June 28, 2019

Languages: "Ich verstehe nur 'Bahnhof'

Hello!

One of the things I've loved hugely in my first 6 months in The King's Singers is the repertoire.

I've learnt many hundreds of songs, and I know that's just the tip of the iceberg. But there have already been so many different languages! Some standard European ones of course; German, French, Italian, Spanish etc. Some harder ones; Russian, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Korean. Also some pretty obscure ones; Gallic, Faroese, Yiddish... It's very fun to sing in loads of languages, but a different thing being able to actually speak them.

Now, when it comes to languages I'm an absolute toddler compared to Johnny's polyglottery (is that a real word?), so I'm always hugely impressed when others in the group manage to rattle off announcements off the top of their heads in a foreign language. I'm currently enjoying the level of 'trying my best' when talking to audience members after the concerts.

Julian taught me the German expression "Ich verstehe nur 'Bahnhof'" the other day. It literally translates as "I only understood 'Station'", but serves as a polite way of saying "I haven't the first clue what you just said"... I reckon that expression will come in handy a lot over the next few years.

Back to just learning languages in songs for now though. I've got some Japanese and Cantonese to learn ahead of our tour to Asia in a couple of weeks. Can't wait!

Ciao for now,

Nx