For our second EOTO activity, we decided to take advantage of the free events happening on “Tampere Day” on October 4. We met at the Pyynikki observation tower and started off by sitting inside the café, enjoying their well-known doughnuts with tea or coffee. While we were eating, we began our small language session for the day, focusing on Spanish and German. Since we had agreed early on not to dive too deeply into grammar, we kept it simple and mainly practiced basic phrases used when meeting someone for the first time. For example, my short introduction in German would be “Hallo, wie geht’s dir? Ich bin Eva. Wie heißt du?”, and in Spanish: “Hola, ¿cómo estás? Soy Etty. ¿Cómo te llamas?”
From my perspective as a German, teaching basic phrases like these felt natural, as greetings and introductions are an important part of everyday life in Germany. Inga and I also shared some typical German expressions and regional differences, which reminded me how diverse German culture is. Etty noted that in the Netherlands, greetings are often informal and can include casual slang, but the use of regional expressions is less pronounced than in Germany.
Once everyone felt comfortable with the basics, we went up to the top of the tower to enjoy the view and continue chatting. We used the time to share a few easy vocabulary words and some casual slang. In German, “Digga” is a common slang term similar to “bro”, while in Spanish “wey” is used in a similar way to mean “dude”. It was interesting to compare these informal expressions with Dutch slang, which is often playful and context-dependent.
Overall, the session was relaxed and fun, with a focus on simple Spanish and German phrases as well as some cultural insights. To wrap up the meeting, we took a short walk around the area, visited another café, and checked out some of the Tampere Day activities, such as the Tallipiha market and the horse-riding demonstrations.
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