My poor roomie's been cooped inside our apartment, sick the past few days. Not only is she feeling crappy and mind numbingly bored, she's also unwittingly being held captive as my very own personal German dictionary. She cannot be happier! I know, I know but I can't help it. Why in the world would I waste my time walking to the other side of the room to look something up when she can spew out the correct word for me in 0.5 seconds? It's especially bad when I'm out and about by myself for a few hours, an illiterate loose on the streets. I'll come back and start hurling out phrases I've seen on signs or finally ask what lecker means since I seem to I see it on every other corner.
It doesn't hurt that she's a genuinely sweet, helpful person either. I had joked the other day that I needed to start putting post-it notes on every object in the apartment so I could learn the appropriate German word. (I did this when I was learning Spanish and I most definitely looked like I was experiencing a downward spiral into dementia but it did help). So the other day, she cheerfully came home with a pack of brightly colored post-it notes. Yesterday, amidst soup and tea, the poor girl's boredom apparently hit a new level and she so kindly began to label things in our kitchen on neon pink square shaped notes.
I was thrilled to find out that a toaster is der Toaster. I was also excited that a calendar is der Kalendar. I was not excited, however, to hear that the fridge is der Kühlschrank.
"Oh man, I'm never gonna remember that!" I whined. "How about a phrase to get into my head? How about 'Our fridge is empty?'"
"All right," she replied and scrawled down Unser Kühlschrank ist leer onto a post-it and slapped it onto the fridge.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, she labeled and slapped notes onto objects throughout the kitchen. I tried my best to actually pronounce every word. I think I did okay. I mean, I can say das Geschirr (the dishes) all right but her reaction to the word, die Küche (the kitchen), tells me that I have some work ahead of me.
But that's okay. I start my class next week. I'm excited about it even though I'm quite certain I'll come home crying the first day, citing that I AM CLEARLY NEVER GONNA LEARN THIS LANGUAGE at which point I will wonder out loud to no one in particular why all languages can't just use "the" instead of assigning private parts to all articles.
But I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself. Right now, I will enjoy the fact that Unser Kühlschrank ist leer, Unser Kühlschrank ist leer, Unser Kühlschrank ist leer. Wait...what? Oh, no! And it's Sunday (aka Anti-Shopping Day), too. Brunch anyone?
2 comments:
die Küche, der Kuchen. Kitchen/Cake. I spent weeks where Iäd take a few hours and repeat those damn words, I still sometimes mess up the pronunciation when I'm tired.
ANd I do agree on die/der/das (dem, den, der, des, etc). Great examples: My table (der Tisch), doesn't have a penis. Das Mädchen (the girl,) hat aber Geschlechtsteile (however does have private parts). So how can she be an it?
I still mess up on the der/die/das and never ask me if that object in the sentence is in akkusative or dativ, it'll crush my brain.
I can't wait to look like a complete idiot in my class.
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