So, what made me want to learn German? There are plenty of reasons:
--My family heritage traces back to Germany. It's important to be in touch with your ancestral roots, right?.
--German is one of the world's most spoken languages...might as well join the bandwagon.
--My favorite band is originally from Magdeburg, Germany. Their songs are written in Deutsch and English! Obviously learning German will help me understand the German songs.
--I love to travel and my next big destination is Germany. I need to know the language (somewhat) to be able to communicate with others and not seem like a real-tourist!
--I decided to take an Elementary German class last Winter Quarter at Cal Poly to cover a few elective credits and absolutely LOVED that class!
Let me think back to how this all began...
A few years ago, I was randomly watching the VMA's and something immediately caught my attention. Here came this huge monster truck on the red carpet with 4 guys standing in the backbed of the truck. One of the guys had black hair and it was in huge spikes that surrounded his head. When the hosts were able to talk to them, I was interested in learning where they were from, since they obviously had an accent. Soon, I found out that they were from Germany and had just come to the United States to try and earn a US fan-base. After watching them perform and seeing them win awards, I knew they were unique and very popular (they have fans from all over the world!). Ok, fast-forward a bit and after listening to their music, hunting down stores to try and find their album here in the US (I finally just bought it off of iTunes) and reading their biographies I became a huge FAN! One of their songs on that album off of iTunes (Durch den Monsun=Through the Monsoon) was written in German and English. Listening to it in German made me want to learn the language to understand their lyrics more. So, fast-forward a bit more and I enrolled in FL 111 at Cal Poly with Frau Daniels. I LOVED that class! Hardly any English was spoken and she didn't want us to go through the whole English-German translation process and vice versa. Too bad that class was only about 3 months...
Well, during that class, she suggested to find a penpal! How exciting, I thought!! :)
I searched around and found a certain penpal site that was safe and secure. I soon found several penpals, but the one who I talk to the most (even to this day), is from Dresden, Germany. Fortunately, his English is amazing and he helped me so much with learning German. Thank goodness for Skype, for he helped me with my pronunciation and I was able to speak a little bit of German correctly! ;)
Fast forward many months (well, almost a year or so later) and I am here, today, writing this blog. No more German classes, unfortunately, due to 2 quarters of student teaching, summer classes being cut and now working on my Master's Degree! This all equals NO TIME FOR LEARNING GERMAN! I have to say that with my penpal's encouragement, I have considered teaching myself (he has helped me, but hasn't had that much time due to internships and working on his PhD). Teaching myself German has been the hardest thing I have ever done. I've gone through this cycle of giving up many times and then trying to learn it again. I can admit that I know plenty of vocabulary, but the grammar is what kills me. Anyways, I know one day I will master this language...hopefully!
Helpful links that I rely on:
Words that are used in English that come from German.
A fun website to watch Live-TV from Germany!!
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