Venting thread that still excludes eddy (2)

[jal]

and in Rotterdam it was the same

You've obviously not been to Amsterdam. Both pedestrians and bicyclists alike suffer from a rare disorder that causes them to be completely unable to detect traffic lights. And, so one sometimes thinks, other traffic as well.


JAL

[finlay]

Hey, congrats an' all, but wrong topic!

And here I always thought that us Germans are the sticklers for petty rules and Dutch people are all cool (except for sirdanilot, perhaps).
Myth busted?

They're pretty selective about which ones they follow and are generally laissez-faire, in my experience, but when they do, they follow them to a T. It's kind of similar to the Japanese, but with the Japanese, they selectively follow rules blindly and freak out if anything's unexpected. Bureaucracy here seems to be complex and time-consuming for its own sake, as anyone who's ever tried to get a goddamn phone or register their domicile will attest. (Oh yeah, you need a phone to get a bank account and a bank account to get a phone, and don't ask me how that's supposed to work. I was lucky that I had a phone on loan from my company when I first came here...) It's not like there's a reason to take a long time, but they'll slavishly triple-check every form for minor mistakes (just as the rulebook says) and get sidetracked when something irrelevant doesn't add up.

But then outside government offices and phone shops they try to get away with as much as possible, like smoking in prohibited spots and rampant cycling violations.

[Torco]

rampant cycling violations

this phrase makes me happy
[also, you should see how it is here, some stupid cyclists not only ride the sidewalk, where people be supposed to walk, but they actually ring their bells and tell folks to get out of the way. I've gotten into mild altercations more than once, like, the fuck u think u are motherfucker, and this is from a tens of miles a week regularly bike commuter].

[jmcd]

Pedestrians can complain that they get bumped into by bikes on the same lanes an cars can omplain that they get held up. Cyclists are often either too fast or too slow unless there are dedicated cycle lanes, which there not enough of here. Or most places for that matter.

[jal]

Or most places for that matter.

Save for the Netherlands.


JAL

[Viktor77]

and in Rotterdam it was the same

You've obviously not been to Amsterdam. Both pedestrians and bicyclists alike suffer from a rare disorder that causes them to be completely unable to detect traffic lights. And, so one sometimes thinks, other traffic as well.

Well I only noticed disobedience by bikers, but to be honest they mostly followed the law. When the bike light turned red, they stopped.

But the bikers up in those parts are pretty intense. They ring their bells if you're even a foot or so over the small dividing line between the walking lane and the bike lane (which can happen if you're walking beside someone and chatting).

In Liege we don't have bike lanes because bikes are rare here. But we do have cars that park on sidewalks. The man who dropped me off today parked on the sidewalk for a few seconds, like right up on it. I've seen them legit get cars up those curbs and completely on the sidewalks.

There is one thing though in Flanders that I just cannot understand. In Ghent and in Antwerp they have these awesome streetcar systems (I love streetcars, America used to have them and I wish I could've experienced it). Anyway these things run legit right through squares, roads, everything. They'll be tons of people around in a square, pedestrians, bikers, cars, everything all over the streetcar tracks and then a streetcar comes and miraculously no one is hit. How does this chaos function!? In Liege we just have buses, and there can be chaos too but people are usually long out of the way before a bus comes. In Flanders these people were stepping out of the way at the last minute. I don't think I could drive a streetcar there, I'd be forever on edge.

[Imralu]

There is one thing though in Flanders that I just cannot understand. In Ghent and in Antwerp they have these awesome streetcar systems (I love streetcars, America used to have them and I wish I could've experienced it). Anyway these things run legit right through squares, roads, everything. They'll be tons of people around in a square, pedestrians, bikers, cars, everything all over the streetcar tracks and then a streetcar comes and miraculously no one is hit. How does this chaos function!? In Liege we just have buses, and there can be chaos too but people are usually long out of the way before a bus comes. In Flanders these people were stepping out of the way at the last minute. I don't think I could drive a streetcar there, I'd be forever on edge.

Like this? And do you actually say streetcar? It's not a car and ... aren't all cars street-cars, just like all libraries are book libraries.

My vent ... making music with the demo version of the program I use, which lets me save but not reopen files saved in the demo, I was just about to export a file to WAV, pretty happy with it, and I was playing around with something I didn't even intend to use in the track and then the program crashed, so now I can't export that WAV. I've had to email the file I was working on, hoping it was saved recently, along with a whole bunch of samples, which will hopefully be sliced exactly the same as on my computer, to a friend of mine who has the full program, so he can export it and put it in our drop-box folder. I was aiming towards this all night and now it's another night I haven't slept ... which would be OK if I wasn't left with nothing at the end. My brain does this thing in situations like this where I suddenly find everything negative and it feels pointless to even worry about losing that music because my brain's telling me "It was crap anyway" and I lose continuity of thought - the one thing I've been doing for hours, that's been distracting me is suddenly gone and I'm looking into the void and anything I think of just hurts. I actually got this hot feeling in my chest and stomach that I usually associate with fear ... I think it was an adrenaline rush.

I thought I was going to be able to pay my rent with tutoring money this month, but we got our yearly power bill and we used a lot more this year, so the month I think I'm going to break even ... it doesn't work out. And now my rent will go up too.

Tonight I saw a bunch of friends including the Romanian guy I was crazy about all of last year. Things didn't work out with him essentially because we're both complicated and have shitty pasts and he didn't think he could be with anyone because of his own problems - and if he could, someone more stable than me - ouch (Sorry my life's falling apart, I'll go and do that elsewhere!) Tonight I got confirmation that the guy who I suspected he's seeing is actually his boyfriend. I haven't met him and he hasn't told me about him, but this name has just come up a lot and tonight someone said the word boyfriend. I stalked this guy on FB a little while ago. He kind of looks like a more exciting, not broken version of me. He's got red hair. He seems to be travelling all the time, has photos of him on top of mountains and things like that, and he's an artist. He's going to Antarctica now. I bet he doesn't let himself starve in the dark for days on end. I have a completely pointless emotion now - jealousy about someone I don't even want to be with - and maybe it's envy too. I think I mostly just feel left behind because my life is at a low point and I'm seeing everyone getting on with their life around me, even when they say their life is at a low-point too.

Anyway, the Romanian said something tonight that makes me think he doesn't see Syrian refugees as humans, and also, he tells me I need to get a job EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE HIM (yeah, um, I know!), so I'm even wondering how much I get out of our friendship, let alone feel jealous of his more-awesome-version-of-me boyfriend. (I think I'm better looking than the boyfriend, so I've got that going for me ... but he's going to grow old with smile lines and I already have frown lines.)

Nearly just deleted these paragraphs because they're stupid, but then I'd probably have to delete everything I write.

Thank you for the well wishes. I' sorry to hear about your family situation with death, even if the person who died was not a nice person it's still hard on your family I'm sure. I'm glad you got an appointment with a therapist and you'll get to express yourself in German which is awesome practice in a way. Everything is good practice. But really I am glad it worked out and I hope it is the help you are looking for.

Thanks. Honestly, my grandmother's death is only relevant to me because I care about how my mother feels, and also because I now feel old, now being in the second oldest generation of my family, but seeing as none of my immediate family seems to be breeding, I'm still in the youngest generation. She was just some old woman I met a couple of times, who I'd heard some horrible stories about.

The "therapist" turned out to be a psychological counsellor. Figures - it's free! Can't complain. He's more interrupty than my old therapist, and he's jumped to a few wrong conclusions, but he's really nice and it seems helpful. The session was really hard. I felt anxious for a full day leading up to the appointment. When I went in, I was really wound up and he introduced himself first. He's from Turkey, so neither of us are speaking our native language. When it was my turn to talk, I think I started crying before I even said a word. I pushed myself and managed to speak and not use the piece of paper (mostly because I felt like a crazy person for having written everything down on a piece of paper with arrows). I explained most of my situation. He told me it's clear that I'm fuuuuuucked (quite a liberal translation) and that I'm going to need to keep coming back and told me I don't need to worry about there being a time limit, I can come once a week or even more if I need it because there's pretty much nothing else available to anyone in my situation. He was pretty concerned about me and I had do a lot of talking to reassure him that I'm not a suicide or self-harm risk and he made me take a pamphlet for a 24-hour crisis hotline and promise to call it if I need to. I know that's pretty standard, but it really drove home to me the fact that if things were just a little bit different in my head, I could be suicidal, and people in situations like mine often are. I think the only thing saving me is this feeling I have that none of this is me, this is something that's been done to me and I don't deserve any of this. I used to think about suicide so much when I was younger, and I think I may even be more depressed now than I ever have been, but the way I relate to myself and my brain is so much better now. I just want to stop feeling things, even for a moment, but I'd rather feel everything than do something dumb. I even gave up alcohol because it just makes it worse, even if it feels better for a moment. I think antidepressants would really help me now. I need a volume control on my feelings. He gave me the contact details of a couple of psychiatrists who tend to help out with people without insurance or with other kinds of status problems, such as refugees. Now I have to actually do something before I go back to him next week ... or I'm going to find it hard to face him.

[finlay]

rampant cycling violations

this phrase makes me happy
[also, you should see how it is here, some stupid cyclists not only ride the sidewalk, where people be supposed to walk, but they actually ring their bells and tell folks to get out of the way. I've gotten into mild altercations more than once, like, the fuck u think u are motherfucker, and this is from a tens of miles a week regularly bike commuter].

I don't mind riding on the sidewalk, because it's ultimately safer than riding on the road... but the laws in japan allow that, there's just plenty of other shit they pull which isn't so cool.

[KathTheDragon]

There is one thing though in Flanders that I just cannot understand. In Ghent and in Antwerp they have these awesome streetcar systems (I love streetcars, America used to have them and I wish I could've experienced it). Anyway these things run legit right through squares, roads, everything. They'll be tons of people around in a square, pedestrians, bikers, cars, everything all over the streetcar tracks and then a streetcar comes and miraculously no one is hit. How does this chaos function!? In Liege we just have buses, and there can be chaos too but people are usually long out of the way before a bus comes. In Flanders these people were stepping out of the way at the last minute. I don't think I could drive a streetcar there, I'd be forever on edge.

Like this? And do you actually say streetcar? It's not a car and ... aren't all cars street-cars, just like all libraries are book libraries.

Isn't that a tram?

[Viktor77]

Like this? And do you actually say streetcar? It's not a car and ... aren't all cars street-cars, just like all libraries are book libraries.

I should've known that since they had them in Cologne they'd have them in Berlin. They're streetcars or a tram, it doesn't matter. They're essentially the same thing. Old streetcars functioned the same, running on non-electrified tracks using wires above, usually as 1 or 2 car combinations. I suppose one could argue that trams have more cars. The one in Cologne and Rotterdam had more cars, so it was probably a tram, the one in Antwerp and Ghent was probably a tram too, but it had some 1 or 2 car versions which qualify as streetcars to me.

Regardless of what it is, I want to know how this organized chaos functions. People walking all over tracks, cars crossing those tracks, bikers biking those tracks, and yet here comes a tram and no one gets hit, everyone gets out of the way even though I didn't see any obvious sign the tram was coming. It's not like a railroad where they have posts that descend, huge lights everywhere. Buses operate on roads so there's less chaos there except with cars and occasionally crossing pedestrians, but that's kept basically organized with traffic signals and crosswalks. But these trams often run right through squares were people congregate, and that's what I find bizarre, but oddly charming too. I actually really love these systems. I love the functional chaos and it breathes so much life into a city. I also find all of the overhead wiring to be fascinating because it reminds me of photos of the early 1900s when this technology was new and novel and was being built up en masse in every American city. It was then and remains today so utilitarian and unattractive compared to the beautiful buildings to which the cables are attached. But there is an odd beauty in this combination of a utilitarian appeal to progress and the backdrop of old buildings engulfed somewhat but not entirely by the society's need to transport itself more efficiently.

Thanks. Honestly, my grandmother's death is only relevant to me because I care about how my mother feels, and also because I now feel old, now being in the second oldest generation of my family, but seeing as none of my immediate family seems to be breeding, I'm still in the youngest generation. She was just some old woman I met a couple of times, who I'd heard some horrible stories about.

The "therapist" turned out to be a psychological counsellor. Figures - it's free! Can't complain. He's more interrupty than my old therapist, and he's jumped to a few wrong conclusions, but he's really nice and it seems helpful. The session was really hard. I felt anxious for a full day leading up to the appointment. When I went in, I was really wound up and he introduced himself first. He's from Turkey, so neither of us are speaking our native language. When it was my turn to talk, I think I started crying before I even said a word. I pushed myself and managed to speak and not use the piece of paper (mostly because I felt like a crazy person for having written everything down on a piece of paper with arrows). I explained most of my situation. He told me it's clear that I'm fuuuuuucked (quite a liberal translation) and that I'm going to need to keep coming back and told me I don't need to worry about there being a time limit, I can come once a week or even more if I need it because there's pretty much nothing else available to anyone in my situation. He was pretty concerned about me and I had do a lot of talking to reassure him that I'm not a suicide or self-harm risk and he made me take a pamphlet for a 24-hour crisis hotline and promise to call it if I need to. I know that's pretty standard, but it really drove home to me the fact that if things were just a little bit different in my head, I could be suicidal, and people in situations like mine often are. I think the only thing saving me is this feeling I have that none of this is me, this is something that's been done to me and I don't deserve any of this. I used to think about suicide so much when I was younger, and I think I may even be more depressed now than I ever have been, but the way I relate to myself and my brain is so much better now. I just want to stop feeling things, even for a moment, but I'd rather feel everything than do something dumb. I even gave up alcohol because it just makes it worse, even if it feels better for a moment. I think antidepressants would really help me now. I need a volume control on my feelings. He gave me the contact details of a couple of psychiatrists who tend to help out with people without insurance or with other kinds of status problems, such as refugees. Now I have to actually do something before I go back to him next week ... or I'm going to find it hard to face him.

I'm glad you got to see the guy, even if his title is not what you expected and he might be a bit awkward to speak too. And I'm glad he will make time for you. People are usually kind if we give them a chance. I've found that here. I think we like to assume that people are out to get us but really the evidence is quite to the contrary, people love to help. I think people find purpose and meaning in being able to help those who need help and are appreciative of it. Bah, I probably sound like some freaking preacherman but no, I'm not religious, I just think people are genuinely kind, most of them anyway.

I know it can seem obnoxious that they are so cautious and perhaps even verging on profiling with regards to implying you could be suicidal or could inflict self-harm, but unfortunately as I'm sure you know there's no way to find a proper balance on this subject. If we're too lenient we miss signs and people can die or hurt themselves, if we're too harsh we risk offending or even driving someone to do those things out of shear annoyance with the system, so it's a situation of which way do we go? I guess I'd rather be overcautious. I'm glad to hear you you no longer think those thoughts. I almost lost a cousin to suicide, and arguably my brother as well (though it's hard to say if he was serious or trying to scream for help), and I had a friend confide in me she was cutting herself. They all got help, but such things really show someone how important it is to remain vigilant for signs of suicide and self-harm, which is why earlier on this thread when someone mentioned just that, whether it was a joke or was serious, I took it serious. I probably seem crazy but I'd rather be crazy and know the topic was brought up and hopefully that someone got help than remain silent.

[linguoboy]

I should've known that since they had them in Cologne they'd have them in Berlin. They're streetcars or a tram, it doesn't matter. They're essentially the same thing. Old streetcars functioned the same, running on non-electrified tracks using wires above, usually as 1 or 2 car combinations. I suppose one could argue that trams have more cars.

I suppose you could say that technically "streetcar" is an older name carried forward to a similar but distinct technology (like icebox), but it's probably a more common name among people in the US, who mostly only see them when they go on vacation somewhere.

When I lived in German, me and my fellow Americans just called this the "S-Bahn", in the same way that the big school cafeteria was the "Mensa".

[Viktor77]

I should've known that since they had them in Cologne they'd have them in Berlin. They're streetcars or a tram, it doesn't matter. They're essentially the same thing. Old streetcars functioned the same, running on non-electrified tracks using wires above, usually as 1 or 2 car combinations. I suppose one could argue that trams have more cars.

I suppose you could say that technically "streetcar" is an older name carried forward to a similar but distinct technology (like icebox), but it's probably a more common name among people in the US, who mostly only see them when they go on vacation somewhere.

When I lived in German, me and my fellow Americans just called this the "S-Bahn", in the same way that the big school cafeteria was the "Mensa".

I looked this up and it appears to be another British/American usage difference. In Britain it's called a tram/tramcar and in America it's called a streetcar and sometimes a trolley and light rail according to certain standards. I don't know if trolleys use overhead wires though. The San Francisco trolley is technically a cable car system and doesn't use overhead wires from what I've read.

In doing this I just read that Vienna has one of the largest streetcar/tram system in Europe. I'll have to make a trip there to ride it, especially the older ones like this. I am a real nerd for streetcars because I love how obnoxious the infrastructure has to be for the overhead wiring system. It's a bit like these things that used to be called arc lamps, you can still see them in Austin today. They are obnoxiously bulky and require a ton of wires and for some reason I find that incredibly quaint.

[Bristel]

After a few years of not having a bad cold, I suddenly got a bad cold on Tueday after walking around all day in the rain... (probably a bad choice). I'm getting better now, at least.

[jal]

Regardless of what it is, I want to know how this organized chaos functions.

Well, you're still alive, so probably there was something signalling you to step out of the way :).

@Imralu: sorry to hear about your music. Good to hear you saw the therapist/counsellor (is there much of a difference?).


JAL

[Imralu]

I should've known that since they had them in Cologne they'd have them in Berlin. They're streetcars or a tram, it doesn't matter. They're essentially the same thing. Old streetcars functioned the same, running on non-electrified tracks using wires above, usually as 1 or 2 car combinations. I suppose one could argue that trams have more cars.

I have no distinction in my lect. I come from a city where there have not been trams for about fifty years, since a fire at the depot basically wiped them all out. I went to Melbourne once and they have trams there, I think mostly only two carriages, but I don't really remember.

and yet here comes a tram and no one gets hit, everyone gets out of the way even though I didn't see any obvious sign the tram was coming. [...] But these trams often run right through squares were people congregate, and that's what I find bizarre, but oddly charming too.

Um, people are aware of their surroundings? You don't just stand around where the tracks are and get out of the way when a tram comes through. It would only be a problem if the place were genuinely crowded and hard to move through. Alexanderplatz has all kinds of markets and things at various times of the year, Oktoberfest, Christmas markets etc, but the area around the tram tracks always stays pretty clear of people. It's like a road, I guess. You cross it when it's safe but don't just hang out there. And it's not as if the trams go racing along there.

When I lived in German, me and my fellow Americans just called this the "S-Bahn", in the same way that the big school cafeteria was the "Mensa".

What city did you live in? Where is the tram called the S-Bahn? If you talk about the S-Bahn here, you're talking about something else. The tram is called die Tram or die Straßenbahn. In Berlin, there's ...

Tram / Straßenbahn
S-Bahn
U-Bahn

I'm glad you got to see the guy, even if his title is not what you expected and he might be a bit awkward to speak too. And I'm glad he will make time for you. People are usually kind if we give them a chance. I've found that here. I think we like to assume that people are out to get us but really the evidence is quite to the contrary, people love to help. I think people find purpose and meaning in being able to help those who need help and are appreciative of it. Bah, I probably sound like some freaking preacherman but no, I'm not religious, I just think people are genuinely kind, most of them anyway.

Yeah, I basically find that I'm constantly pleasantly surprised by individual people and deeply disappointed by masses of people. Anyway, this guy works for an organisation that is, in part, government funded, and partially by donations from organisations and individuals. They're there to help people like me. It seems a bit strange to me that this service is only really available to me because I'm gay ... like, I could be straight and have more or less the same set of problems and I really don't know where I'd go then. It's the first time in my life it's been an advantage ... I suppose I could lie, but I've met very few straight guys willing to pretend to.

Anyway, thank you to the person who suggested it to me. I don't know how much of a private lurker you want to be, but you know who you are and I am really grateful!

I know it can seem obnoxious that they are so cautious and perhaps even verging on profiling with regards to implying you could be suicidal or could inflict self-harm, but unfortunately as I'm sure you know there's no way to find a proper balance on this subject.

Yeah, I completely understand why it was necessary. I had been explaining my situation for a while, and the catch 22 I'm in now is pretty fucked, and I'm clearly very depressed ... and I hadn't yet mentioned that I'm actually in quite a good place in terms of my awareness that this is not me and it's not the truth, it's just mental illness, so I know that it's normal that he asked me that ... it just really brought home to me where I am and what's going on. It's been years since a professional has had the talk with me about suicidal urges and it was just a bit like "Yep, I'm here again." I recently told a friend of mine how bad things have been in my head and reassured her that I'm not a danger to myself and she told me she didn't feel that she needed to worry about me because she's seen how disciplined I am with avoiding alcohol and drugs or anything that could make it worse. Apparently I'm not just a ball of chaos careening off course, which is how I feel most of the time, so that's reassuring. *stares at the growing pile of trash in my room*

I'm glad to hear you you no longer think those thoughts. I almost lost a cousin to suicide, and arguably my brother as well (though it's hard to say if he was serious or trying to scream for help), and I had a friend confide in me she was cutting herself. They all got help, but such things really show someone how important it is to remain vigilant for signs of suicide and self-harm, which is why earlier on this thread when someone mentioned just that, whether it was a joke or was serious, I took it serious. I probably seem crazy but I'd rather be crazy and know the topic was brought up and hopefully that someone got help than remain silent.

Yeah. It's amazing how unvigilant some people can be actually. Aside from a couple of very close friends, no one would even have suspected that I had depression for essentially all of my teenage years. A friend of mine, a teacher and my mother all found out about about a self-inflicted injury and when it became a big deal, I said it was the cat and they all believed me (and were all angry with me) and no one ever sat me down and asked me if I was OK or encouraged me to talk about how I was feeling about everything. I managed to tell a couple of friends about self-harming once I thought I had stopped, but didn't tell them when I started again and I never told anyone until years later that I had once planned to kill myself, but even aside from when I had actually decided to do it, I daydreamed about killing myself all the time, usually in really violent ways, and I was kind of passively suicidal - I'd do things like choosing to sit right at the front of the front carriage of the train because the only passengers who have died in suburban train accidents in my city were sitting at the front. It's only been in the last five or so years that I've started talking more openly about how bad things were in my head back then it's shocked a few friends of mine who were there at the time and just thought I was a bit weird. I think my mother has also finally accepted that depression is a real thing. Back then, it was mostly only fear that was holding me back, and sometimes the fear would seem not so bad compared to how other things were in my head. That fear would at least drive me to seek help a few times when things started spiralling. Now it's both fear and the fact that I actually like myself now, and that's a much more lasting, stable reason to keep living and I can't see that changing. I really want to see things get better.

I hope Chagen's OK. Chagen, if you're reading this, I'm thinking about you.

_________________________

OH MY FUCKING GOD! I was just working on music and then Windows fucking shut my computer down to install some updates. Hadn't saved it recently and can't open it anyway. SHITFUCKINGJESUSCUNTYCOCK! I just changed a setting on my computer that I didn't know existed so that this can't happen again. Gah, now I'm making angry music. ...

Damn, I forgot about this message and it stayed open all that time. Made [ur=https://soundcloud.com/demidron/sinisterl]kind of angry music.[/url]

The my friend managed to rescue what I was working on the other night, so I'm happy, even though I lost a kind of fun track.

[Viktor77]

Imralu, I don't know if I'd have gotten out of the way of the tram if it weren't for my husband who keeps an eye on me when I randomly decide to zone out in the middle of a busy street. I get distracted by something, a pretty building usually, and I swear I could walk into a wall by accident.

I had no idea you were going to an LGBT organization in Berlin. You are completely right that it is rather odd that the fact you're gay means you can get support. Do you have to justify it with some sort of sexual orientation coping issue?

Computers suck. Is yours old? Mine is and if I could justify the expense (I'm debating it), I might buy a new one as it is physically falling apart (plus it's from like 2009 or something). I've thought about buying a new laptop in Europe but I'm weary of a few things. Mostly the lack of a working DVD player with all of my US DVDs, and the fact that the keyboard layout is different from the one I've memorized. It would be very nice to have accent marks on my computer as right now everything I write in French I have to write it in Word and then use spell check to add accents (which involves some odd trickery like making all past participles in -er feminine in agreement such as parlee to trigger spell check to then correct it to lack of agreement such as parlé since a past particle ie. parle without a final accent is equivalent to a present tense verb and won't trigger spell check. Also the à is almost never triggered as well, meaning I have to write laa, so I can spell check it to là and then erase the l to get à.). And no, I do not have a number pad on my laptop for alt codes.

People tell me I could buy the cheapest computers in Germany but I need French accents and I'm unsure if French/German/Dutch computers are sold with a standard layout accommodating accent marks across all languages or if each language has their own dedicated keyboard accommodating only the accents necessary in their respective languages.

I'll have to check out MediaMarkt Deutschland and compare it to MediaMarkt in Belgium and the Netherlands, see what type of keyboard they have and the price differences with tax and see if a trip to Aachen or Maastricht is worth it for a computer. My friends tell me they take mass trips to Aachen to buy cosmetics so if it's anything like that it might well be worth it.

*Edit*

Actually a Dutch keyboard might be best for me because it's QWERTY and not AZERTY (or QWERTZ in Germany) and they have buttons for all major French accents, just not as dedicated letters, but rather as buttons you press to add accents.

[finlay]

You know that this is all done by software, not hardware, right? You don't need to have a keyboard with the letters physically reproduced on top of them in order to be able to type those letters. Modern computers should be able to switch directly to a French-language layout or another international one capable of typing accents (dead keys are better).

Also region-locking on DVDs was cracked like two decades ago. Your default player will still enforce it, but at the end of the day you just have boot up VLC.

[Viktor77]

You know that this is all done by software, not hardware, right? You don't need to have a keyboard with the letters physically reproduced on top of them in order to be able to type those letters. Modern computers should be able to switch directly to a French-language layout or another international one capable of typing accents (dead keys are better).

Also region-locking on DVDs was cracked like two decades ago. Your default player will still enforce it, but at the end of the day you just have boot up VLC.

Yes, so my husband has since informed me of. I'm not a computer person. I now have a nice US International keyboard setting with deadkeys.

Still I need a new computer and if I buy one I'll either go to the NL or buy it online from the US.

[finlay]

Yeah, but the point is having to get a new computer and having to type in French are different issues entirely . And sometimes the keyboard does make a difference - at least, in the sense that Japan is one of the only countries to have a completely divergent keyboard standard from any other sodding country. It has extra buttons and everything - for a week or two I kept hitting ¥ instead of backspace (and it has extra buttons to switch the keyboard layout from Japanese to English next to the space bar which can be annoyingly difficult to accidentally press - oh and bizarrely, the caps lock and control keys are switched). But I kind of had to buy it with a Japanese keyboard because I was buying from the Apple refurbished store. It was much cheaper basically.

[jal]

everything I write in French I have to write it in Word and then use spell check to add accents

If you use Word on Windows, it's easy to add accents by typing Ctrl-' for accent aigu followed by a vowel, Ctrl-Shift-6 (which is Ctrl-^ of course) for accent circumflex, Ctrl-` for accent grave and Ctrl-Shift-; (which is Ctrl-:) for tréma. For c-cedilla, use Ctrl-, + c/C. I'm sure on an Apple there's some other trick. Also, if you have something else beside Word, you can always use the good old DOS combinations (like Alt-130 for é), but they require some memorizing.

That said, you can always install the US International keyboard layout in Windows, which will give you deadkeys for the accents (' for aigu, ` for grave, " for trema, ^ for circumflex - I'm not sure how to get c-cedilla).

And no, I do not have a number pad on my laptop for alt codes.

Of course you have. It may be hidden under Fn, but I've never seen a laptop that has no numpad whatsoever. You probably have a NumLock as well, which proves the point.

I'm unsure if French/German/Dutch computers are sold with a standard layout accommodating accent marks across all languages

Dutch laptops are sold with standard US keyboard layout. German laptops are bound to have QWERTZ.

Actually a Dutch keyboard might be best for me because it's QWERTY and not AZERTY (or QWERTZ in Germany) and they have buttons for all major French accents, just not as dedicated letters, but rather as buttons you press to add accents.

No-one ever uses the Dutch keyboard layout, and laptops sold in the Netherlands don't have it (instead they go for standard US layout). You *might* be able to find a normal keyboard with Dutch layout, but they are rare and annoying since all the special characters are in different locations (I happen to have one, but I blind-type it).

EDIT:

Still I need a new computer and if I buy one I'll either go to the NL or buy it online from the US.

Don't forget that if you go for the latter, you can expect a hefty import levy!


JAL

[Viktor77]

everything I write in French I have to write it in Word and then use spell check to add accents

If you use Word on Windows, it's easy to add accents by typing Ctrl-' for accent aigu followed by a vowel, Ctrl-Shift-6 (which is Ctrl-^ of course) for accent circumflex, Ctrl-` for accent grave and Ctrl-Shift-; (which is Ctrl-:) for tréma. For c-cedilla, use Ctrl-, + c/C. I'm sure on an Apple there's some other trick. Also, if you have something else beside Word, you can always use the good old DOS combinations (like Alt-130 for é), but they require some memorizing.

That said, you can always install the US International keyboard layout in Windows, which will give you deadkeys for the accents (' for aigu, ` for grave, " for trema, ^ for circumflex - I'm not sure how to get c-cedilla).

And no, I do not have a number pad on my laptop for alt codes.

Of course you have. It may be hidden under Fn, but I've never seen a laptop that has no numpad whatsoever. You probably have a NumLock as well, which proves the point.

I'm unsure if French/German/Dutch computers are sold with a standard layout accommodating accent marks across all languages

Dutch laptops are sold with standard US keyboard layout. German laptops are bound to have QWERTZ.

Actually a Dutch keyboard might be best for me because it's QWERTY and not AZERTY (or QWERTZ in Germany) and they have buttons for all major French accents, just not as dedicated letters, but rather as buttons you press to add accents.

No-one ever uses the Dutch keyboard layout, and laptops sold in the Netherlands don't have it (instead they go for standard US layout). You *might* be able to find a normal keyboard with Dutch layout, but they are rare and annoying since all the special characters are in different locations (I happen to have one, but I blind-type it).

EDIT:

Still I need a new computer and if I buy one I'll either go to the NL or buy it online from the US.

Don't forget that if you go for the latter, you can expect a hefty import levy!

Ah I forgot about the hefty import tax. I'm happy Dutch keyboards mimic the US but just in US International style because that is most helpful for me. Honestly I don't understand why we have so many different layouts. Why not standardize this once and for all. We can have keyboards with language-specific accent marks, of course, but this QWERTY/QWERTZ/AZERTY thing is a bit of a mess, no?

I have just another rant quickly, and that is that I really need to work on distinguishing /ɑ̃/ and /ɔ̃/ in French which is oddly difficult for an American speaker. I can never seem to manage to produce a good /ɑ/, even in Hungarian I was told that I sounded like a Hungarian Slovak because of my fronting of /ɑ/ (and also fronting of /a/). /ɔ/ is also not the easiest phoneme even though it exists in my dialect.

Here they also distinguish /œ̃/ and /ɛ̃/ but I doubt I'll ever manage to do it since I was taught Parisian pronunciation where these two sounds have merged.

[KathTheDragon]

Honestly I don't understand why we have so many different layouts. Why not standardize this once and for all. We can have keyboards with language-specific accent marks, of course, but this QWERTY/QWERTZ/AZERTY thing is a bit of a mess, no?

https://xkcd.com/927/

[Travis B.]

I have just another rant quickly, and that is that I really need to work on distinguishing /ɑ̃/ and /ɔ̃/ in French which is oddly difficult for an American speaker. I can never seem to manage to produce a good /ɑ/, even in Hungarian I was told that I sounded like a Hungarian Slovak because of my fronting of /ɑ/ (and also fronting of /a/). /ɔ/ is also not the easiest phoneme even though it exists in my dialect.

That is because you natively speak an Inland North dialect.

[finlay]

distinguishing an and on in french is difficult for like, most english speakers, not just americans, although the way we're taught french in school means most of us distinguish un and in, which most french speakers don't. how ironic

[Viktor77]

distinguishing an and on in french is difficult for like, most english speakers, not just americans, although the way we're taught french in school means most of us distinguish un and in, which most french speakers don't. how ironic

I'm glad to hear it's something that's not just isolated to American speakers or for speakers of my dialect Inland North as Travis has indicated where we have a seriously fronted, almost central basically /ɑ/. I think all this means that my <an> is actually closer to /ɔ̃/ (the actual <on>) and thus to distinguish it my <on> becomes /õ/.

I'm surprised you learned to distinguish <un> and <in> because I didn't. We covered it in a phonetics class, but I don't have any distinction in my speech so I must've picked up the merger from teachers, which makes sense since most of my teachers studied in Paris. Oddly enough, and it may just be an error, but I seem to have kept /œ̃/ and not /ɛ̃/, where literature seems to show it's the opposite.