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Don't Compromise: Germanize!

May 12, 2003

Are you eurotrash with no place to crash? Deutsche Welle has a new home for people like you: The Instant Germanizer.

https://p.dw.com/p/3cqx
Deutsche Welle's new Web site offers sausage swingers and a whole lot more.

Raucous laughter from page one sets the tone for The Instant Germanizer, http://www.germanizer.com, the latest multimedia Web site offered by Deutsche Welle.

Before gaining access to our exclusive online red carpet club, you have to go through an initiation process. Don't worry, we're not talking about hazing or college entrance exams here -- just some good old fashioned Trivial Pursuit style quizes and games. In "Talk der Lingo," you can learn about the peculiarities of the German language and culture. "Cookooks Knock" plays on the stereotype of German punctuality and "Spot the German" asks the user to do exactly what its name implies.

Once the tests are completed, you get access to an array of interactive features such as a German language course (which is important if, say, you wanted to order pigs trotters and sour cabbage in German), news and humor from Germany and a discussion forum.

It gets better -- you can also send in photos from vacation in Germany and send them to friends as E-cards. And we're not talking stale pics here -- our editors pick the coolest -- so send in your Baywatch best from a beach in northern Germany or snapshots from your rocking good time at Oktoberfest. (By the way, since we're trying to Germanize you, the Quarter Pounder isn't the only thing that has a different name here: Baywatch is known to its millions of German fans as Die Rettungsschwimmer von Malibu, or The Lifeguards of Malibu.)

Breaking the mold

"Deutsche Welle is renowned for being a provider of serious news and information. With The Instant Germanizer, we’ve aimed to break the mold and focus on the fun aspects of German life and culture," says Guido Baumhauer, head of DW-Online. "The act of joining a club is in itself a very typical German trait. The Germanizer club offers users all over the world the opportunity to enter competitions and win Germany-related prizes."

The site's the perfect place to find out how German you are. And if being German isn't your thing, it's still a great place to learn more about Europe's biggest country -- from sauerkraut and sausage to dirndls and cuckoo clocks.