Don't feel bad about your inability to speak German after only a few years'
formal education. Nowadays, American students aren't even taught enough
about their own language, a version of English, that they can read a few
paragraphs and understand what it was about, nor can they write more than a
paragraph about a single subject, before the "stream of consciousnes" takes
over and all purpose is lost.
I have two boys in their first few years of "higher" education and, having
met some of the people now entrusted with passing along an "education" to
them and others, I find them sadly lacking. They speak badly, read little
and fail miserably to express themselves succinctly and coherently in
writing. Current generation textbooks are showing the decline of the spoken
language here.
Sadly, the average German 15-year old not only speaks better German than our
average 35-year-old speaks english, but he speaks better English than that
same 35-year-old. Fifteen years ago, the average American had sufficient
command of English that he routinely used on the order of a hundred words to
express himself. Today's average is closer to 35 words. No wonder nobody
knows what's being said!
If you're making an honest effort in Europe, people will put up with your
deificiencies. If you expect them to speak your language, you're in for a
hard time.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list_at_wfi-inc.com>
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Tuesday, March 07, 2000 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: VCF Europa Update
Christian,
It hasn't helped me. I took 5 years of college German and speak less than
the average German 2 year old. Honestly, it's humiliating, because I'm
still in the habit of telling people that I know some German...only to
stumble on the most basic words and sentence structure. I think it would
come back pretty quick, but I don't have the time (or energy) to study it
on my own, and very little opportunity to use it in a practical setting
(despite Hans' brave attempt to try to understand my gibberish).
I still have a large bookshelf full of German classics; someday, someday.
Aaron
> Servus Hans,
>
> I warned Sellam about this but he said he's willing to go ahead with it!
> ;-) The cat's out of the bag now! I know well what it's like to try to
> learn German and after about eight years of periodic, unofficial, random
> self-teaching I can just about speak short simple sentences. If German was
> still taught in the schools around here I would have attempted to get
> tutoring would be much better I think. If he does in fact come to
> understand spoken High German he'll get confused hearing the Bavarian
> tongue though. I know! ;-) Heh heh heh . . .
>
> Bis sp?ter, Chris
> -- --
> Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
> Jamestown, NY USA cfandt_at_netsync.net
> Member of Antique Wireless Association
> URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
>
Received on Wed Mar 08 2000 - 00:01:28 GMT