Back in NY after 3 weeks in Vienna, and I just answered the phone in German. Must be the jet-lag. I usually don't mix up my languages, but after 30 years in New York my German is in danger of becoming a little stale, pretty soon I'll sound like an Amish lady.
There are plenty of words that have been introduced since I don't live in Vienna any more, many of them technology related. A cell phone, for instance, is a handy, that makes sense. It just leaves the question: is it der, die, or das Handy ? And which words get translated like Anrufbeantworter for answering machine, which are used in the original English like motherboard, and which are mercilessly butchered like downgeloaded for, well, downloaded.
The skill of the bilingual speaker consists in avoiding those potential traps by avoiding to mention these things until a local delivers the correct form and grammatical article.
8:30 AM and my internal clock insists that it is definitely lunch time. Maybe a second breakfast could be a good transatlantic compromise.
