilted his head and opened his lab coat. He pulled out a doll from his lab coat, and smirked. “Did you make zhis mini bendy doll?” Henrik asked. 

Shawn dropped his jaw and smiled brightly as he gently took the doll. “Oh my god- no way!” Shawn reacted. 

He looked at all angles of the doll and smirked as he saw something on the inside of the bowtie. He flipped the left bow around to show Henrik. “My signature. I write it on every bendy doll made by me, so Joey knew how many I was contributing to the business.” Shawn told him. 

Henrik adjusted his glasses to get a better look at the small signature on the inner bowtie. “It is chicken scratch, but I can see an S…I zhink.” Henrik said. 

Shawn narrowed his eyes. “Says the doctor.” Shawn said back. 

Henrik laughed. “You have a point.” Henrik added. “My writing is terrible.” Henrik admitted. 

Shawn pulled out a notepad and handed it to Henrik. “Show me.” Shawn told him. 

Henrik smirked and did his signature before handing it back to Shawn. Shawn took one look at the notepad and bursted out laughing. It looked like a whole bunch of italic vertical lines stitched together. It looked awful, to say the least. 

“The handwriting of a true doctor.” Shawn said with a smug grin. 

“He! Vatch it, herr artist.” Henrik reacted. 

“Herr artist? What’s that?” Shawn asked, half joking, half being serious. 

“Herr means Mister.” Henrik replied. “I vould be Herr Schneeplestein. You vould be Herr…Herr…” Henrik trailed off, unsure what his last name was. 

“Flynn. Shawn Flynn.” Shawn replied. 

“Herr Flynn.” Henrik finished. 

Shawn nodded. “Fair play!” Shawn replied. 

Henrik smirked. “So, You are irish?” Henrik asked. 

Shawn nodded. “Bang on.” Shawn replied. “Born and raised.” 

“Hm…German, born and raised.” Henrik replied. 

“Cool!” Shawn replied. 

Henrik bit his lip and looked around. “So…” 

Shawn smirked. “Wanna get Chase and make him regret leaving us alone like this?” Shawn asked. 

“Auf jeden fall.” Henrik replied. He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck.  “Definitely.” He translated for Shawn. 

Shawn and Henrik headed to Chase’s room and dropped their jaws when they saw what Chase was doing: 

Chase was sitting in a chair, playing Forza Horizon 4 on his laptop. He had his headphones on, so he wasn’t able to hear Shawn and Henrik coming in. Shawn and Henrik both scoffed and shook their heads in disapproval. Of course Chase would leave them alone to go have fun by himself. 

Shawn walked up to Chase’s right side and waited for Henrik’s signal. Henrik stood on the other side of Chase, and waited for a couple seconds. 

As soon as Chase won the game, Shawn grabbed Chase’s arms and put them above his head. 

Chase hummed. “What the- HEY!” Chase looked around, and saw Shawn and Henrik on both sides of him. ‘Oh! Hi guys. How did things go?” Chase asked. 

Henrik smirked. “Let’s yust say you are going to regret leaving us alone together.” Henrik told him. 

Chase looked at Henrik in confusion. “What are you two planning?” 

Henrik looked at Shawn and smirked. “Ich werde ihn kitzeln.” Henrik said. 

Shawn nodded and fixed his footing. “Gehen Sie.” Shawn replied, slightly off in his pronunciation. 

Henrik smiled. That was his cue to go. Henrik started skittering his fingers on Chase’s belly and sides. Chase widened his eyes and squealed as a big smile grew onto his lips. “eeeEEEHEHEhehehehe!” Chase laughed. “Ihihi knehehew ihit, your eehehevil shihihits!” Chase said through his newfound giggle fits. 

“Oooooh! Acting the maggot now, are ya?” Shawn teased. 

“Bang on, Shawn.” Henrik replied, using Irish slang as well. 

“He who keeps his tongue keeps his friends, Chase. You of all people should know that.” Shawn told Chase. 

“Shuhuhut uhuhup!” Chase argued. 

“Hey! What did I just say?” Shawn reacted. 

“Remember, Shawn. A good laugh und a good sleep are zhe two best cures for anyzhing.” Henrik added. 

Shawn dropped his jaw with a smirk. “You know that one?” Shawn asked. 

“Chase has told me zhat saying too many times. My turn!” Henrik replied. 

Shawn laughed. “Indeed it is.” Shawn replied. 

Henrik smiled as he looked down at Chase’s stomach. “I also know a certain tickle spot on Chase that he does not vant people to know about.” Henrik added. 

“Oooh! Do tell, Doctor.” Shawn replied. 

Henrik poked Chase’s left side. “Chase’s left side is a leetle bit ticklish.” Henrik said. 

Chase giggled and covered his face in embarrassment. 

“But…” Henrik moved all 10 of his fingers over to Chase’s right side. “His worst spot is…”

Chase mumbled something that sounded like ‘No, don’t’. It was his version of a desperate attempt to stop them. But of course, it didn’t work. 

Henrik skittered all 10 of his fingers on his right side. “Zhe right side of his tummy!” Henrik declared. 

Chase practically screamed and threw his head back with loud, strong laughter. “OHOHOHO MYHYHY GAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOHOHOHOU BAHAHAHAHASTAHAHAHAHA-” Chase shouted. Despite the words he was letting out, his laughter was so harmonic! Such fresh laughter. So grand to hear. If depression could be cured, then his laughter would be the medicine. It was that beautiful to hear. 

“Listen to this ol’ guy, trying to call us bastards.” Shawn reacted. 

“A reminder zhat zhis bastard left us alone for zhirty minutes to play games.” Henrik added. 

“Yeah! By the way, what’s up with that?! Are we really that boring? That cringey to you?” Shawn added. 

“IHIHI WAHAHAS SCAHAHAHARED!” Chase admitted. 

“Zhen vhy vould you introduce me to Shawn, if you cannot handle zhe cringe?” Henrik asked, stopping his tickle attack. 

Chase took a few moments to breathe and recuperate. “Because…” He shrugged his shoulders. “You two seemed like you’d hit it off.” Chase said. He bit his lip. “And I feel like I would just…make things even more awkward if I were there…” Chase admitted. 

Shawn chuckled. “You’d actually make things better, mate.” Shawn told him. “You know that, don’tcha?” 

Chase looked at the ground in slight sadness. “I’m sorry…” Chase said. 

Henrik chuckled a bit. “Entschuldigung will not cut it, Chase. You need to laugh.” Henrik decided before going for Chase’s hips next. “Und for a man, you have some rather groß hips.” Henrik added. 

Chase wheezed and giggled, wiggling around to get out of Shawn’s surprisingly strong grip. But Shawn was not budging. He was actually giggling as well as he watched Chase get tickled. “Klitzeln, kitzeln, kitzeln!” Shawn teased. 

Henrik hung his head and laughed at bit. “Zhe vay to say it is ‘kitzel kitzel kitzel’.” Henrik told him. 

“Oh…Sorry. Kitzel, kitzel, kitzel!” Shawn teased. 

Henrik chuckled and hung his head again. “Oh Gott nein…” Henrik muttered, covering his mouth with a smile. Henrik could feel his own face starting to flush from hearing the word ‘tickle’ in his own native language. It was starting to remind him of his mother when he was a child.

“Kitzel, kitzel, Kitzel…Kitzel, kitzel. That’s fun to say. Kitzel!” Shawn kept repeating. 

“Shawn, your vords-” 

“Kitzel, kitzel, kitzel, kitzel, kitzel, kitzel-” 

“SHAWN!” Henrik yelled with a big smile. 

Shawn shut his mouth immediately, with both his eyes wide. “...Sorry.” 

Henrik sighed and stopped tickling Chase. He looked up at Shawn with a flustered smile. “You sound like my mozher.” Henrik told him. 

Shawn raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He asked. “In what way?” 

Henrik nodded. “You are repeating zhe vord in my language...I vould like to ask you to please speak english.” Henrik told him. 

Shawn raised an eyebrow, confused. He started repeating ‘kitzel’ in his head, before repeating the word ‘tickle’ to himself multiple times…Then, Shawn gasped and smiled brightly as it finally clicked in his head. “Oh my Go- Am I making you bluuuush?” Shawn asked. 

Henrik grumbled. “Nein…….Shut up.” Henrik muttered. 

Chase and Shawn both bursted out laughing at Henrik’s embarrassment. “Poor Henrik. All flustered because of a single word.” Shawn teased. 

Henrik rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips. “Tickle tickle. Tickle tickle tickle.” Henrik replied. 

Shawn rolled his eyes with a slight blush growing on his face. 

“God dammit-” 

“Tickle tickle tickle tickle tickle tickle-” Henrik repeated over and over again.

“I am going to kill you.” Shawn told him, a blush visible on his face as he smiled with annoyance. 

Chase looked at Shawn. “That’s affecting you?” Chase asked. 

“It’s not effecting you?!” Shawn asked. 

Chase chuckled. “No. I’m more the person to tickle others, than to get tickled myself.” Chase told him. 

“Quatsch.” Henrik reacted. 

Chase looked at Henrik with curiousity. “Is that bullshit in German?” Chase asked. 

“It’s zhe vord ‘Nonsense’, actually.” Henrik replied. “And what you yust said, vas Quatsch.” Henrik added. 

Chase was growing visibly nervous. So, he started poking and tickling Shawn. “I’m a tickler! See?” 

Shawn squealed and started trying to tickle Chase back. “Quahahahahatsch!” Shawn yelled. 

“Dohon’t you mean Gobshite, little leprechaun?” Chase asked. 

Shawn pushed Chase down and started tickling his right side as quickly as he could, while repeating the word ‘tickle’ over and over again. Chase bursted out laughing almost immediately, and struggled to cover up his super ticklish spot. Not long after, Henrik ended up joining in on the tickle attack, repeating the word ‘tickle’ over and over again as well. And would you believe, a bright blush eventually showed up on Chase’s cheeks, and darkened to a scarlet color overtime. 

It was right about now that Chase had started to regret introducing the two boys to each other.

[schreibfederlaerm]

so this European clothing retailer decided to advertise their jean cuts on youtube and it's unintentionally the funniest shit I've seen today. why? well.

now important context here: in German, die (pronounced 'dee') is just a feminine article, it literally means "the".

but if an ad gets placed in the middle of an English video and doesn't use a single explicitly German word for most of the ad, even a native speaker is gonna think "they want me to die how?" it keeps getting funnier.

I mean, holy shit

i will use these as reaction images until i die

[superconfusedcoryn]

WAS IST DENN HEUTE LOS ZUM FICK

[clouds-of-wings]

[german-enthusiast]

In my L1-acquisition class two weeks ago, our professor talked about how only 9% of the speech a baby hears is single words. Everything else is phrases and sentences, onslaughts of words and meaning!

Thus, a baby not only has to learn words and their meanings but also learn to segment lots of sounds INTO words. Doyouwantalittlemoresoupyesyoudoyoucutie. Damn.

When she talked about HOW babies learn to segment words our professor said, and I love it, "babies are little statisticians" because when listening to all the sounds, they start understanding what sound is likely to come after another vs which is not.

After discussing lots of experiments done with babies, our professor added something that I already knew somewhere in my brain but didn't know I know: All this knowledge is helpful when learning an L2 as well:

Listen to natives speaking their language. Original speed. Whatever speaker. Whatever topic.

It is NOT about understanding meaning. It is about learning the rhythm of the language, getting a feeling for its sound, the combination of sounds, the melody and the pronunciation.

Just how babies have to learn to identify single words within waves of sounds, so do adults learning a language. It will help immensely with later (more intentional) listening because you're already used to the sound, can already get into the groove of the languge.

Be as brave as a baby.

You don't even have to pay special attention. Just bathe in the sound of your target language. You'll soak it up without even noticing.

[sprachgefuehle]

me, a german dependent on public transport, repeating my daily affirmations into the bathroom mirror while gripping the sink so hard it hurts: strikes are important no matter how badly they affect me strikes are important no matter how badly they affect me strikes are important no mat

[official-german-gaming]

Non-native German speakers will never understand the primal urge to shout "WARUM HAST DU NICHTS GELERNT" whenever we come across the word "Junge" isolated and by itself

[oblivioustothevampirediaries]

fellow germans, i don't know what to say anymore, was ist denn hier los

[waytootiredstudent]

Okay alright sorry for all the sudden German politics influx but lemme explain what happened so far and why Germans are losing it a bit:

The tldr? Our government is getting a divorce and it's turning messy with elections being called early and now being called even earlier.

The longer version?

Okay so, groundwork first:

in Germany there is a coalition currently in power called the Ampel(traffic lights) bc the colours of the party are red, yellow and green (or not anymore or for much longer??). They're centrist slightly more left leaning than right leaning. (You could argue about that I am aware). There has been infighting for as long as this coalition has been going on. It is also the first three party coalition since y know, the Last Time.

So. Enough groundwork. The yellow party (FDP) has a finance minister (Christiane Lindner) it's this guy

You will see him in memes I am sure. We don't like him. He's an asshole and has blocked every meaningful change that the coalition had been trying to accomplish. He also got his finance plan blocked by our highest court because parts were against our Constitution.

(.... I am oversimplifying hard here it's actually more complicated than that and not fully his fault, but it's also not the focus)

What WAS the fault though of him and the FDP was that they had a strong position of "saving money at all costs" which made bigger and bigger rifts with the two other coalition partners who were more leaftleaning. The war in Ukraine, Infrastructure, climate change - there were many places that needed more money and Lidner was like naaahhhhh for no fucking reason other than "oh we need to save money!!"

Long story short there have been arguing all the fucking time and therefore have started to lose approval. Drastically lose approval. As on for the first time since the Last Time there is a far right party in charge for part of the country that is also being investigated for being Nazis. (Oversimplifying again).

Which is. Worrying. You know. Especially with Trump now being elected. It has us all a little skittish.

The finance minister has also now been fired.

You see. We were all still trying to stomach Trump winning the US election, when Scholz, in the same fucking evening, fired Lindner.

And not in a polite way. Nah. Olaf fucking Scholz our Chancellor, notorious for saying literally nothing, and with a running joke that he regularly stops existing bc that man Does Not Take Stances, a spine of wet cardboard, delivered this yesterday evening:

(English subtitles by me you already got this far watch it I spent too much time on this lol)

And it is insane alright. For his standards and German politic standards thats the equivalent of calling Lindner a egomaniacal bitch that has only his self interest at heart and can not be trusted.

Lindner and his party have been pulverised in all recent elections. Which means that after he was fired, the FDP completely withdrew from the coalition and all minister from the FDP resigned.

....well all but one who apparently stayed in his positions because he's leaving the FDP over this. What sort of shitty backstabbing kindergarten fight is this. (Jokes aside hes the minister of transportation and says he needs to stay in office in important projects. Which. True. Having minister resigning en mass is not good)

Alright cool cool cool cool. Current situation yesterday is the following:

So. Trump is president. Fuck.

Lindner got fired! Yaaay!

Wait my goverment is now also falling apart! Fuck.

Which all lead to new elections being called in Germany.

Mind you, that's not usual ok. I know other countries have systems where they can call an election whenever but that is not a thing that normally happens here. We have a schedule alright. (Insert obligatory "Germans and their plans and structure" joke)

So new elections are called for spring, nearly a year early. Cool cool cool. With a right wing rising in Germany and deeply unpopular current leadership. On the eve of motherfucking trump getting elected.

Habeck, leader of the green party and one of the few policians in germany I think is vaguely liked by ppl (the general attitude in German politics is less "I like this guy" and more "you are the least shitty choice I guess") has appearently also nearly started crying after the news broke. So. Yeah.

Now. Let's make this shitshow complete,alright?

There is this party. CDU. They had been in charge for a very long time in Germany. Centrist, right leaning, with the afd on the rising even more right leaning than before. Their current leader is Friedrich Merz, as unpleasant as human beings can go.

He has now called for the new election to be not in a few months but like. To be called next week.

In the current climate.

So yeah. if you're German mutuals and friends are currently going through their own stages of grief - this is why.

[ajarofpickledtears]

see, when i think of bread, i first and foremost imagine something like this

[official-lauchzwiebel]

kritisch das tagesgeschehen beobachten reicht nicht mehr ich muss christian lindner beißen

[ladyylavenderrr]

The words for sloppy and slutty are the same in German (Schlampig). So you can imagine how fast my head snapped to look at my computer screen when I was absentmindedly watching Improbable Cause in German for the first time and i genuinely believed for half a second Garak had just called the Tal Shiar sluts and not sloppy

[dernisseznirp]

"Save our wildlife before it's too late"

This ad is a banger!

[herzgestolper]

Demokratie jaja, aber KARNEVAL!

Fiebertraum. Alles nur noch ein Fiebertraum.

[zwiebelii]

is this anything.

[forestlion]

in Germany, any (work)place can be a juice shop