Mishaps with a mannequin

As my favorite client says all the time about German…it doesn’t NEED to be this way…so complicated. It just doesnt. He is from Turkei. I dropped out of school after eighth grade, so walking into a classroom at forty-three to learn German felt like some kind of cosmic joke. Four cases and all. I mean—first of all—the language is ridiculously complicated and absurdly precise. If you trail off mid-sentence, a German isn’t going to fill in the blank for you. They can’t.

I sometimes regret not finishing high school, but learning German at this age has made one thing clear: I never would’ve made it through school anyway. I just don’t learn the way most people do. Now I have the wisdom to know educated idiots are the worst…and I am ok with struggling more than the others.

So I walk into this classroom—maybe eleven of us in total. The Turks sit with the Turks, the Arabisch with the Arabisch. I’m the only American. Most people speak a little English, but we don’t talk. What’s there to say? We’ve all ended up in a room in Stuttgart, Germany, trying to learn a four-case language. The only appropriate thing to say is, “Oh, fuck.”

I’m lucky, though. I grew up around the German language, took it for a year in seventh grade, and live in a German-speaking household now. I’ve  sat through four-hour dinners where I barely understand a word. But i came with the basics. Um…meaning I can tell you my name, but I’ll also tell you I’m thirty-four—because I’m forty-three. German numbers are inverted, with no botox effect.

The teacher’s kind, but she speaks zero English. None. There is no English in this classroom. My language—gone. People can speak English, sure, but I can’t just speak here. I have to slow down, strip down my words, make everything simple.

And I feel guilty about it, honestly. Most people here learned English; I’ve had it easier than them. I’m American, now even more aware of that. The U.S. loves to brag about leading the way in diversity and inclusion, but here, that’s a punchline. My classmates make jokes about it all the time. They laugh about Black Lives Matter. At first, I thought it was messed up, but now that I live in Stuttgart, I get it. On any given day, I hear seven languages, see every kind of person—and I realize how ridiculous it is that we think we “lead” the global conversation on inclusion. We have no idea, because we are such a large body of land…foreigners are swallowed up and assimilate…here not so mucht We’re entitled. The world bends to us because English is everywhere. And yeah…just eye opening.

That class taught me a lot. Once we got friendly, I found out they’d all placed bets on how long I’d last. Apparently Americans don’t do well being cut off from other Americans—especially not in a room full of Eastern Europeans and Middle Easterners. Shit, am I going to get canceled for saying that….I believe it to be true.

Classes were 2 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, for seven months. Two schools. I just fucking did it…you cant think about it…but I loved it, and I’m getting the hang of it—besser und besser jeden Tag. Still, Ich kann nicht so viele Beziehungen mit Deutsch machen. I speak too much English, but handled the Financeamt auf deutsch…so like i think im ok…or really fucked:) .

Dativ oder Akkusativ? Four hours a day hearing German, speaking German..but the weird part about learning a language is, you never really know if you’re learning it. Because you cant actually speak it out of the classroom!

One day we got a worksheet about two boys. I thought Boy A was asking Boy B if he had a skateboard for Saturday. Boy B said no, but maybe Sunday. I answered all the questions, wrote a whole paragraph about it. My teacher asked me to explain what was happening, and I told her. She said, “Zeit ist ein uhr….dieses kurs fangen um 14uhr An…., nicht ein skateboard.” I laughed until tears streamed down my face. So did my Romanian friend Ana. The teacher didn’t. Because she was born in germany.

But I kept going. I did a Pilates teacher training—in German. Went to social events—in German. I have dinners with Roland—five-hour European marathons—all in German. I just threw myself in.

I have to learn it..but I dont stress about it.. Stuttgart thinks it’s a city, but it’s a town—and you’ve got to Deutsch sprechen here.

The grammar is a path to  Insane. They have three “the’s.” Yes, three. If you ask for die Messer (the knife), you’ll get that look—because it’s das Messer. Or maybe der Messer. Who even knows. It’s still a knife, and they know it.

A knife (Messer) lays on the table. A glass stands on the table. So now I measure things before I pick a directive word as to if something should be stood or laid on the table. I laugh when I see people sitting down…akkusitiv…akkusitiv akk…and the ass makes contact we have DATIV.

I ask Roland for help with homework, but most Germans don’t actually understand their own grammar—they just speak it. Ask them about Dativpronomen and they’ll stare at you. Roland once Googled  the Kasus, printed out ten pages, and even he laughed.

Now I catch myself: Oh fuck, verb ist immer Position zwei. Half the time I split trennbare verbs, half the time I have no idea what they even are.

The language makes me laugh as much as it frustrates me. But its fun to learn with other foreigners ….like i say…there is a reason these people do sauerkraut so well..VINEGAR! We are soaked in it….a sense of humor is key to language….especially the german one…and that is up to us. The immigrants.