Visum USA / Kanada (Sonstiges)

IVECO Tony , Wherever., Dienstag, 21. April 2015, 07:49 (vor 3296 Tagen) @ Muckiveco

Sigh! No I can't read, write or speak any useful amount of German. Just coping with English is about all I can handle.

I can count in German and since there are many words in German that are close enough to the English spelling (after all, English is a mishmash of several other languages), I can make out perhaps 3% of written German words. If it wasn't for the bad habit of stringing several little words together to make a long incomprehensible word, I might be able to manage 6%. Nowhere near enough to understand what is written here, especially when a lot of the subjects are technical.

For those VERY few Germans who have as little English as I have German (that I have yet to meet on the road in foreign countries though), could I suggest they use Firefox browser with the Google Translate add-on, or Google Chrome which has automatic translation. Both do a pretty good job of translating selected text or whole web pages. Never perfect, but good enough. Even the re-translation into English of your translation into German of my original in English still makes pretty good sense.
For emails, Thunderbird has a similar feature.

Those who are too set in their ways to upgrade can just assume I have nothing to contribute, and simply choose to ignore my posts - and those others that are in English.

Those trying to sell a vehicle would be smart if they went to the trouble of posting their adverts in both German and English, not only here, but on any similar Overlanding forum. If they also post the advert in French that would cover 99% of all those who dare to get out of their own country and travel the world in an RV

Forget English and forget German even, I am a member of forums that use French, Spanish and Portuguese plus in the past, Icelandic, Dutch and at the moment Turkish. Using Google translate, I can follow and even contribute in those languages, but the reason I don't bother posting in those languages is that Google translate sometimes does a lousy job of it and it is common for the members to have access to local on-line software that does a better job of their own language. I know Brasilians and Spanish speakers who look at this forum, but I don't see any need to write my posts in four or five different languages.

What were we talking about? Ah yes, visas. One thing that is certain is that no matter how restrictive some visas are, at least you can stay in most countries for three months and then move on for another period in another country (and then often return to the first country). Not so in the Schengen area for most foreigners. 90 days in any 6 months to cover almost all of Europe. That IS restrictive. At least Australians have a special deal with Germany and Sweden that makes it a lot better.

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Tony Lee
Photos at https://picasaweb.google.com/114611728110254134379
Travels map at https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=5cfc50ef7ac22ca2d&hoursPast=2400&...