Back to school


As I have mentioned previously I'm off to Germany this Easter for a break. I've been fascinated by Northern German history and architecture for years and I also want to visit a couple of places that have connections with the East Germany era such as the Stasi museum in Leipzig and what is left of Checkpoint Alpha which is west of Magdeburg.

Anyway I thought in preparation I would revisit the German language. I took O Level German but that was more than thirty years ago and I have only spoken German, in public, once since leaving school and that was in error - I should have been speaking French at the time. I can still remember how to say my name, where I live etc but thought that rather than rely on the locals speaking some English I'd try and learn something that might be helpful. Back in my old school days the Sprich Mal Deutsch course was always coming up with convoluted scenarios to try and get you to learn as many words as possible without ever making an attempt to construct something meaningful and cohesive. This meant that you'd find yourself at a railway station with your sister and dog, the dog was always naughty, looking for the latest long playing record by the Beatles. How useful would that be if you were in a chemist with your uncle who had earache and wanted some medicine? Exactly!

A few years ago the Independent newspaper gave away a series of language courses, a CD and book in German, Spanish, Italian and Greek. A further series featured Russian, Chinese and Japanese I believe. Anyway I kept the CD's for some nerdy reason and dug out the German one to use as my revision exercise. It was like being back at school. The first lesson featured a couple from Munich, flying from London to Stuttgart who meet a businessman who has a house in Spain and a wife who spends too much on telephone calls. How relevant is that?

Fortunately it got better, but not much, and I was soon learning how to order coffee and cakes, to complain about the plumbing and some other phrases that will possibly be useful. I decided not to place too much reliance on the freebie and bought a Berlitz CD and phrasebook. I've used Berlitz before, in Poland for example, and found them handy, I can listen to the CD on the way home from work and hopefully I won't need to put myself in the kind of situation where knowledge of airports, Stuttgart or langspielplatters is required.