<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 02 November 2009 - Volume 03<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Jonny</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jonny.meibohm@arcor.de">jonny.meibohm@arcor.de</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Traditions" 2009.11.01 (03) [DE-EN-NDS]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" id=":15m" class="ii gt">
<div><div class="im">
<div><span>Ron
wrote:</span></div>
<div><span></span>Â </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span></span> <font color="#008000">Dear Hanne,<br><br>I hope you don't
mind that I am responding in English in order to get everyone else on board.
Also, Hanne, I know that your English, especially your passive English, has been
improving fast, in part thanks to your participation in LL-L and in part thanks
to your efforts to
overcome the disadvantage you had in East Germany before the fall of the
Wall.</font></div>
<div>Â </div>
</div><div align="left"><span>Thanks,
Alter! It's great, your giving some support to our Hanne, as far as
her efforts to take part here in English are concerned. She's really doing a
good job!!</span></div>
<div align="left">Â </div>
<div align="left">Allerbest!</div>
<div align="left">Â </div><font style="font-family: courier new,monospace;" color="#888888">
<div align="left">Jonny Meibohm</div>
<div align="left">Lower Saxony,
Germany</div></font></div>
</div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>></span></p>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: Members' news<br><br>Of course I "support" our Hanne, Jonny! After all, she's a friend of mine. But I would "support" her even if she wasn't.<br>
<br>Before the fall of the Wall, few East Germans had real contacts with foreigners. At least I can state that there were few meaningful one-on-one </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">contacts. Those that there were typically involved the privileged few Party members that were considered beyond suspicion, those that lived in fine apartments, were able to order Western-made goods, to subscribe to foreign periodicals and to welcome foreign visitors. </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The average East German person did not mix with Russians or with other East Europeans, leave alone Westerners, though some would have guarded contacts with visiting West German relatives, honest conversations being limited to the Westerners' visits, because you couldn't say certain things in letters that were subject to inspection. Most of those that learned Russian in school had no everyday opportunities to speak Russian (and teaching standards tended to be poor, anyway, as poor as our English instruction tended to be in the 1950s and 1960s). The percentage of East Germans with at least fair active spoken command of Russian was probably a lot smaller than the percentage of West Germans with at least some active spoken command of English, at least after about the 1960s. Many East Germans envied us West Germans our studying English, a language that is generally more accessible to speakers of German than is Russian. This seemed all the more so to those of them with at least passive command of Low Saxon. I heard this from my East German cousins and their friends, also from some other East Germans that felt relatively free to speak. Russian has a different script and a complex morphology, not to mention a phonology that most speakers of West European languages find rather difficult. Apart from that, those East Germans were quite aware of the fact that we Westerners were able to travel internationally and thus able to practice and use our foreign languages if we felt like it.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In East Germany, good intensive and extensive foreign language studies tended to be the privilege of designated specialists, academics and functionaries. This includes command of languages other than Russian and English, especially Spanish and French which were necessary for contacts in places like Cuba, Eastern Africa and other "developing" places into which East Germany coat-tailed with the Soviet Union. I have to add to this that in the academic sphere some of the best descriptions of and textbooks for African languages were authored and published in East Germany -- at least some of the best (for instance for Swahili) that I have come across.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Those East Germans under retirement age that received permission to spend their vacations abroad, which in most cases meant in Warsaw Pact countries, usually were kept pretty much isolated, typically in compounds cut off from the local populations, such as on fenced-off Black Sea beaches (West German tourists being confined to separate fenced-off beaches ...).</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Average East Germans gained access to English instruction pretty late, perhaps beginning in earnest a couple of decades before the fall of the Wall. But, again, teaching methods tended to be outdated, and the best most people could hope for was to be able to listen to English recordings and watch the occasional English language film, unless they worked in and around places like East Berlin's Alexanderplatz toward which foreign visitors on day visits from West Berlin gravitated. </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Hanne had some English lessons also, but they didn't amount to more than a hill of beans. It is only lately that she's put a lot of effort into catching up, in part because she wants to be able to be in touch with the rest of the world, and being a member of Lowlands-L and thus being in touch with all of us all over the world means a lot to her. It's always good to have real incentives, isn't it? She's found that her knowledge of Low Saxon is an advantage in her endeavor.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">So please consider Hanne's efforts in this light, folks. Irrespective of what you personally think about the fall of the Wall, let's rejoice at our Hanne being able to mingle with us these days! Before the fall of the Wall I was convinced that this sort of thing was never going to happen.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Apart from all this, Hanne a very sweet thing and the most devoted and giving friend anyone could possibly wish for.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And, talking about Hanne, please check out her latest appearance in the press:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://lowlands-l.net/hanne/en/press.php">http://lowlands-l.net/hanne/en/press.php</a></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Seattle, USA</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Hanne's general site: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/hanne/">http://lowlands-l.net/hanne/</a></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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