As I’ve said many times before, my wife is German and she is a Gymnasium teacher here in Hannover, Germany. As such, she teaches two primary academic subjects, but she is also required to conduct elective classes. These classes are usually fun things, like arts and crafts, sports or cooking. (But not beer drinking. I checked.)
Not long ago, my wife was tasked with teaching an elective baking class to a bunch of snot-nosed 8th graders. They were going to make a Black Forest Cake, also known as a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. Now, I don’t know why, but my wife wanted the recipe to be in English, so she downloaded one from the internet — which had clearly been translated from German into English — and asked me to proofread it for spelling and grammar mistakes.
What I found was an absolute clusterfuck of linguistic crimes, any one of which would — in an ideal world — warrant death by hanging. (Followed by the deceased author’s body being dragged through the streets and beaten with rubber mallets, then thrown into a pit of acid-spitting vipers which reduce the corpse to rendered lard, thereby enabling it to be molded into tiny, adorable birthday candles.)
Below is the Black Forest Cake recipe from the internet, complete with my edits indicated in red. ***WARNING*** Contains swearing and one rather graphic illustration. (Click image to enlarge.)
Summary:
Look, if the situation were reversed and I had to write this cake recipe in German, I would fail so hard I would have to throw myself off a cliff. Still, I cannot excuse such heinous linguistic crimes. This is why I must award this recipe with a despicable 1 out of 5 Merkel Diamonds:
Would you be a good English teacher? Have you ever had a particularly good or bad language teacher? We’d love to hear all about your experience in the comments section below…
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
HAHA!! Fantastic! I’m annoying my friends on Facebook endlessly re; my fascination with German culture owing to my discovery that my Scots ancestry was really German if one went back a few years, so shared this of course… they’ll love it. For the 4th of July, I attempted to make my first Schwarzwald Kirsch Kuchen or Schwarzwalder Torte (I am just beginning to learn German words and to realize there are in fact so many versions of how to phrase anything in German that I have no hope of ever learning it properly before or after I arrive to (potentially) pursue my Masters or Doctorate). The cake I made was a huge success, as I cannot even believe what passes over here for the “American” version of Black Forest cake (blech!) when it actually takes 3 days to make properly according to the recipe I received from a German cook. My cherries had to soak in kirsch for 48 hours before the other parts of the cake began to be prepared, and then had to sit for a full day to blend. I see this recipe is adjusted for children (thank goodness). Mine says clearly “do not serve to children” owing to the amount of alcohol… Really, I’d say don’t serve to adults who intend to drive that week!
And, if the Masters Degree thing does not go as planned, I have to say I’m not deterred by your post from the possibility of using my corporate training background, and my endlessly frustrating-but-positive-outcome-interactions with IT engineers and stock brokers to teach business English in a German company or language school. I don’t expect I’ll be doing the kind of illustration you’ve done here, though (and not because I think the employees wouldn’t appreciate the levity) but being a single gal, I’m not sure if that’s exactly the right kind of message I want to be sending to my students… I’d probably be better off with an illustration of me behind the cake.. you know, like in the Calendar Girls movie? :)
LikeLike
Hi! I’ve been reading your blog since college and been laughing constantly. I teach English in Spain at the moment and have taught English in France before as well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar here. Another mistake that is always popping up is Make vs. Do. I’ve had a few students who could have captioned your drawing unknowingly as “I did/do/will do a cake + time phrase” has come up in class more than once. I usually ignore this but I did have this one university student who was convinced she was right. I ended up directing her to American Pie for reference since I wasn’t getting anywhere. On the flip-side, when I was first learning Spanish and French I said some pretty embarrassing things too (I haven’t had the chance in German but that’s because I can’t say enough yet to say anything stupid).
Anyway, thanks for the posts! They make Mondays a bit more fun. Looking forward to next week!
LikeLike