"Re-Hi" Robert:
_*Time Zones and Telephones:*_
Here in Montreal it is now 14:26 Friday, so I was surprised to see an answer from Germany at this time. (I thought you would be asleep over there!) In Quebec, the time zone is Eastern North America (same as New York City) and the daylight savings rules are the same as the U.S. (although some provinces and states do not have daylight savings time e.g. Saskatchewan and, I think, New Mexico).
Added to the variants is the problem that there are so many people whose first language is not English, but who depend on English to bridge gaps between various other languages.
I wonder if it would be feasible to get your phone number and time zone. Some of these things involve short rapid-fire back and forth dialogue which can be somewhat arduous and slow on email, although computer lovers do it much faster than most others.
Added to that, English is, on one hand the most associative language as far as I know, but the downside is that it sadly lacks a lot of vocabulary, especially with its strong pragmatic focus. Consequently we are given to the endless use of elisions and acronyms to "mouth" the otherwise lengthy strings of words needed to carry the message and all its contextual links. (If it costs me 7 cents a minute to call the Netherlands, I would expect the cost to call Germany to be about the same. By comparison, a cup of coffee here can cost from $1.25 to $3.00 or $4.00, depending on the place.)
_*Montreal Diversity:*_
Added to that, the tone of voice or (using a term from Toastmasters International) "Vocal Variety" can make a big difference, especially if it fills a gap that is larger than ideal because of the lack of more precise vocabulary.
The little German I have seen in my days reminds me of the expression used on the door of the Video Tape recording shop in the English National Television Network headquarters of CBC in Toronto back in 1971 when I worked there for a short time - "magnetbandaufnamen" - magnetic tape recording, which ironically originated in Germany. 3 concepts linked in one word.
and more "Babel Babble"!...
As if all this was not enough, here, on the streets of Montreal there is no majority of race, creed, colour or language.
"If you live in Montreal, you don't need to spend money getting on an airplane to see the world - the whole world's at your doorstep!" You can expect about 80 languages in a day. The immigrants and their endlessly diverse mixture of descendants are the majority. Shall we now try and find someone to translate all this into Urdu, Farsi, Tie (one of endless African languages) or Gujarati (India)? Yet if you drove 35 km. out of Montreal you'd think it was a different country!
Best of luck, and if I can't get a number to call you, I can attach sound clips up to about 8 minutes max in voice quality, likely OGG Vorbis or MP3.
Best Regards,
Bruce Martin.
