That is how many days I have waited, looked forward to, and thought yesterday would never come. I still clearly remember my very first day of school. I entered the 1st grade at Riemerling Grundschule in the outskirts of Munich, Germany on September 11th, 1990 at the ripe young age of 6 years old. Every single day for 6122 days between now and yesterday, I looked forward to that day, in which I could finally say I am done. 6122 days of dreading the grueling torture that is school.
I have struggled through math class, learned to write perfect handwriting with an ink fountain pen, learned, forgot, and re-learned the rules of grammar in English and mastered the German language, as well as gained a solid grasp on the basics and fundamentals of the Russian language, made and lost many good friends, moved many times and attended 8 different schools between 1st and 12th grade, attended college for 6 years, at two separate colleges through 5 different majors, accumulated over 300 college credits and finally, finally walked across the stage yesterday as a diploma was handed to me in front of my father, mother, stepfather, uncle, grandmother, some very close friends, and most importantly, my girlfriend, Karen, who has conquered my heart. Indeed yesterday can count to one of the greatest days of my life. No longer will I be dreading class tomorrow or the essay due next week. I have finally achieved a status in my life that I have been longing for for 6122 days. What comes next?
Tomorrow morning I will leave what has been my home for the past 11 years and embrace what has been my home for many years before that. I will be flying into Munich after a long flight and jump right into work. I am overwhelmed with sadness and joy at the same time. Joy for finally finishing something of significance in my life. Joy for going back to my favorite place on earth, for getting to see my little sister, and my brother and some close friends. Sadness for leaving behind my mom and some other close friends, and most importantly, my girlfriend, with whom I have fallen in love with.
It has definitely been an adventure, and for the first time in 6122 days I feel that I am truly free and the world is just another adventure waiting to be explored. There is nothing holding me back from pursuing my dreams and my future. I have succeeded. I have graduated. I am done. I am now Alumni. However, if the University thinks I am going to join their Alumni Association and give them even more money, they are definitely mistaken. I am already in the possession of the most expensive piece of paper I have ever seen, I don’t need another.
Today, in one of my German classes, we watched a short film and then wrote an essay on it. I thought the movie was great and found that it had made it’s way onto youtube. There is a slight idiomatic play on words in the title, as it is called “Schwarzfahrer“, which literally means “Black Rider”, but really is referring to a fare dodger, just as “Schwarzarbeiter” (black worker) refers to someone who “works under the table” or dodges income taxes.
The film is about 10 minutes long, but the end makes it worth every second of built-up anger that one feels towards that woman.
I heard a German tongue twister today that I thought was pretty funny. Try to say this ten times fast:
“Junge Burschen, die vor einem Schokoladenladen Laden laden, laden Schokoladenladen-Mädchen gerne zum tanzen ein.”
Ironically my Russian professor taught it to me. Here’s the English translation: “Young boys that are loading boxes in front of a chocolate store, gladly invite chocolate store girls to go dancing.”
Not quite as funny in English. Thanks, Dr. Samuel!
Okay. Seriously. What is the pronunciation rule here? “Boot” rhymes with “Loot” and “Soot” rhymes with “Foot”. So is there some rule that says that double vowels that follow certain consonants get pronounced different than others? Or is this just completely random? Please explain.
If you didn’t notice anything wrong with the title of this post, please quit your job, drop out of college, stop whatever you are doing, go find your 3rd grade teacher, and smack them for failing miserably. Seriously. Why is it that I see these mistakes over and over again? I’m not perfect either, but I do pride myself on at least getting most of my mother tongue written down correctly. I have some comma mistakes here and there. Every now and again, I make some small grammatical error. But there are some words out there, that I believe it is extremely important to know the meaning and correct spelling of. Even though everyone that reads it, will still know what you’re trying to say, it is that much more important, that people learn the correct way, so that the incorrect way doesn’t become even more mainstream. So here we go:
Their - Possessive. As in: That is their house. That is their car. The house and the car belong to them. Clear?
They’re - In the english language, apostrophes usually denote a missing letter and/or a combination of two words. They are. Period.
There - Over there. Not here. There. Alright?
Round two:
To - “I sent this letter to her.” “Let’s go to the store.”
Too - Pretty much a synonym for “also”. “I wanna go, too!” Notice how it always has a comma preceding it in this context? It is also used for extremeties like “I am too tired”.
Two - Whoever made up the English language even went to the extra trouble of adding a silent ‘w’ to this word, so that you wouldn’t get it mixed up. This is only used for the number 2.
Round three (this is probably the hardest to remember, therefore the most important):
Its - Possessive. Belonging to it. “Its hat.” The hat belongs to it.
It’s - Combination of ‘it’ and ‘is’ or ‘has’. “It’s a long way to the top.” or “It’s been a long time since we’ve been there”
Round 4:
Effect - This is a noun. Don’t try to use it as a verb. It doesn’t make any sense. “What kind of effect does this have on me?”
Affect - This is a verb. “How does this affect me?”
Okay. I hope you all can see that the similarity in pronunciation of these words makes it that much more important to learn the difference between them. Or else pretty soon everyone would be using these words interchangeably in any written context. Oh wait. That already happens. I’m not pointing fingers at individuals that make these mistakes. I am more disgusted at how many teachers didn’t correct them, and how many subsequent high school and college teachers continue to let their students make these mistakes. Am I the only one that had a decent 3rd grade teacher? I see college students make these kinds of mistakes and they don’t get corrected. Just because someone makes a grammar mistake in a Computer Science class, doesn’t mean it isn’t the instructor’s responsibility to correct it. Language isn’t just something for English class. It’s used by everyone everywhere.
Update: Okay, apparantly, everybody doesn’t read my blog, because I just saw another one that hurts… so here is Round 5:
Then - This is a time reference. “Now and then”, “Back then”, etc..
Than - This is used in comparative statements. “I have more money than you.” “I’m cooler than you!”
I know it’s just one letter difference… but… it’s only one letter… so it shouldn’t be too hard to memorize, okay?
Yes, that is correct. Vacation in upper Bavaria. I just bought my plane ticket to Germany for next month. I’ll be leaving from Portland International bright and early on Wednesday the 6th of September, and I’m not coming back until the 22nd (Sorry, Zach, I won’t see you there, but I’ll see you before you leave). I’ll be flying into Frankfurt, perhaps tour around Baden-Württemberg for a few days and visit some good friends that I have made over the last year. After that, I’ll be heading over to my home town of Munich to see my dad and stepmom and the best little sister a guy could have. I’ll be spending a few days in the Czech Republic to see my brother. And of course, one can’t forget that the largest beer festival of all time just happens to be in Munich starting on the 16th. That’s right, everyone. Have fun going to your little parties next month, because I will be drinking the best beer in the world with six million other people, in the greatest city in the world. O-zapft is’! Not to mention, I’ll be eating the best food for two weeks: Döner Kebab, Wiener Schnitzel, real Italian Pizza, etc.
I hope everyone doesn’t get too jealous. Seriously, though, I am going to be having more fun than anyone else. Sorry. But I am in need of a vacation. I haven’t taken any time off for a year, and I have accomplished a lot this year. I’ve improved my grade point average at school. I have received two promotions at work. I’ve been taking summer classes, and I’ve been working hard on finishing my degrees, and I sold my car. So this vacation is very much needed. And two days after I return, I have to jump right back into school, taking an even larger load of classes. Besides, it isn’t all fun and games. Going to Germany will give me a good chance to work on losing my American accent that somehow crept up on me in recent years. Since I am a German major at the university, I see this as an academic experience. Alright, it’s back to work for me for now. You’ll be hearing from me from the other side of the big pond in about a month!
I am a user of open source software. I love it. Unfortunately, I do use a few pieces of closed source software from time to time. But if I have to pay for it, I tend to go without. Since with the software world, nothing is guaranteed, I don’t like paying for something that probably has problems. Well, I do still have the original copy of Windows on my notebook computer, even though I never use it, since I have Linux on it also. And things just tend to work better…
My notebook was purchased in Germany and thus has Windows XP Professional in German. This is pretty cool. It is interesting, seeing what kind of words Germans use for computer stuff. One would be surprised how many English words are used in a German fashion. Anyway, my point is, I kind of have a problem with Microsoft, since it is soooo expensive to buy a copy of Windows, yet there are always stupid security updates that make you restart your computer. If I have to pay for an OS, I want it to be fixed before I get it, and not have them tell me 4 years after it was released that there is yet another security flaw that needs fixed and then they make me restart my computer. But that is neither here nor there. I’m sure you can find about 10 million other people that rant about Microsoft daily. But, here’s what really ticked me off recently. If one has to pay for an operating system, from a commercial company, in fact the ‘leader’ in the market, one would think that if nothing else (and seriously nothing else), they would at least get their grammar right.
I recently plugged a piece of hardware into my computer that wasn’t recognized by windows (same piece of hardware worked right away without another thought under Linux), and here is what I got:
Yep. My German Professor would be angry at this. Its the choo choo train. And Microsoft, while rolling in all of their money, didn’t even take the time to double check this one. The word ‘Mal’ is a neuter noun, therefore ‘Das Mal’. According to my German Professor’s choo choo train theory, ‘dies’ goes to ‘dieses’ when used with a neuter noun. See? They got it right on the next line. ‘Jedes Mal’ is correct, but why didn’t they fix the ‘diese Mal’? This kind of bugs me. Because you know that they probably know about this, and they aren’t going to fix it. Because who wants to receive an automatic update that changes one word, and requires a restart. Why couldn’t they just fix it right when they translated it the first time? I can’t imagine someone didn’t get paid a lot of money to translate Windows into German. Or any other language for that matter. I mean, I use Suse Linux on my desktop machine, which is a distro based out of Germany, and in the English version I find grammatical mistakes from time to time, but then again, I didn’t pay for it. And my guess is, that whoever translated it, probably didn’t get paid much either, if anything at all. So its fine. Plus, I don’t have to buy a bunch of third-party software, just to make sure that my machine is “safe”…
My German Professor always corrects me when I am using an “americanism” in my German speech. For instance, in English, if we were to talk about something that happened in a certain year, we would say “In 1999, …”. In German, we would say, “In the year 1999, …”, or “1999, …”, but never “In 1999, …”, even though, the word “in” has the same meaning in English and German. Since Germans tend to use a lot of American phrases, and one would indeed hear this incorrect German from time to time, it is known as an “americanism”. These are getting more and more common in colloquial German lately. I have come up with a few Germanisms, to go the other way. This just gets funny.
Let us take some English words, “eventually”, “actual”, and “to mean something”. The equivalent words in German are, “irgendwann, endlich”, “eigentlich”, and “meinen”. Nothing special, although, the word “meinen” in German, can mean two different things in English. “to mean something”, i.e. “I said this, but I meant that”, but it can also mean “to say something”, i.e. “I said that”. Then there are two other German words, “eventuell”, and “aktuell”. These mean “possibly”, and “new” or “up-to-date”, respectively. So here it is, hold on to your seats:
German: “Er meinte, wir müssten eventuell unsere Software aktualisieren.”
English translation: “He said, we possibly need to update our software.”
Germanism (incorrectly translating the German words into the English words that sound the same):
“He meant, we eventually have to actualize our software.”
hahahahahhaha
Seriously, that is funny. This is so funny. I want to hear someone say this to me. Unfortunately, most German exchange students that come here every year have already mastered the English language, so I don’t get this kind of amusement. Well, that was my Germanism. Hope you liked it.
About Jabba Rants
My name is Justin Dow. My friends call me Jabba, and "Jabba Rants" is my personal weblog of miscellaneous things in my life.
