German Lessons

I think it's nice that I look like I might be German. At least, I assume that I do, since people come up to me and speak to me in German. I've become adept at saying "Ich spreche kine Deutch." Well, sort of adept. Anyway, I signed up to take a German class for adult beginners partly to learn how to get coffee in a cafe (Ich hatte gerne ein kaffee, bitte - I ask for one coffee because I can't remember the correct article), but mostly I thought it might be a way to meet other English speakers. But the day before the class I got a notice that it had been canceled - leaving me with no German and no friends outside the lab.

After an extended period of moping, I decided to answer an add I saw on the university bulletin board. It said something like "Do you want to learn German?" and I thought, well, yes. So it turns out that my new German tutor is a 23 year old college student named Luise trying to earn some extra spending money. We met yesterday and learned how to conjugate some verbs (sein and heißen) and that nouns are capitalized in German. All of them. Weird, huh? Also, is it really necessary to have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns? But I really like the ß. I don't know why, but it makes me happy.

Anyway, since I've done a bad job of posting pictures here's the book that we're using:


I'll keep you updated of any progress that I make. I have another lesson tomorrow, followed almost immediately by some sort of party that Jenny has invited me to. So maybe I can practice there. "Ich heiße Emily. Wie heißt du?" After that the conversation may trail off, but I can always start it again by asking for one coffee.