Guten Abend! Mein name ist Hachie Gal

(Technically, my first and last name would appear in the above phrase but the name has been changed to protect the innocent).

Yes, my first session of German language school was last evening. I was psyched, pumped, an eager beaver, ready-to-roll, locked and loaded, rarin’ to go, …in the famous words of that screen legend, “let’s get a move on, we’re burning daylight”. I couldn’t wait to start German class. And, I must confess, I was less than impressed.

Let me say upfront that I know I am a type A, highly motivated, and at times, anal retentive person who is probably every language teacher’s nightmare. (A recent work colleague has said that if he had to pick out the one Friends character that is most like me, it would be Monica. Guilty, as charged.). Yet, my idea of language school is not memorizing German phrases. I want to know why, how the language hangs together, and to be able to put into context what I am learning. Perhaps I expect(ed) too much from the first class?

Interestingly, my class only has 3 students, and we all speak a different native language: Japanese, Korean, and English. How the teacher is going to pull this one off is of great interest to me. Yet, 8 weeks is a long time to sit in class if you are not on-board with the instruction methodology or the teacher. I am thinking that if I am even referring to it as an ”instruction methodology” that I may be putting way too much thought into this thing. Can’t I just show up, and go-with-the-flow? Apparently, that remains to be seen.

Oh yea, my language book has no dictionary, so I can’t even look up a word. How is this possible? Had I not been around-the-block on this language school thing before, I might not have known any differently. But I do… (Surely there is no way German is harder to learn than Chinese - say it isn’t so?)

Check back on Friday morning for a follow-up report on German class. I shall return to the site of my linguistic demise of last evening…more resolute…more determined to make this thing a go. Side note: the jury is still out on whether I actually sign up for the entire semester.