Eve Bennett’s Escape to Berlin
Szilvi Daczó
Alexander Cahlenstein
Take a motivated student studying at the ‘Other Place’ and vlogging her life at uni – add a dash of chattiness and a sprinkle of pizzazz and there you have Eve Bennett! She is a student reading German and Spanish at the University of Oxford, one in a wave of new StudyTubers: vloggers who share “bomb” revision techniques you won't follow and productive 5AM morning routine you won't recreate.
Eve is completing her year abroad in Berlin. She made her move when the timing was right and the number of new Covid infections had comparatively slowed down. This is when I became interested in her story. I took note of how her moving process differs from mine, and wanted to explore these in more depth. As an international fresher, I knew that unusual rules would apply to me in these infection-filled times. Then there was Eve – flying off into the distance rather easily. Good for you, Eve! What is good for us, however, is that she documents the highs and lows of her new life on her YouTube channel. Sometimes these vlogs are even in German, a great way to procrastinate in the name of enhancing your listening skills!
In August 2020, the time of her move, travel was starting up again. Restrictions were in place, but she was able to bring her mum along without the stress of having to quarantine for fourteen days. Meanwhile, I myself am writing this from self-isolation – Corona-Krise Round 2…
Szilvi’s view from self-isolation in Cambridge
Once settled in, Eve did the “cheeky apartment tour” required of every YouTuber who moves house. While she is living in a shared apartment in the city, I am on college grounds. My accommodation is guaranteed by college, hers… not so much. Like many students in Germany, Eve is doing a Pflichtpraktikum (mandatory work experience), a status that is of advantage to her, as it facilitates getting a flat. In her case, finding a WG (short for Wohngemeinschaft: a shared living space) happened through an app, on which you need to advertise yourself to receive an offer (or even an interview) not far in advance of your move-in date. In other cases, you might have to stay in an Airbnb whilst on a hunt for a flat because the market is just that competitive. All on your own. Scary, especially compared to the undergrad prospectus claiming that your accommodation is guaranteed (basically years in advance) at Oxbridge.
That said, renting privately gives you the freedom of choice. Do you want a single-sex WG with students only? A living situation very similar to a college corridor can be sorted. (But to get the room Emma Thompson lived in during her student years – that can only be offered in Cambridge…)
Sharing such personal matters online is divisive. Personally, I would never upload my towels onto the Internet, but some enjoy it when others air their dirty laundry online, literally or figuratively. I view Eve’s move as entertainment and like to switch off with her videos or similar ones. Her videos in German are a different story though, and I find them more illuminating than binging Friends for a fifth time…
As of writing this article, Eve has uploaded two videos filmed in German and I have noticed some peculiarities in her speech. Disclaimer: the below lines are notes of an amateur. This is not a classification of Eve’s skills, simply an account of her pronunciation judged by some clips.
‘So I’ve been told that you can still notice my English accent,’ Eve has noted in one of her videos. Indeed you can, but as others have said, it’s cute. Her linguistic features do not hinder the understanding of what she says. Personal idiosyncrasies aside, an accent is established by a group of people pronouncing words with common features. Therefore, what I have to say might fit other native English-speakers as well.
Rolling the ‘R’
German speakers are said to talk aggressively, which may be because of the frequency of consonants. While Eve can perfectly pronounce most of them, aforementioned cuteness arises from the ‘r’ sound pronounced like an urge to swallow it, moving the sides of the tongue in an upward curl. By contrast, Germans voice one type of the ‘r’ sound coming from the throat (although a soft ‘r’ exists as well).
The lovely ‘ch’
Germans pronounce words such as ‘natürlich’ and ‘ich’ with a soft ‘h’ sound. However, Eve routinely says these words as ‘natürliSH’ and ‘iSH’. It basically sounds as if she doesn’t differentiate between words with a ‘ch’ and ‘sch’ (like ‘Geschäft). In my opinion, this comes from the lack of this sort of ‘s’ in English. Britons just don’t use their ‘ssh!’ enough.
If you are Hungarian like me, you already have a voiced, German-sounding ‘s’ in your alphabet. We therefore don’t have an issue with pronouncing this sound, as our soft-sounding ‘sz’ is the one that is equivalent to the English ‘s’.
The dots on top slip off
The German alphabet has letters like ‘ü’ and ‘ö’, as in ‘hübsch’ or ‘Wörter’. They are also found in Hungarian, but not in English. That is why Eve says ‘zum Gluch’ instead of ‘zum Glück’ (note the ‘k’ as a ‘ch’ as well) or ‘flussiger’ when ‘flüssiger’ would be more German. Again, this is not a fault, rather an ability or habit.
I am not implying that Hungarians speaking German have better pronunciation. Rather, I am trying to demonstrate that even if English is a West Germanic language, Hungarian as a Finno-Ugric one has been in more contact with German over the past centuries, thus enabling it to implement German letters and sounds into its writing and speech.
Here are some of her videos I would recommend: