Saturday, June 23, 2007

Sprechen Sie Christianize?

BONN, Germany — It was becoming a common annoyance. Curious German tourists were visiting evangelical churches in the U.S., and had no idea what was being said. A German travel agency finally issued a 55-page Evangelical-English Dictionary which sells thousands of copies a month to Germans vacationing in the U.S.

"I think I speak English pretty well," said Lerner Bosch, 33, from Frankfurt. "But I was clueless sitting there in that pew [in a Nazarene church in Minot, North Dakota]. Then my wife handed me the phrase translator and the whole service started making sense."

Bosch found himself in the foyer shaking hands and receiving first-time visitor brochures from greeters. When a man slapped his back and said, "God bless you, brother," Bosch used his phrase translator and responded, "Amen, brother. God bless you." Another woman told him that with Jesus, "whatever you've done is under the blood." Bosch went pale momentarily before looking up the phrase and finding it means "everything's cool, so forget about the past."

"At first I thought she was talking about Germany's history in the World Wars, and I was embarrassed," he said. "Then I realized she was telling me to take it easy. That was much nicer. Without the translator, it could have been a moment of cultural misunderstanding."

Lerner told the woman, "Leave it at the cross," which the book translates as, "Don't sweat it." He also gave her the "hang loose" sign.

"In German schools, they teach you mainstream English, but not this wonderful dialect," said Bosch's wife, Gira, 34.

They are thinking of starting an evangelical English club back in Frankfurt.

"My friends are involved in groups where they dress up in knickers and speak old-style German, but I find this American sub-culture more fascinating," Lerner said. "Some of us in Frankfurt are going to dress up like evangelical church people and use our phrase books." •

Source Lark News

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