26 October, 2006

My class is great! :-)

Started the other German class today and it's great!

The last one was full-- probably 25 people-- and a lot of them obviously didn't want to be there. There were three rowdy (and very hungover) Kazakhs and an extremely annoying American who was chewing gum and cracking jokes the whole time. And since everyone was being so childish the teacher treated us like children-- the atmosphere was terrible!

And this class is just the opposite. It's small: there are only about 10 people (but they represent at least 7 different nationalities!) They're very earnest and really seem to want to be there. And the teacher is calm and compassionate and seems very motivated. It's a world of difference!

Oh, and Christina, you were right, it does go further. Apparently there's a module 10 that starts in November as soon as this one ends. :-) Am very, very happy.

4 comments:

Goofball said...

Good for you!
So next time I meet my German family and I have no clue what they are saying...you can be my online tutor :p.

I was wondering....do you speak Dutch too?

Betsy said...

Hi Chuck! Thanks! Big hugs to both of you!

Hi Ellen-- yes, my husband is Dutch and we speak Dutch at home. I've always made an effort to read a lot in Dutch and living in Flanders helped tremendously.

I think that knowing Dutch has made a huge difference in the speed in which I can learn German. You know how it is, there are so many words in common and sentence structure is very similar...

Goofball said...

hahahaha so you would understand my Jean-Marie Pfaff German :D.... although my "Vlaams Duits" isn't as bad as his I truly hope.

Yes Dutch/Flemish and German are very much related. Did you know that it was one language until in the Middle Ages? That is pretty late for languages to go their own way. Vocabulary remains close, but grammer is a different subject! Thank goodness Dutch does not have "naamvallen", because I cannot use them at all even when I studied Latin-Greek in high school.

yeah I figured your hubby was Dutch..."Ermelo"... very very Dutch place name.

Alle, ik werk nog wat door. Vele groetjes en tot nog eens ;-)

Betsy said...

Oh, I'd LOVE to hear your Jean Marie Pfaff German! Because that's exactly what I sound like! BUT THEN WITH AN AMERICAN ACCENT! It's not pretty...

Ermelo? that's Chui Hsia's husband who comes from Ermelo! Hahahahahahahahahaha! For some reason I thought we had her in common! My husband comes from Dordrecht, which sounds pretty Dutch as well, doesn't it?