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Mark Twain was right | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| iltoen Newbie Germany Joined 5890 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Turkish* | Message 1 of 35 27 September 2012 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German.
i am 100% sure he was right. i ve been trying to learn this goddamn language for 7 years now, and i still make mistakes even in the most simple conversations :( i hate you German language :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5969 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 35 27 September 2012 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, Twain wrote wonderfully and at great length about his difficulties learning German. His essay about it is a classic:
Mark Twain: The Awful German Language I think that, as much as we love learning languages here, most of us can empathize with the many frustrations along the way! Bear in mind that he's a humorist and is writing satire in this piece. I think I have read elsewhere that he did learn the language very well. A modern-day humorist, David Sedaris, may have done for students of French what Twain did for German learners. Here's his account of learning French in "Me Talk Pretty One Day" David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day I had the pleasure of attending a reading by Mr. Sedaris once, in which read new selections of his work for the first time to an audience, and he's just as hysterically funny in person. Sure wish I could have been in Twain's audience, too! I think both of these essays have been mentioned on the forum before, but they're worth revisiting, especially when you're feeling a little down about your own progress. Remember, however grim their learning stories may be, both these guys ultimately succeeded in their language learning! 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6439 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 35 28 September 2012 at 4:58am | IP Logged | ||
That wasn't really about French being difficult the way Mark Twain's essay was about German being difficult, that was just about a teacher who was mean. lol. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 35 28 September 2012 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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J.K.Jerome, one of my favourite authors, and a slightly later, but partial contempory of Mark Twain's, also wrote a bit about the German language in "Three Men on the Bummel". But he also lamented the apparently poor linguistic abilities of his fellow countrymen, and painted a picture of an unfortunate innkeeper in Switzerland or Germany, setting out intrepidly on a snowy night in order to attend English classes in the nearest village, all for the benefit of the English tourist who can't be bothered to learn German! :)
In real life, Jerome was a Germanophile and learned the language himself, and was quite upset at the prospect of WWI, which he initially opposed. He seemed to change his attitude at some point during the war. I don't know why, but he might have believed some of the atrocity stories made up by the newspapers or the government propagandists. (That's not quite the story given in Wikipedia, but I've read it in a biography). He volunteered as an ambulance driver with the French army, and the experiences there probably affected his health, dying at a comparatively young age. He has a rather magnificent gravestone in the parish churchyard of the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Ewelme. J.K.Jerome Edited by montmorency on 28 September 2012 at 10:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5969 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 35 28 September 2012 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh yes, I know the two essays don't deal with exactly the same aspects of learning the foreign language in question, but both are amusing accounts of the learning experience. And I love Twain's analysis of the grammatical peculiarites of German, and I have to to agree with his statement about the time needed to learn it. I'm still working on that myself and am not quite sure I'll ever get it even somewhat right, along with French, too (minus the mean teacher, thank goodness!) . . . and Italian . . . and Polish . . and who knows what others I'll decide that I absolutely must learn, or die trying - and doing so would just totally defeat my purpose. There's another super funny language learning experience essay by Dorothy Parker which is not very well known - I will have to look for that one. So as not to deviate too much from the original poster's comment, I think many of us can agree with him and so many other language students, whether we are great writers or ordinary learners, that having an eternity to work on our skills would be VERY helpful! We don't have that, but we can have a little laugh about this unfortunate fact and what happens along the way as we learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5211 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 35 28 September 2012 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
A quick non-Germanic digression, with apologies to the OP, to say that I've quoted Sedaris' section on Easter here: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=24268&PN=1&TPN=12#370610 (copy and paste, removing any spaces inserted by the forum software). Thanks for an amusing thread! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| taqseem Newbie Switzerland Joined 5696 days ago 34 posts - 47 votes Studies: English | Message 7 of 35 28 September 2012 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Twain's so called analysis is an ode to ignorance.
"Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp." how one can call a language slipshod??? what about English spelling then? perhaps, Freundschaftsbezeiigungen and Dilettanleiiaufdringlichkoiton look intimidating but i can't see how pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and antidisestablishmentarianism are any better. now German: ein Mann zwei, drei, zehn Männer Russian: singular - мужик plural - мужики dual - мужика (2, 3 и 4 мужика, but 5, 6, ..., 1000 мужиков!) collective - мужичьё if German must be rediculed that way, then Russiam must be banned altogether. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7146 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 8 of 35 28 September 2012 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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My favorite quote about the difficulties of German is from Thomas Love Peacock's Gryll Grange (1861):
It was a dictum of Porson, that "Life is too short to learn German": meaning, I apprehend, not that it is too difficult to be acquired within the ordinary space of life, but that there is nothing in it to compensate for the portion of life bestowed on its acquirement, however little that may be. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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