Tweet
I had a language adventure last night!
I've been attending German class one night a week for five years now. I'm a descendant of about 10 generations of German speakers including my Dad, who was born here but spoke only German until he was five years old. I found an adult German course that wasn't expensive, wasn't very demanding (1.5 Hours per week, and on Zoom since the lockdown, with no tests and no grades), so I said "Why not?".
Well, I said there were no tests, but last night 16mm gave me one!
Die Kuh showed up from E-bay a couple of days ago, labeled for the West German Embassy to Canada in Ottawa. It has the look of early 1960s television.
Now here's the thing about learning foreign languages: for most of us, real fluency is kind of elusive. Native Speakers started learning when they were babies, it's a pretty faint hope to catch up with them for somebody that started in their fifties! Yes, you can learn many words and the grammar, and I seem to be getting fairly good at reading it, but decoding a native speaker going full tilt is hard! Last night I had the same reaction I often do: "We don't speak this fast in class: please slow down!" (It's all processing speed.)
Then they hit you with some word or phrase you don't know and after that, it's like going down a flight of stairs on roller skates!
(I had the same problems with Spanish when I worked in Mexico...)
-so the smallest details of conversations ran past me like fence pickets in a tornado, but I got the basic idea. An advertising agency is doing a campaign for a dairy company featuring a cow out in a field. They are having trouble drawing her because they don't know which of the front or back legs a cow stands up with first. They go visit a farm and all they see is a cow fertilizing the pasture! -So they ask the Ad. executives: they don't know. -So the Ad. Execs ask the president of the company: he doesn't know. -So he gets on the phone and calls the Ministry of Agriculture. By the end of the movie this question is swirling around the top echelons of the German government!
-so despite me missing the lurid details of whatever the Boss was saying to that stunning blonde secretary (she smiled...), I got the basic gist!
I'm giving myself a "C+", and maybe putting "Die Kuh" on the shelf for a few months! (I might injure myself!)
I've been attending German class one night a week for five years now. I'm a descendant of about 10 generations of German speakers including my Dad, who was born here but spoke only German until he was five years old. I found an adult German course that wasn't expensive, wasn't very demanding (1.5 Hours per week, and on Zoom since the lockdown, with no tests and no grades), so I said "Why not?".
Well, I said there were no tests, but last night 16mm gave me one!
Die Kuh showed up from E-bay a couple of days ago, labeled for the West German Embassy to Canada in Ottawa. It has the look of early 1960s television.
Now here's the thing about learning foreign languages: for most of us, real fluency is kind of elusive. Native Speakers started learning when they were babies, it's a pretty faint hope to catch up with them for somebody that started in their fifties! Yes, you can learn many words and the grammar, and I seem to be getting fairly good at reading it, but decoding a native speaker going full tilt is hard! Last night I had the same reaction I often do: "We don't speak this fast in class: please slow down!" (It's all processing speed.)
Then they hit you with some word or phrase you don't know and after that, it's like going down a flight of stairs on roller skates!
(I had the same problems with Spanish when I worked in Mexico...)
-so the smallest details of conversations ran past me like fence pickets in a tornado, but I got the basic idea. An advertising agency is doing a campaign for a dairy company featuring a cow out in a field. They are having trouble drawing her because they don't know which of the front or back legs a cow stands up with first. They go visit a farm and all they see is a cow fertilizing the pasture! -So they ask the Ad. executives: they don't know. -So the Ad. Execs ask the president of the company: he doesn't know. -So he gets on the phone and calls the Ministry of Agriculture. By the end of the movie this question is swirling around the top echelons of the German government!
-so despite me missing the lurid details of whatever the Boss was saying to that stunning blonde secretary (she smiled...), I got the basic gist!
I'm giving myself a "C+", and maybe putting "Die Kuh" on the shelf for a few months! (I might injure myself!)
Comment