Talk German to me, Baby.

Forget talking dirty to me, it's time to speak some German. For anyone who doesn't know me I can't speak enough German to make my way out of a brown paper bag, so it's funny I should decide to live here. None-the-less, I am now here and am faced with learning a completely new language.

Thanks to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, though in the film mispronounced, I learned 'thank you,' and somewhere along the way my brother and I picked up 'was ist das' and 'wunderbar' and decided that they were just so fun to say that we'd add them to our vocab. At least the way we said it was much more fun than how it looks. Turns out this was actually my first (or perhaps second-thanks Ferris) lesson in German. They mean 'what is that' and 'marvelously,' respectively. Seeing as how until ten minutes ago I always thought wunderbar meant 'wonderful' because of the way it sounds when properly said aloud I actually used it today in a conversation. My host family is so awesome that they went with it, even though it only made 85% sense, I'd say. After Finn told a story I went, 'Wunderbar!' thinking I had said 'Wonderful!' They still got very excited that I had 'learned' a new word, but I Babel Fished (which you better believe I bookmarked in a heartbeat) that bad boy and sure enough it wasn't wonderful, I had said, 'Marvelously!' Now here is where my story is going... I am going to keep my ethnocentric rants to a minimum because I am jazzed to be in Europe and though America is great and all I'm going to keep an open mind and accept and try new things, but for now I am going to continue on to why English, thus far, is much better.

Exhibit A) First and foremost: I am already fluent in English. And you just can't top that on the easy scale.

But that aside I am going to make a very uneducated claim considering I haven't started my language courses yet, but here is what I have gathered so far in my own observations.

Exhibit B) When I went to look up 'wunderbar' it came back with 'marvelously.' Fair enough, but then I thought to myself, so then what would just 'marvelous' be? So when I type that in I get back 'erstaunlich.' Now it is possible that Babel Fish (a language translating tool for those who don't know) is leading me astray, but if it isn't then can anyone tell me one single thing marvelous and marvelously (in German) have in common besides a few vowels and a couple consonants? Because I just don't see it. Why would you make them completely different? Is it to toy with my emotions? Success. In English you have the luxury of just adding 'ly' to the end and you're set. And you can add 'ly' to lots of things, it can be used over and over, so learn that and the base word and you're golden.

Exhibit C) If you are not familiar with the German language, much like myself just two weeks ago, much like myself today for that matter, they have the longest words you've ever seen. Walt Disney himself couldn't conjure up a word this long with that expansive imagination of his. From what I gather sometimes it is actually from stringing several words together. Why not keep them separate? I don't know. Other times it is not. Take Konservierungsstoffe for example. I just found this on the back of my Nutella jar. At first glance I think, 'There must be like three words in there!' Nein, (not 'nine,' but 'no') it is one word, Preservatives. I would like to point out the simple fact that Konser....stoffe has 20 letters in it. Our entire alphabet has 26! (The German alphabet has a few more, I'll give 'em that). Are they trying to scare me with these big words? Because it's working. I don't know if that example does my plight justice, but it's true. You'll have to take my word on this one.

Exhibit D) Their V's sound like w's and their W's sound like v's. I'm actually quite intrigued by this, I'll have to get back to you. CORRECTION: My friend Dani pointed out that their V's actually sound like f's, not w's. So have sounds like half and move sounds like moof. You get the idea. Still intriguing, and still toying with me.

And finally, Exhibit E) Well, actually, there is no Exhibit E. I had a couple other thoughts but after further (quite simple) research those points are incorrect and now moot, so I guess this is where my argument ends. Quite unfounded, mostly ridiculous, but I'm totally going with it, for the time being anyway.

All in all it's actually a beautiful language and I look forward to learning it. I only bash it because at the moment it makes me rather illiterate, mute, and unable to communicate freely with the world immediately around me. But it's not your fault, German, I came to your country, not vice versa. On the bright side my host family has just bought me a beginner's guide to speaking German with CDs to listen to in addition to my language class that will be starting in a few weeks. And when all else fails I've noticed that my hand gestures and sound-making skills are quickly becoming polished and on point. So make sure to pick me next time we play Charades...

Until I learn me some German I will leave you with these (very) basic words that have helped me survive my first two weeks...

Hallo! (hello!) Guten Morgen, Tag, Abend! (good morning, afternoon, evening!) sprechen Sie Englisch? (do you speak english?) Nein (no) Ja (yes) Danke (thanks) Bitte (some sort of you're welcome, in response to danke) Tschüss! (bye!)