A few weeks back, we all had the not inconsiderable pleasure of an expert explanation of the infamous Berlin dialect, a manner of speaking so reliably confusing to outsiders that even other Germans have their own word for it: berlinern, or “to mumble Berlin slang.” And Berlin is by no means the only German metropolis with its own special way of speaking: residents of Hamburg don’t Deutsch sprechen, for example. No, what Hamburgers do is snacken – and I don’t mean eating meat sandwiches, here.

After a long time at sea, all Hamburg sailors want to do is snack!

Snacken is the way other Germans describe Hamburg’s own peculiar way of distorting standard German. And just like Berlinerisch, it’s a mixture of a characteristic accent, idiomatic expressions, and vocabulary imported from older dialectal forms.

One thing newcomers have got to learn about Germany is the importance of regional identities: That’s why I posted on state elections in Germany just last week. Especially for Brits, the sheer variation between different parts of this country is astonishing; Germany is far more American than British inasmuch as the capital city is not the be-all-and-end-all of everything – and every city has its own identity markers of which it is exceptionally proud.

So just as each American city has a nickname (Chi-Town, the Big Apple, etc) and a baseball team, no German city would be complete without a major football team, a regular episode of the long-running who-dunnit legend Tatort, and a trademark item of baked goods. Germany is, after all, well known for its penchant for baking, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” Or maybe women say to you: “Hmm, I just loooove football players…”? Maybe she does – or maybe she just likes their money. Whatever the case, football players don’t seem to have any trouble attracting women.

Tastes have changed. Before, it was your Formula 1 racing-drivers that got the girls; it was all fast cars, fast guys and even faster babes. You had drivers like Jackie Stewart, Nelson Piquet, Jody Scheckter, and Mario Andretti – proper playboys for the tabloid press. Nowadays, though, your average Formula 1 racer is nothing more than a boy without the play, the kind of clean-shaven goody-two-shoes you could introduce to your maiden aunt: just look at Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton. Not one of them has even a whiff of scandal on them – boring!

Hmm, beer… (Image: BM)

“Oh God“, I hear you cry, “he’s writing about beer again!” Well, with three of my posts in the last year having beer in the title and my recent post on bottle deposits, you might think the topic has been covered as much as it can.

Yet far from being ashamed, I stand by my record! After all, there’s a good reason I drink so much beer in Germany: it’s the sheer variety, the fizzy excitement of discovering a new brew almost everywhere I go.

There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” What did yours used to say to you? What about this one: “The country’s going to the dogs! Everything was better back then!”

1958: In the old communist GDR, food rationing was finally ended, although East Germany had to wait for Helmut Kohl and the fall of communism to get their promised land. This was also the year in which Elvis Presley arrived in Germany to do his national service in the army; seemingly by chance, another music legend Michael Jackson was born. A 17-year old Brasilian named Pélé wrote World Championship history in Sweden and Schalke 04 won the German league for the seventh and last time.

Just put it in the net!” – the Bundesliga Blog: 22 match of the season

“Just put it in the net!” my trainer always said to me. It’s that simple in football. “Just thump the ball into goal!” Or did your’s instead tell you: “Don’t drink too much the night before the match.”? That is probably one of the most common suggestions in football. At least in the lower-order amateur leagues in the 18-plus category. And without doubt that coach’s instruction was to be heard all over Germany last weekend, if it had not been carnival night and the federations had sensibly opted to ordain there would be no play on Sunday.

Living in Hamburg, you get quite a lot of visitors. After moving to Germany and before living here, I spent some time in Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Münster, and this has given me a circle of non-Hamburg friends with whom I have absolutely no difficulty keeping in touch.

This is because, as soon as they get a Friday off work or uni or, where applicable, get their girlfriends’ permission, they’re up here visiting. It’s not that this last category live in unhappy relationships with horribly complicated partners, of course; no, the reason is more that when Germans hear “young man” and “going to Hamburg” they think one thing: Reeperbahn.

The Reeperbahn: half a mile of clubs, bars and brothels (Flickr: PCHH photography)