Oh my gosh! I had the most interesting day yesterday! It's really a day which is worth reminiscing to.

Yesterday morning was my very first German class! Boy, I was really nervous when I first met my German 'teacher' when she came over to my house. She wasn't really a teacher but a translator; nevertheless she can teach anyway. Bashfully, I said "Hi!" and showed her to the room. She didn't quite like the small table so she suggested instead the dining table. I don't know why I feel so embarrassed. Hehehe!

So she proceeded to begin the German lessons that I have enthusiastically looked forward to since the beginning of my holidays, and she began by teaching me the German equivalent of 'This is a hat', i.e. Es ist ein Hut. She then proceeded to teach me a few other objects. I didn't quite understand her at first because her English has an eminent German accent (no offense) which took some time for me to get used to, and she "rolled" her German pretty fast, and naturally I was confused and lost.

I noticed that she kept changing the subject from names of objects in German to conjugations in German. I'm glad that I studied my English grammar diligently. I was able to follow without much difficulty of the different forms of have and to be and whatnots in German. I cannot believe there are so many different variations which my German teacher said was stupid. Hahaha! I don't find it so though. To me, they are really unique and simply adorable!

From there, we went on to basic greetings and conversations in German, and I admit this was fun! We did conversations in a German hotel and basic questions that could be asked by ordinary Germans. I couldn't remember much from yesterday (I did write them down), but this is the only Q & A that is permanently stuck in my head.

Wie heißen Sie?
Ich heiße 'that frolicsome kid'.

I hope I got that right!

The Q & A above means "What is your name?" and "My name is that frolicsome kid." in German. Yeah! I especially love this letter ß, it looks cool on its own!

We then went on to do recaps and me pronouncing the German sentences that we learnt. We did that a few times and I find the whole thing hilarious. It's not THAT difficult to sound out the words, but I sounded the words out in an English-Hokkien way. She said it was really good for a beginner, and I was completely taken back by surprise. I have never spoken German in my entire life (okay, I did recently, but those were failed attempts in stammering out some German words). So I was both pleased and excited and I muttered a "Thanks" under my breath. I still cannot pronounce those dreaded umlauts, the same way I have difficulty with pronouncing those English diphthongs. My favourite German word that I like to say it out is eine Landkarte

Overall, I had a really good time learning German, the first lesson wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be. It still wasn't easy though, and I have difficulty in remembering a lot of German words. I look forward to my next lesson tomorrow where she promised she would teach me a couple of words to construct my very first sentences. I like it! Hopefully, I can hold fluent conversations in German in years to come and I hope I don't turn anyone away when this blog will slowly be Deustche-nised. Haha, just kidding!

Okay, so the questions that are playing in your minds now would be: Why German? Why not French, or Spanish (I'm also learning this language ad libitum by myself, with not much progress), or Japanese, or Afrikaans?

When I first heard a German audio online a few months ago (which I somehow stumbled upon), I cannot help but be enthralled by the way the female emcee was speaking. So "harsh and guttural", yet beautiful in its own way. That was my first crush on German. As I became more and more jobless on the Internet, I stumbled on many other German sentences and I like the way how the nouns are capitalized and the way the verb is oddly placed at the end of the sentence. I could even understand some of the words! I later found out in Wikipedia that English shares the same roots as German as they both belong to the Germanic language family. Music theory also contains some German classical musics which I have to analyse and answer, so German might be helpful there. And I just like the language!

All these little reasons ignite me to learn German, but I don't know why I have gotten so insane just thinking about them! It's odd really and I cannot explain it myself. One thing leads to another, and here am I satisfied that I finally am beginning to devour German.

So the next time if you are interested to take up another language, I suggest you do German. Why? Because I'm biased, of course!

Oh, and yesterday, I went out with two of my girlfriends (no, not my lovey-dovey ones) and we window shopped around a place where it isn't infested with teens. I'm so sick of going to the teenagers' hotspot in the country where I feel out of place and feel tired seeing the people I know there. It was fun although we didn't really do much. Mostly it's just bonding time. I feel so out of place standing in expensive boutiques and female shoe shops =\. But never mind.

I can't wait till tomorrow! Tomorrow's the day when I will get my dreaded report book and also my next German class. Yahoo! And sigh, I really don't feel like picking up my NaNoWriMo novel again. I'm really lagging too far behind to catch up, although I feel my story is really starting to shape up. I might try again later. Or not.

I catch you guys later! =)