Self Help & Personal Growth

Learning German

Learning German allows you to gain a valuable insight into some of the greatest scientific, philosophical and historical minds the world has ever known ...

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 – Adolf 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 German 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 other around the Germans. So if learning German was the way in which I could get closer to these great minds, it was the way I would surely adopt.

But learning German proved to be harder than I could imagine. While the initial lessons were all a breeze, as the grammar progressed, it got more and more difficult. Soon, learning German became more of a chore than a pleasure. 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, and things began to really get out of hand. I finally realized that learning German was not as cracked up as it was outlined to be.

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