Instead of Miss V, you can now call me Miss Tipi, as I’ve just spent the last part of the summer camping.  That’s right, like sleeping bags, putting up tents in the rain, bring-your-own toilet tissue, wake-up-with-the-birds camping.  According to the Wik: “The participants, known as campers, get away from urban areas, their home region [...]

I watched television for the first time in a while the other day and noticed that, with a hiss and a roar and a dash of David Beckham, the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games had finished, just as quickly as they had begun.  This always seems to happen with the Olympics, don’t you think?  Four [...]

Bab.la hangman has got to be the coolest bored-at-work game for aspriring linguists I have ever seen! addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miss-verstaendnis.com%2F2008%2F08%2F14%2Fare-you-a-polyglot-with-time-to-kill%2F'; addthis_title = 'Are+you+a+polyglot+with+time+to+kill%3F'; addthis_pub = '';

… not Auf Wiedersehen! Yes my friends, the Kiwi is on the road (hence the photo.) The time has come, as it does for most New Zealanders, for me to put on my backpack (slash pack all my clothes into two rather heavy suitcases) and see the world - or at least Europe. So just [...]

  You all might remember me being a Schwarzfahrer (fare-dodger) earlier this year. Well, for true proof that crime doesn’t pay, look at the story of one 24-year old German man who played Schwarzfahrer for a five months, during which he was caught 102 times! You have to pretty much be wearing a sign that says [...]

Aeric Winter, the man who prompted my original Prefixated video, comes over all Miss V as he teaches how to phonetically pronounce his name: “Andreas”. A coup for every Andreas who is sick of having his name mispronounced! addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miss-verstaendnis.com%2F2008%2F07%2F23%2Fphonetics-again-imitation-brand-miss-v%2F'; addthis_title = 'Phonetics+again%3A+Imitation+Brand+Miss+V%21'; addthis_pub [...]

Someone recently mentioned to me that a key factor in becoming fluent in a foreign language is Sprachgefühl. Now this is one of these wonderful words that simply does not exist in English, but can be translated as a ‘feeling for the language’. If you’re immersed, e.g. living with, working with Germans/ French/Chinese/Japanese/ New Zealandese [...]

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Monday was Bastille day in France. So, if you watched the right television, or happened to be in Paris, you would have seen the most spectacular display of fireworks over the Champs-Élysées. In fact, Europe does a pretty good run in National Commemoration Days. The Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day, [...]

Who needs the land of the free when you have the land of the efficient? Following on from the world’s first automated restaurant, did you know that Real has opened ‘The Future Store’? No, you don’t get to shop on hovercrafts or buy or your meal in convenient pill form (although they do [...]