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Don’t speak the local lingo?
Or just want to catch up on news from home?
No worries – you’re pretty well looked after as far as newspapers are concerned around here.
The railway station’s obviously a good place to start, but virtually all tobacconists/lottery ticket sellers/corner stores will have a rack on display.
Learning the language isn’t really that difficult, though.
(If you ignore the fact that you have three genders, more cases than a left luggage office and new spelling reforms that turn up every couple of years, that is.)
Mark Twain gives you some idea.
I worked out fairly early on that the closer a noun got towards the end of a sentence, the more likely its preposition was to change.
Not actually what it would change TO, but inspired guessing and the law of averages kept me above water for a bit.
Some people take the easy way out.
Phonetic German.
Identify a potentially useful (because high frequency) word and convert it into your own language.
“Entschuldigung” (Excuse me) thus becomes “Shirley Gong”.
Some folk even use mental hieroglyphics.
“Wie geht es Dir?” (How are you) is “V gate S deer”
The stuff of nightmares
Mainz Daily Photo 