What did you say?
The last few days our DVD player was having problems and not playing the DVDs correctly. It was an inexpensive one we bought a year and a half ago and the one-year guarantee ran out so it decided it was time to stop working. We decided yesterday to buy a new one so we could continue to watch Hungarian movies and practice our listening skills. We didn't want to just throw the old one in the trash, so we took it with us to the store to see if they would dispose of it for us. We went to the information counter and tried to explain in our best Hungarian that we just wanted this one disposed of and we wanted to buy a new one. At first she didn't quite understand us, but in a short time she figured out what we wanted and directed us to the service center.
At the service center we were able to communicate our desires right away to the clerk and she took the old DVD player to be thrown away. We then proceeded into the store to select a new player. Once we decided what we wanted, a clerk came and told us that he would give us a paper for a two-year guarantee for that model. We took this paper to the front to pay for the player, and then took the player, the receipt of payment and the paper for the two-year guarantee back to the service center to have them stamp all the papers to validate the guarantee. We talked with the same clerk we had just seen previously, and when she finished stamping the papers and gave them back to us, she said something to us that we didn't quite understand but assumed it had to do with the guarantee because I heard her use that word.
We took our new player and left and I (Mike) started thinking about what she said because it didn't sound like Hungarian. We have gotten used to the fact that when we try to order something at a restaurant or speak with clerks in a store in Hungarian, they will respond in English. This, however, definitely was not English and it wasn't Hungarian. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that the clerk said, "Zwei jahr garantie." She told us that it was a two-year guarantee in GERMAN!
Please, we're confused enough as it is. Don't throw in another language!
At the service center we were able to communicate our desires right away to the clerk and she took the old DVD player to be thrown away. We then proceeded into the store to select a new player. Once we decided what we wanted, a clerk came and told us that he would give us a paper for a two-year guarantee for that model. We took this paper to the front to pay for the player, and then took the player, the receipt of payment and the paper for the two-year guarantee back to the service center to have them stamp all the papers to validate the guarantee. We talked with the same clerk we had just seen previously, and when she finished stamping the papers and gave them back to us, she said something to us that we didn't quite understand but assumed it had to do with the guarantee because I heard her use that word.
We took our new player and left and I (Mike) started thinking about what she said because it didn't sound like Hungarian. We have gotten used to the fact that when we try to order something at a restaurant or speak with clerks in a store in Hungarian, they will respond in English. This, however, definitely was not English and it wasn't Hungarian. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that the clerk said, "Zwei jahr garantie." She told us that it was a two-year guarantee in GERMAN!
Please, we're confused enough as it is. Don't throw in another language!
posted by Mike and Nancy Juntunen @ 1:24 PM
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