French Against Germans

One of the classes that I am taking while here is a translations class where we translate English texts into German. Actually, it isn't nearly exciting as it sounds. It is run through ADaF (Abteilung Deutsch als Fremdsprache), the german version of ESL, so it is a bit on the slow side.

Anyway, last week I was in class and the text we had translated was from "The Xenophobe's Guide to Germany". So we were talking about people not liking other people from other places and the different derogatory names that some countries had for others, i.e. Kraut for Germans.

There is a girl from France in my class, Marion. The teacher mentioned that the French have another name for the Germans that is worse than "Kraut", but she wasn't going to repeat it in the classroom. As she was saying this she was glancing in Marion's direction.

Just as the teacher finished talking, Marion piped up, "Don't worry, we have a lot more than just one bad name for the Germans." And she said it while keeping a straight face. The teacher was mildly taken aback, stuttered for a few seconds, before carrying on with the mundaneness that is my translations class. This was probably my favorite class period yet.