Deutsch

My encounter with German started with Richard, obviously. When I came back to UNC I found out that I actually needed a third language level for the major I was in (when I was at App I believe it was only two.) Rather than muddle my way through Italian 3 years and years after I took Italian 2, I thought it would be fun to take German. I would learn a little of Richard's language and be able to exchange social niceties with his parents when I went to Nurnberg over the Christmas break to be introduced.

I wasn't really ready for the impact on my life it was going to have. Despite initial struggles with the course structure that a lot of us experienced, I found myself looking forward to German class every day during German 101. It was during this class that I actually decided to make a really big leap and change my major over to German. I have to admit that a lot of people thought I was pretty insane, but I wasn't enjoying my current major at ALL. I was already suspicious that my life might lead me to live in Germany one of these days, and I thought if nothing else it would be useful. This semester I found out that it's far more than useful, it's really where I belong.

I have no special aptitude for language and I've no doubt that I'll struggle with proper syntax no matter how long I speak. I am, however, fascinated by Germany, its history, and the language. I had three classes in the German department (well, one was in JWST but counted for German.) I continued to look forward to my language class every day. I live alone and work multiple jobs in addition to school, so for me coming together to talk like that is just about all the socializing I get. German 102 had a really relaxed and opened atmosphere, and while I still struggle to get entire thoughts out it's usually because I have something bigger to say than I actually can... but I can get closer than I would've thought I could at this point. I remember one day more or less successfully saying this huge long thing about how I had just read Geiger and what I had thought of it (I think it was Geiger) and being just a little floored afterwards that I had managed to do that with vocabulary that I had total on quick recall. What, I had been studying German actively for like six months at the time? That's pretty impressive. No matter how much I gripe and moan about auf gehts something is clearly yielding results.

It's really hard for me to pin my cultural experience down to just one class, because the three from this semester have been engaging with one another a lot. I like learning about the cultural differences and thinking about how they impact my life. The amazing way Germans magically know which window has to be open and how long (regardless of temperature,) for instance. Or the fact that the nation that produced gregarious Bernd (Richard's brother-in-law) could POSSIBLY think we're overly-friendly, hahaha.

Historically, I've engaged with some topics that I had kind of feared to investigate on my own. I think in some ways, learning about Germany is the study of all Western humanity and both the incredible and the incredibly awful things we're capable of.

I'm going way overboard, but I guess in the end the biggest surprise was how much the same we are (or can be) despite how different we are... if that makes any sense at all. Also, being a foreign language major is a lot of fun. You get to go into a little bit of everything like a Humanities major (culture, history, pop culture, art, literature,) but you also are actually learning a skill in the process. :)