I have lost much of this language…. but I can understand everything but to express myself correctly????
How to reclaim a language? In Munich I went to the bookstore and just started copying nice phrases… I forgot how pretty German is, and how much more tolerance there is for strange things like passive voice. In English you’re taught to chop sentences apart, simplify and assassinate all that is passive. English is a language of action! Brevity! In German sentences can unwind like Russian folding dolls into entire paragraphs, branching even across entire pages…
I love German books, the refusal to see everything in black and white, especially anything to do with war. There are thousands of shades of gray everywhere, although I guess the view of war, especially with the postwar generation, does have one absolute belief: that war is bad. To even suggest that there are lessons to be won from war is still pretty controversial.
Over about two weeks in Germany and Switerland, it was nice to reclaim the sounds and vowels and intonations in my mouth.
I’m always wondering how to retain these rhythms when you return to the English speaking world. I guess the only way is writing in a foreign language?
And the great advantage that Americans have is this childish self-confidence and a complete lack of shame of going in public and making big sloppy mistakes. I have that going for me, I guess!
