I can only construct one sentence in German
that makes any sense. This is disappointing as I studied German for two years
at school, my father has been married for over 30 years to Reinhild and I had a
very fulfilling relationship with a beautiful, intelligent and compassionate
woman from a small town in Germany.
“Ich bin ein Morgenmuffel”
Which translated into English means?
“I am a grumpy, sullen and cantankerous
person in the morning”
Anyone who has the dubious pleasure of
sharing a bed with me will know that I am certainly not a Morgenmuffel. Even if I have stayed up until 2 am and drunk
more than my fair share 7 year old Havana
rum to celebrate my arrival in Wanganui from Heathrow via LA, I will wake up
before 6.00am feeling fully energised. I
will bang around the kitchen making coffee, turn on the light in order to
search for a cigarette and suggest to my partner that we should drive to the
nearest mountain, climb it, have an intense conversation with some random stranger,
then find a local vineyard and sample a at least five different types of wine
before having a relaxing breakfast of eggs Florentine at The Purple Carrot
Café.
The only reason that I studied German was
because my mother believed that one would go a long way in life if you could
speak more than one language. She
badgered the school into allowing me to join the German class.
Normally the ‘O’ Level German class at
Kings School Pontefract was reserved for those who had shown an aptitude for
French. In French, I could tell people how old I was, count to twelve and
inform them that my hobbies included rugby, tennis and the weekend. They didn’t, but it is not difficult to
translate those words from French to English.
I was no French scholar and completely out of my depth.
On about week three I was introduced to the
word Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung. At the time I had slight impediment an
struggled to correctly pronounce words
of more than two sylabals in my mother tongye.
Whilst, the rest of the class were learning the dative of relatively
straghtforward German irregular verbs, I sat at the back of the class looking
at pictures of the Muller family shopping in Essen, catching the train to
Wuppertal, or holidaying on some island in the North Sea. I like to think that in the 400 year history
of my school, I was the only person to achieve grade U at German O Level.
I’ve
been fortunate enough to be the first man in the world to watch the sunrise on
Valentines Day on a deserted beach in NZ, whilst in the company of a sexy
stunning Kiwi farmgirl., to be taught the basics of the tango in a poorly
Beunes Aries night club by a dark and mystereous Argentinian womam, and to
witness the sun setting behind the Taj Mahal, whilst in the company of Miss
Liverpool University 1981, who was looking for a way out of our relationship
However
I
can think of nothing better than slowly waking up next to a German woman (who
is neither a goat nor a cow), being presented with a simple breakfast of freshly
baked bread and cold Landjäger
before taking a leisurely stroll to the German National Museum of Clock making.
And I am not being ironic as
I love being in Germany.
PS I also love the German
word ohrwurm and today’s ohrwurm is unfortunately
PPS I apologise to anyone in Germany if in the title of this post, if I have used the feminine plural dative rather than the masculine singular present.
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