Family Tides
Today was my host father, Klaus’s birthday. I think he said he was 54. Klaus is a cool guy and I am glad I know him. Today we celebrated by eating way too much food and speaking (or rather, listening) to alot of German. There were interesting conversations about the DDR and problems people have here, like a lack of doctors in the area. There was also a long discussion about planting flowers and other garden/yard type plants. I always find it hard to get a word in in discussions like these. Partly because I worry my German is too bad, and partly because the people involved were speaking very loud and fast. Or at least it seemed as such to me. It was quite a feast, however. I wish I had brought my camera to capture its glory, but you’ll be glad I didn’t because you would be einfach jealous. I like to throw the word einfach into everyday topics. It means more of an idea to me, but in English it’s a triad, it can mean Simply, simple, easy, easily, and in a smaller extent it can mean sort of. It’s hard to explain, but I think saying you’d be einfach jealous would mean like you would get jealous without trying to. I don’t know, I’m a bad translator because I’ve stopped trying to put some words into English. I just accept them as being exaggeration marks, or symbols as to how you should feel about something someone said. I’m not saying I understand all German, not hardly. The other night we watched Pirates of the Carribean 2 and I rarely caught a word of what they were saying. I can tell you that I wish I did, but I didn’t. Some days I just get tired of German. But in general I like the language. It isn’t beautiful like Italian or spicy like Spanish, it is kind of utilitarian. There is something about it though.
It was fun spending time at the Förster’s, I just found myself wishing, as always, that I’d’ve said more. But alot of times in situations like that in English I don’t say much. I just don’t have alot to add to serious discussions. My thoughts are often too random. Take the conversations about the DDR. I really thought it was interesting, and for the most part paid attention, but when people are speaking German it is even eaiser to space out than when people are talking English. So some of the time my thoughts drifted to upcoming vacations, or something weird like characters in Fairy Tales, or Unicorns. Stuff like that isn’t the most normal for me, but lately I have been feeling strange. I am often really tired at night but I can’t sleep, and when I do sleep I have weird dreams. I don’t wake up feeling rested, I just wake up and feel like staying in bed. My thoughts have been racing by and varied, and I find it hard to concentrate. Maybe all this German is making me crack up, maybe I wasn’t made to wake up at 6AM every day. Or maybe it is the sign of some weird sickness I have gotten. It is hard to tell, but I feel very tired. I will leave you all with this thought: Learning German is very hard. Once you’ve learned a little, you find a million other things you should have learned along the way to learning those little things. You can go over in your head the proper grammer for everything, but once it is your turn to speak, anything can slip out. German is hard, I keep in mind I have never studied it in my life and have come about 5 million miles at seeming light speed. But it is still very hard and I have millions of light years to go. (I did mention that my mind is working strangely today, didn’t I?)
Today was my host father, Klaus’s birthday. I think he said he was 54. Klaus is a cool guy and I am glad I know him. Today we celebrated by eating way too much food and speaking (or rather, listening) to alot of German. There were interesting conversations about the DDR and problems people have here, like a lack of doctors in the area. There was also a long discussion about planting flowers and other garden/yard type plants. I always find it hard to get a word in in discussions like these. Partly because I worry my German is too bad, and partly because the people involved were speaking very loud and fast. Or at least it seemed as such to me. It was quite a feast, however. I wish I had brought my camera to capture its glory, but you’ll be glad I didn’t because you would be einfach jealous. I like to throw the word einfach into everyday topics. It means more of an idea to me, but in English it’s a triad, it can mean Simply, simple, easy, easily, and in a smaller extent it can mean sort of. It’s hard to explain, but I think saying you’d be einfach jealous would mean like you would get jealous without trying to. I don’t know, I’m a bad translator because I’ve stopped trying to put some words into English. I just accept them as being exaggeration marks, or symbols as to how you should feel about something someone said. I’m not saying I understand all German, not hardly. The other night we watched Pirates of the Carribean 2 and I rarely caught a word of what they were saying. I can tell you that I wish I did, but I didn’t. Some days I just get tired of German. But in general I like the language. It isn’t beautiful like Italian or spicy like Spanish, it is kind of utilitarian. There is something about it though.
It was fun spending time at the Förster’s, I just found myself wishing, as always, that I’d’ve said more. But alot of times in situations like that in English I don’t say much. I just don’t have alot to add to serious discussions. My thoughts are often too random. Take the conversations about the DDR. I really thought it was interesting, and for the most part paid attention, but when people are speaking German it is even eaiser to space out than when people are talking English. So some of the time my thoughts drifted to upcoming vacations, or something weird like characters in Fairy Tales, or Unicorns. Stuff like that isn’t the most normal for me, but lately I have been feeling strange. I am often really tired at night but I can’t sleep, and when I do sleep I have weird dreams. I don’t wake up feeling rested, I just wake up and feel like staying in bed. My thoughts have been racing by and varied, and I find it hard to concentrate. Maybe all this German is making me crack up, maybe I wasn’t made to wake up at 6AM every day. Or maybe it is the sign of some weird sickness I have gotten. It is hard to tell, but I feel very tired. I will leave you all with this thought: Learning German is very hard. Once you’ve learned a little, you find a million other things you should have learned along the way to learning those little things. You can go over in your head the proper grammer for everything, but once it is your turn to speak, anything can slip out. German is hard, I keep in mind I have never studied it in my life and have come about 5 million miles at seeming light speed. But it is still very hard and I have millions of light years to go. (I did mention that my mind is working strangely today, didn’t I?)
posted by Keith @ 8:01 PM
1 Comments:
you think about unicorns?
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