Curses go out to all the people who discouraged me from taking German classes when I was in high school and college. They all said, "Don't take German, you will never use it. Take something you will use every day, like Spanish."
HA! Look where 2 years of high school and 2 years of college Spanish got me. Spanish doesn't help me when I want to buy sweet potatoes but don't see them in the store and want to ask for them. Spanish doesn't help me when I have to listen to the telemarketers and try to tell them I don't know the answers to their questions. And Spanish REALLY doesn't help me now when I can't figure out what kind of gas to put in my car and how to pay for it.
What I wouldn't give to already know how to count in German or say and understand the basics because I'm way too busy and distracted to learn them now.
7 comments:
So go to http://german.about.com/library/anfang/blanfang01.htm
Probably not very useful, but at least you'll sound polite, Ja?
Hi Joanna,
chances are good they don't have sweet potatos (Suesskartoffeln) anyways. I hardly ever ever got them.
Now for the telemarketers and the gas - I never really figured that one out either (and yes, I am German).
Fidi
It's ok. The 4 years of Spanish that I took haven't paid off one bit.
I can count! Maybe I can teach you when I'm over. Unfortunately, I dropped out of German after two weeks, so beyond counting all I can say is "Ich gehe nicht in die forlesung ich gehe in die kniepe" which is probably mispelled but I believe means, "I don't go to lectures I go to the bar." Hence dropping courses after only two weeks.
Thanks guys! I feel smarter :)
Kim, you made me laugh out loud!
I forgot to add that the funny thing is that when I am out, I think in Spanish, instead of English because I have to think in another language and that is what comes to me. It doesn't make much sense, but if I ever ran into a Spanish speaking person here, I could communicate, for sure.
When I was in China, we were playing a basketball game, and the Chinese guys were talking Chinese, and we were talking English, and they were understanding what we were saying, so then we spoke Spanish and we played better cause they didn't know what we were doing.
So in case you want to talk bad about someone in Germany, just rip them a new one in Spanish. They'll have no idea....hopefully
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