Ever since I was little, I had always been fascinated by the German language. While one of the reasons could be directly attributed to the fact that some of my parents’ friends were German lecturers, the other part could be attributed to one of the most detested men in the history of mankind – Adolph Hitler. Don’t get me wrong. Learning German was not a passion because I wanted to be a despotic dictator. Learning German was inspired by the fact that the little despot had such a command over the language that he was able to sway millions by the power of his oratory.
So, in my mind, the power of German and the fact that learning German was an aspiration became inextricably intertwined. So much so that learning German became an obsession rather than a mere learning need. I set off learning German like any regular student. I enrolled myself in the classes and attended to them with gusto. In the beginning, everything was hunky dory. I enjoyed the thrill of learning German and the rush that accompanied learning a foreign language. But what I enjoyed most of all about learning German was the fact that I was finally learning to communicate in the language that was so powerfully spoken by the master influencer himself.
But seriously! Look at learning German through the perspective of an impressionable teenager. I mean, most of my science books were filled with the exploits and legends of scientists, more than half of whom happened to be of German origin. My philosophy texts were filled with great minds, nearly all of whom were German. Even in history, most of the exploits seemed to center in some way or the other around the Germans. So if learning German was the way in which I could get closer to these great minds, I was the way I would surely adopt.
I found that leaning a new language went through the following 3 phases. In the beginning it is easy. Phase 1 is leaning a few simple greetings and a bit of idle chit chat, and that's great fun. Phase 2 which takes you into the intermediate level tends to get so hard towards the end that you sometimes feel like you know less than when you first started. Get over phase 2, and it all begins to fall into place and your conversational skills just take off. This is when the real sense of achievement and pride begins to kick in.
So, learning German was not impossible but it proved to be harder than I first imagined. I also overcomplicated things a bit too much as I began grappling with accusative and dative cases and couldn’t make head or tail of them. Add that to the fact that in German, even non-living things have a gender attached to them.
But I followed through despite it all and I'm so happy I did. There was a lot of online material that supplemented by study and practice too which helped enormously. I'm happy to say that the language German and I are no longer strangers. Wow! What an achievement and from someone who's considered academically challenged too.
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