How I learned German

I don't think anyone debates the importance of learning a foreign language anymore. Americans lag far behind kids of other industrialized nations, not only in math and science, but also in foreign languages. Kinda ironic for such a melting pot like the USA, eh?

Well, I didn't start out wanting to learn German with any goal other than to understand more about WWII history. I used to watch the old World at War series with my dad when I was very young, long before anyone knew what cable tv was. One day in church, the pastor announced he needed a few host families for a group of Germans coming to our town for about six weeks. I quickly ran up to my folks afterwards (they sat in the choir loft) and asked if we could do it. They said yes. And so began the first step in my lifelong relationship with all things German. I'll leave the countless and exciting exchange student and travel stories for future posts, as I want to focus on how I got to learning German.

On or about the last day our German exchange student, Thomas, was with us, he asked when I might come visit him near Heidelberg. I was 13 at the time and just about to start 8th grade. My mom interjected and said when I can speak German as well as Thomas spoke English, I could go visit. That very same day I bought a book called "Learn German in 10 Minutes a Day". It was nothing intense, but definitely had the basics like noun gender, verb conjugation, simple phrases and best of all, a few pages of decals to peel off and stick on things around the house, sort of like flash cards, with the German word and phonetic spelling for each object. I am now 37 and my parents just recently sold that house. I believe some of those decals were still on closet doors, light fixtures, mirrors, etc. on the day of closing.

At the time my public junior high school only had French and Spanish classes, so I knew I'd have only myself to rely on for learning German until I started prep school in another year. In those days long before the Internet, people kept in touch the old fashioned way - pen and paper. And I figured being a pen pal was the next best thing I'd have to German lessons for quite a while.

I had gotten to know several of the other students in Thomas's group and we all exchanged addresses. Though I was about three years younger than most of them, we all got along very well and kept in touch for several years. One girl in that group I still keep in touch with to this day. She's a doctor and mother of three in Austria. I've visited her many times and know her whole family well now. I lost touch with Thomas a year or so after my first visit to his house in 1987. In a strange twist, on a trip to Germany about five years ago, I was driving back to Frankfurt after a tour of the Porsche factory, when I saw a road sign that I was approaching Thomas's home town of Schriesheim. I had a few hours to kill, so I stopped at a gas station and bought a map of the town. And I remembered Thomas's street name from the countless letters we had written one another. You don't get that with email these days! I vaguely remembered riding with Thomas in his old VW Scirocco up the very long, twisty, steep road to his folks' awesome mountaintop house back in 1987. This time there was snow on the ground, but the road came back to me as soon as I started up the hill. I knew Thomas's house was the last one at the top of the mountain, so I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna miss it. Sure enough, I found it. His father ran an insurance business and had an office attached to their house. So I got out and knocked on the office door. A younger guy answered and I asked him if this was still Thomas's dad's business and home. He said yes, but the father was out on a trip.

I remember Herr Metzner being frustrated when I met him in 1987 because he was so interested to talk with me, but my German and his English were equally bad. By that time Thomas's English had atrophied some too. So the dinner conversations were slow and limited. I decided to write Thomas's father a note in my now near-perfect written German (spoke is already perfect). I was sure he'd remember me, though the polished German might throw him off. I handed the note to his employee, told him some of the above story and asked that he give the message to Herrn Metzner. Unfortunately, he did not know how to reach Thomas and I never heard back from his father. But I felt like I had some closure and had at least attempted to get back in touch. No big deal though. I had countless longtime German friends by then and still do. That first experience with a foreign exchange student changed my life forever and I'll write more about it in future posts.

Anyway, learning foreign languages has certainly become easier in this age of laptops, the Internet, CD's, email, satellite tv, etc. And there are countless products out there to help you get started. No, I don't think you'll be reading War and Peace in original text anytime soon with one of these teach-yourself packages. But as you can see from just one of my many stories (more to come) on this subject, learning a foreign language can be an enriching and life-changing experience.