This winter I decided to follow up on something I’ve always wanted to do and enrolled in a beginning German course. My grandfather was German, and we were stationed in Bavaria for 3 years when I was a girl, but in high school I decided to study French. I’ve always kinda regretted never taking Deutch instead. So, when I saw a listing for the class in the Salt Lake Community Education brochure I found in the mail, I thought, why not?
My class is held in a nearby high school, and is taught by a petite Swiss woman who also teaches all of the Italian courses. She’s beautiful, fond of hoop earrings, and very friendly. The nice thing about taking German is that the class size is always small — there are only about ten adults in my class.
As for actually learning the language . . . well, let’s just say I would be doing better if I could remember to study every evening. But it’s fun, and nice to get out of the house once a week and tackle some umlauts. Oh, and the German word for cell phone: das Handi. That’s mighty cute slang, if I do say so myself.
So far the most difficult part of the class is pronouncing the German name for the United States: Envereinigten Staaten. (Hmm. I may have spelled that wrong.)
If nothing else, someday I’ll hopefully be able to understand what’s going on in this video clip. It may just be the worst dancing ever captured on film. Is it owing to my German heritage that I dance just like this:
It just may be the most awesomely hilarious fashion show in the history of the world.
Casa Camisas 