Mark twain on German

I found this the other day. Mark Twain is incredibly hilarious:

Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

Here's the rest of the essay.

Progress Report

This is a little thing I wrote more for Rotary back home than the blog, but it's no secret, so I'll put it here too.

The honeymoon is definitely over. Summer is over, and the rapidly shortening days have shut the door firmly on further warm weather. My German, though adequate for the purposes of everyday conversation, doesn't allow me to really read the book in German class or give me voice in a discussion in Ethics. My throat hurts, and I hope it isn't the swine flu. In short, every day has ceased to be better than the last. You warned me this would happen.

But don't worry too much. Even the darkest days are shot through with little moments of brilliance. Maybe it's some combination of song and scenery on the bus ride to school, maybe a beautiful configuration of the ever-changing clouds. Some days it's a good conversation, another word, another piece of the German jigsaw puzzle. Whatever it is, I seem to catch a lot more of it here than before. Being in a foreign land really gets your brain going on new directions, changes the way you think. That's another thing you told me.

Thanks for everything,

David Loring

This is a passage from the book I am reading in German class, Der Sandmann by E.T.A Hoffman.I have in general had a lot of trouble with this book, because it's old, thick German prose, but it is pretty dang awesome. Take this passage, where the Sandman fable is told. I did the translation, so sorry about that.

"I asked the old lady, whom my youngest sister waited on, who this Sandman was. 'Oh, child,' said she 'don't you know? He is a bad man, who comes to children who don't go to bed and throws a handful of sand in their eyes, so that their eyeballs jump bloodily out of their heads, which he gathers in his sack and takes up to the half-moon to feed his children, who sit there in a nest and who have owl's beaks, with which they pick the disobedient childrens' eyes out.'"

Awesome, oder?

Observation From Weinfest

The only difference between a drunk German and a sober German seems to be a slightly increased proclivity to sing.