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Linguistic love affair

Stacey Skotzko, Senior Staff Writer

(Dan Chudzinski)

I walk out of Upham Hall every Tuesday and Thursday around 5 p.m. and I have to switch my mode of thinking. I look around Academic quad and I don't think tree, bird and person, rather I think "der Baum," "der Vogel" and "der Mensch."

I'm a German minor and despite the fact that I get frustrated each semester over what classes to take in order to graduate, I always slip a German class in there somehow. It's the same story each semester too: I complain that I don't have the time to thoroughly study the language, yet I just can't seem to do without it. I worry about budgeting my time, but that class on Berlin literature was just so irresistible ...

Call me a bit crazy. I guess my love affair with the German language started in high school. My attempt to be a "nonconformist" at the time of scheduling for freshman classes was not signing up for Spanish, as all my other friends had done. Nope. I was going to take the road less traveled. I was German, after all. It made sense at the time.

I remember, quite vividly, my first day of German class. My teacher, who was also our varsity football coach, walked in and spoke nothing but German. There I was, a terrified freshman, and this man thought I could understand him. The class soon learned to make some sense of his gobbledygook speaking and learned a few phrases - from there, it was history. I stayed with the same class all four years of high school and learned to have an appreciation for Goethe, German Christmas songs and strange German soap operas. I was hooked.

I got to Miami University and signed up for a German class just to fulfill requirements. However, I tested quite well on placement tests and being the naive first-year that I was, I thought I could handle a 300-level class. Oh the beauty of first-year innocence.

I spent hours dissecting medieval texts that were way over my head, but having stubborn German blood in me, I wasn't going to quit. So I barely pulled an acceptable grade, but I completed the class. I even gave a final presentation without making a complete fool of myself.

I signed up for continual semesters, gradually learned other faculty members and what classes were suitable for what. I met other German students, mainly majors, who appreciated that German for "to vaccum" is "staubsaugen" - literally translates to "dust sucking."

Then last semester I was able to travel to Luxembourg and live with a German-speaking family. Even though my discussions in German often did not amount to much beyond what TV program the children were watching that evening, I was able to travel to Germany multiple times, watch German movies and visit my German foreign exchange student from high school. I was able to actually see the Berlin Wall, hike up a German castle and visit places from the darkest time in German history - including Auschwitz.

I was able to wander the streets and hear people speaking only German. I even had a small victory when I entered a German museum and was offered a German-language audio tour, because the museum worker thought I was a German traveler, not American. I took it from her - even if I didn't understand half the things that were said.

People wonder why I study German if other languages, such as Spanish, are more predominant in the United States. I have difficulty explaining that through German, I can more clearly understand English grammar. History makes more sense to me in certain contexts, as I can supplement my knowledge of U.S. events with German ones. In addition, my friends find me useful in trying to distinguish between light and dark German beer and I can walk into Steinkeller and understand what that painting on the wall says.

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I know that my passion for German is similar to other students' passions for other languages - French, Spanish, Italian or Chinese. I know that there is something exciting about learning how to communicate in a whole new world. There are certain words and terms in German that are quite difficult to explain in English and I know the case is the same for other languages. No matter how cheesy it sounds, there is something magical about hearing someone speak completely different words from your own and thoroughly understanding them.

I'm going to continue to take my German classes, at least until work at The Miami Student and my major requirements force me to take a pause from my lovely language. But I know that the German-speaking newspaper Web sites are always there, as is my faithful host family from Luxembourg and my foreign exchange student. I can call one of my friends from my German class in high school and speak for 20 minutes on the phone, despite the looks I get from people on the street. I thank learning German for teaching me patience - patience to dissect a single sentence, patience to learn that I will continually make the same mistakes and patience to accept criticism when I receive an exam paper marked up in red with grammar mistakes.

So I probably will always hear a particular Christmas song or see a New York Times article about Angela Merkel and smile. And I will carry a few words with me after my college classes, including "staubsaugen."


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