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My German education continues. I'm in relatively uncharted waters now, and so progress has been slower. I've recently undertaken future tense, future perfect, modals, and relative pronouns.
Modals gave me fits until I finally realized that they don't take a past participle in present perfect or future perfect unless they are the sole verb in the sentence, Zb., "Er hat es nicht gekonnt." ("He was unable to.") Until I finally grasped that fact, I was tempted to tear my German book to shreds, eat the pieces in a nod to my daily fiber intake, let them work their way through my digestive tract, and light them on fire when they emerged from the other end. I was also beginning to understand my grandfather's myriad names for the German people, including but not limited to krauts, Jerries, and Huns.
Jerries and Huns I understood, but krauts I never got. I assume it has to do with the Germans' inexplicable fondness for sauerkraut, which, were there any justice in the world, would be German for "Satan's bitter asshole, pickled." Sauerkraut is one of the worst foods ever invented.
I came by this nugget of culinary knowledge my senior year, when my German teacher organized a class trip to a family-owned German restaurant. To make things easier on us(we were fledgling German I neophytes), we were allowed to choose from three items on the menu. I chose some form of liver sausage and red sauerkraut.
I've always been a finicky, pedestrian eater, but I wanted to impress the teacher, and besides, I thought that I should give other cultures a fair shake and not be the typical ugly American, a gastronomic Neanderthal whose palate began and ended with burgers, fries, and Coke.
So, the food arrived, and I took a cautious nibble. The liver sausage was edible if I didn't think about it, but the sauerkraut...
It smelled satanic, brine and sulfur and pickle farts in a plastic bag. I knew that if I ate it, even a tineful, I would regret it, but the owners were there. They were a lovely old German couple, and they were watching us with beatific happiness, so pleased that we were partaking of their food and doing our best to talk to them. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. To make matters worse, my teacher was at my table, evaluating my performance. What could I do?
I ate as much as I could. It tasted as bad as it smelled, and I was sure I was going to betray my misery by spewing all over the table and my teacher, but fear of public humiliation won out, and I kept it down.
I paid for my culinary bravery later that night when I had the worst, most noxious gas I've ever known. I could've blown the fur off a Shetland sheepdog and sheared all the sheep besides with a single blast from my piteously bleating backside. Two blasts, and I could've single-handedly felled the Black Forest. It was awful, and I've never touch sauerkraut since. If sauerkraut were Germany's sole contribution to the world's table, I would cheerfully advocate subjecting the country to a blitzkrieg sauerkraut fume attack in retaliation, but German chocolate is so vastly superior to American chocolate that I am moved to mercy.
Ah, memories and the joys of cultural exchange.
Modals gave me fits until I finally realized that they don't take a past participle in present perfect or future perfect unless they are the sole verb in the sentence, Zb., "Er hat es nicht gekonnt." ("He was unable to.") Until I finally grasped that fact, I was tempted to tear my German book to shreds, eat the pieces in a nod to my daily fiber intake, let them work their way through my digestive tract, and light them on fire when they emerged from the other end. I was also beginning to understand my grandfather's myriad names for the German people, including but not limited to krauts, Jerries, and Huns.
Jerries and Huns I understood, but krauts I never got. I assume it has to do with the Germans' inexplicable fondness for sauerkraut, which, were there any justice in the world, would be German for "Satan's bitter asshole, pickled." Sauerkraut is one of the worst foods ever invented.
I came by this nugget of culinary knowledge my senior year, when my German teacher organized a class trip to a family-owned German restaurant. To make things easier on us(we were fledgling German I neophytes), we were allowed to choose from three items on the menu. I chose some form of liver sausage and red sauerkraut.
I've always been a finicky, pedestrian eater, but I wanted to impress the teacher, and besides, I thought that I should give other cultures a fair shake and not be the typical ugly American, a gastronomic Neanderthal whose palate began and ended with burgers, fries, and Coke.
So, the food arrived, and I took a cautious nibble. The liver sausage was edible if I didn't think about it, but the sauerkraut...
It smelled satanic, brine and sulfur and pickle farts in a plastic bag. I knew that if I ate it, even a tineful, I would regret it, but the owners were there. They were a lovely old German couple, and they were watching us with beatific happiness, so pleased that we were partaking of their food and doing our best to talk to them. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. To make matters worse, my teacher was at my table, evaluating my performance. What could I do?
I ate as much as I could. It tasted as bad as it smelled, and I was sure I was going to betray my misery by spewing all over the table and my teacher, but fear of public humiliation won out, and I kept it down.
I paid for my culinary bravery later that night when I had the worst, most noxious gas I've ever known. I could've blown the fur off a Shetland sheepdog and sheared all the sheep besides with a single blast from my piteously bleating backside. Two blasts, and I could've single-handedly felled the Black Forest. It was awful, and I've never touch sauerkraut since. If sauerkraut were Germany's sole contribution to the world's table, I would cheerfully advocate subjecting the country to a blitzkrieg sauerkraut fume attack in retaliation, but German chocolate is so vastly superior to American chocolate that I am moved to mercy.
Ah, memories and the joys of cultural exchange.
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