I went to a small church school. I won't tell you how many was in my graduating class because I probably already have. Ok 1. I said it was small! My mom was one of the main teachers and that fact alone caused me some grief with some of the kids in other grades. Some on and off again friendships stemmed from it.
Some of the high school kids. There WERE boys! just not in this pic. I'm in the back with hair hanging over my face.My Grandpa was the minister of our church and VERY German. He taught classes in German. We also had Latin for a couple years taught by someone actually NOT related to me! I think...
My older sister Ruth Ann and I were the only ones in one of the German classes one year. Grandpa had us translating passages out of a German Bible into English. It's really not too tough to do your homework when you have 15 English Bibles in the house... :) *score* But it was kind of funny to hear German translate into old English from young teenagers, so we had to mix it up a bit. Twist a few words around... Change the "thee"s to "you".
We also cheated a bit more than that... If our assignment was to translate several verses at one time from the Bible, we knew we didn't have to turn it in. During class Grandpa would have Ruth Ann read the translations of the even passages and then I'd do the odd.How ironic is that? Me? Odd? I guess it's descriptive...
So when we did our homework, Ruth Ann did only the even passages and I only did the odd. Then during class, Grandpa might forget and ask Ruth Ann to start with the odd passage. He was getting pretty old at that point and we were able to swap our papers under the table. He never caught on... I'm sure tho, where he is now, that he knows....
So getting back to my German phrases. I learned *some* German during those classes. I can probably figure out what a German sentence is about but definitely not fluently.
Here are some that I use on a regular basis besides the title of this post...
Wo bist du? - Where are you?
Ja das ist ein schnitzelbank. - Yes that is a schnitzelbank.
Das ist ein hund! - That is a dog!
Du bist ein hund! - You are a dog.
Achtung! - Attention!
Mach schnell! - Hurry up!
verboten. - Forbidden.
Was ist los? - What is the matter?
dummkopf. - dummy.
fraulein - young lady
ein bisschen - a little bit (we didn't ALWAYS use this in the proper context... kind of like swearing wrong in another language! so it really doesn't count.)
Most of which I learned from Hogan's Heros!
Whenever I use some of these phrases in everyday use, it always makes the kids stop and look at me funny with their head tilted...
Was ist dass du sprecht?
