I’m trying to learn German, been trying for years. It’s a few years now but we used to stay in a largely German speaking area of Switzerland. Great chance to practice, way better than getting strange looks in Yorkshire trying out my second language. As a result, these days I have to practice by ordering the occasional German magazine or newspaper.

I’m not going to kid myself, my second language capabilities are still pretty rudimentary. There are reclusive Himalayan mountain sheep with a better grasp of German grammar than this Yorkshire Pudding. Which basically means that quite often it’s picking out the occasional word I can translate amongst a sea of letter confusion. It’s a good job you get pictures in the magazines to at least give me a few clues on what on earth is being written about.

A couple of years back I was trying to read a German magazine article about Interlaken, a beautiful Swiss town which was often our Sunday morning adventure. Best hot chocolate of the holiday. Best shop combo ever for the three of us. One shop, three happy punters. Hawklad looking at a huge Schleich toy section, his mum looking at a huge wall calendar section and me fascinated looking at the amazing cuckoo clocks on the wall.

Interlaken given its name is unsurprisingly a town between TWO huge lakes. But this article mentioned a third lake. A mysterious lake, as hard as I searched on the maps, I couldn’t find it. In the end I decided it was either a massive underground lake or a famous fictional lake from some mega Swiss story, maybe a continental Europe version of Brigadoon.

Yet this week. In an English magazine, an article about last Ice Age, that mystery lake was there again. And this time I could read the words all about the now not so mysterious third lake. Apparently the two Interlaken lakes, Thun and Brienz, were once a mega lake called Wendelsee, Lake Wendel. No wonder it’s not on the maps now, and what a good job it’s not. Our favourite shop would have been underwater, right smack in the middle of that lake. In this case two lakes is definitely better than one.

43 thoughts on “Third lake”

  5. I can feel your pain about learning German, I killed how many years to do that? Four. Still have no clue how to be functional, I wish I was learning Spanish instead. If wishes were horses…

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  12. It’s so beautiful. Lakes and mountains. My idea of heaven. It’s very hard trying to keep language skills up when you are not actually using it. German always seemed daunting to me!

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  17. Calling Schwyzerdütsch German. The nerve of these people. :/

    German/Austrian/Swiss TV cooperative crime series Tatort is broadcasting the Austrian contributions in original language, coz it’s managable for German ears, Swiss TV has to produce 2 voice-channels. 1 Swiss, 1 German:

    Anglophone: Kitchen cabinet

    German: Küchenschrank

    Swiss: Chochichaschtle

    German: KÜCHEN-SCHRANK gosh darnit!

    Swiss: CHO-CHI-CHASCHTLE!

    German: Kü… 😦

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