Deutsch

I am currently taking three German classes. This is part of my desperate attempt to complete two majors in  3.5 years. So far it seems to be working.

I wanted to share with you a few thoughts on the delightful German language.

First of all, it really does not sound all that terrible. That stereotype comes from World War II and Hitler. Hitler was a truly interesting speaker. His spittle kept the front ten rows of listeners quite active as they attempted to dodge the flying liquid.

Real German speakers who aren't evil dictators actually sound rather lovely in my opinion.

I may be biased. After all, my Grandmother is German and I grew up around the language.

I have other reasons why German is the best language.

Everyone should take German. Why? Because it's damn easy. That's why.

1. EVERYTHING is phonetic. You can sound EVERY SINGLE WORD OUT. This is good for those of us who became voracious readers at a young age. Some people (such as me) learned how to read phonetically and then started reading more advanced books and then sounded like an idiot when they said such things as "Protest-ant" or "guest-ture" or "wreck-loose." Language is a difficult thing. I vote we abolish silent letters. Or we could all just speak German and pronounce everything the way it should be.

2. German is incredibly easy to learn how to speak if you already know English. Basically, English and German are both Germanic languages. Which means they're more similar to each other in terms of sentence pattern, words, idioms, etc, than English and French (SERIOUSLY WHO TAKES THIS LANGUAGE?!) or English and Spanish (ok, I can see why this one is helpful.) Want examples? Whenever I don't know how to say something in German, I just say it in English and put a German accent on it. 9 out of 10 times, I am correct. Control? Kontrolieren. Dance? Tanzt. Pepper? Pfeffer. Salt? Saltz. Dog? Hund. Cat? Katze. Brother? Bruder. Bank? Bank. Come? Kommen. Even if the word isn't exact, you can usually figure it out. Flowers? Blumen. Post office? Post. Fur? Pelz.

3. Another lovely thing is that you really don't need to learn many words to speak German. After you know a few handfuls, you just stuff them altogether to make new words. Example? Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl. Literally the words together+belonging+feeling= sense/feeling of community. Lovely. This is especially nice because I am lazy and don't like to look up words. You can basically figure out the gist of what any word means by looking at the different parts.

4. Grimms' Fairy Tales. Yes. The bloodier/sexualized versions of Disney stories. Only these came first. Did you know Snow White's step-mother was tortured to death at her wedding? Yeah, she was forced to wear white hot iron shoes while she danced UNTIL SHE DIED. Rapunzel? Not such a sweet wholesome girl. Originally, the sorceress found out about the prince because he knocked Rapunzel up and her clothes stopped fitting.

5. German is super easy to learn because there are real rules. Not English rules where they're only used every ten times, these are consistant. Exceptions are rare, not the rule. Why? Because they were made up by Germans and Germans follow the rules. Always. That's one of the rules. For instance, the verb comes second. ALWAYS. It is the second part of the sentence.

6. Everyone who speaks German is a boss. Also guys who take German are generally hot. Or Jewish. Or both. This has been my experience in German classes at least. The girls who learn German? Hit or miss. Either they're smoking or they look like a witch on crack. Which could be appealing, if you're into that kind of thing.

7. The Germans are all about sex. All the time. Everywhere. Every movie you watch in German classes will be about sex. Every story you read will have sexual undertones. Or overtones. It is a) hysterically funny and b) super entertaining and c) makes fabulous conversations. Or should I say, Konversationen?



Here is a video of my aunt torturing my grandmother. She is rather old and helpless. She can say squirrel in both German and English, though. Apparently a lot of other Germans can't. Wanna know why? BECAUSE ENGLISH IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN/SPEAK/UNDERSTAND. Especially those fucking abrevs.