Fußball (Football, Soccer)

The Germans are into Fußball. Nathan has been given lessons in the basic positional patterns (4/3/3 and 4/4/2), optimal substitution times (45, 55, 60 or 75 minutes), the best attributes at each position (eg very tall, heavier players for centre defenders compared to smaller and quicker players as the outside defenders).

Nathan has even been assigned a football team to barrack for - Borussia Dortmund. The reason being that they have the same colours as his NRL team - the Wests Tigers. Normally Nathan doesn't tell people that he goes for the Tigers, as they are usually near the bottom of the table. The year that he's out of Australia, they are doing the best they've ever done since the Balmain Tigers were in the grand final in 1989. Tomorrow they are playing in the Preliminary final against St George for a place in the Grand final! [Later note - they won, and are in the grand final!!!]

Borussia is currently in 9th place out of 18 teams.

Difficult German language concept: Separable verbs (Trennenbare Verben)
In German, you can combine verbs with prefixes to give different meanings. eg aufstehen = up stand = get up. Zusammenbauen = together build = assemble. There is a similar concept in English, such as overhear, understand, describe. And, just like English, there are some seperable verbs that don't make intuitive sense. eg übersitzen = Over Put = Translate. aufhören = on listen = stop. That's not so bad, except that these verbs are separable, which means that the preposition is usually said at the end of the sentence. I'll give you an equivelant english example:

Did you hear what they said over? = Did you overhear what they said?

What makes it even worse, is that different prepositions at the end of the sentence will change the meaning totally, and you might not remember the rest of the sentence by the time you work out the main action taking place.

eg
I can't stand the attack under the wall at our left flank which will leave our archers unprotected under.
I can't stand the attack under the wall at our left flank which will leave our archers unprotected with.

The Germans have fought many battles in their long history. I wonder how many were lost because the messenger forgot the last word?