For the last four years I have produced the travel TV show “Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations”, ran around the world, ate some funky things and ended up moving from New York City to Berlin, Germany….. I’m a TV Producer, Camera woman, Travel Journalist and now humble foreigner in a new city!
September 20, 2008
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How Jesus learned German from You Tube
I always pictured myself fluently speaking another language. I dreamed of being that cute American that spontaneously breaks into a foreign tongue so flawlessly that the natives around her gasp: “ You’re from where? America? No! You speak so beautifully.” At that moment I would toss their comment off with the shake of my blonde curls. “ I know, I know. I get that all the time. It’s hard to believe, but I just picked it up.” That dream… is a dead fish on my Berlin doorstep. And I attribute this whole mess to Jesus. Somehow Jesus learned German from You-Tube and I, well, I just lost my confidence.
It’s common knowledge that Americans don’t speak foreign languages. We just don’t. Recently the reason has become clear. English is just too damn good. What a language. It’s so, so….um…so filled with those verbs and adjectives and what’s it called… adverbs….those “ly” words. And of course our lovely nouns. Look at them sparkle. They are so lovely that they don’t even need a gendered article in front. Never more have I understood how great my language is and how much I have taken it for granted than in the last few months as I have tried to wrap my mouth around umlauts, my mind around a 1,000 new verbs and my soul around the German language, where the goddamn verb often finds itself at the end of the goddamn sentence.
I have not treaded lightly towards the task of learning. I have in fact invested in an entire library of reference materials: “Demystifying ‘the wacky’ German language”, “501 Verbs you cannot possibly memorize” and even the infamous “Get Stoned with Rosetta as she smokes your brain up with German”. However, after previously shooting my brain up with 8 years of Spanish and 9 years of conversational Italian I decided that although I was not able to learn to Verbally SPEAK either- beyond “Hola , di donde esta una muy Bueno taco? Or “Mangia, Mangia!”, somehow I would take the plunge, move to Germany and through cultural osmosis learn yet another language. KEIN PROBLEM! I finally tossed the mountains of books aside and enrolled in German school, committing myself to intensive courses.
Jesus is the best student in my class. Jesus just moved to Berlin two and half weeks ago from Venezuela and actually his name is JE-SUS. He’s twenty-two and short with long black hair and a goatee and he looks like, well a guy named Jesus. Apart from that he is unfathomably nice and kind. He brings cookies to class and shares them. After two weeks here he can already order food items like Eis Bein and Curry Wurst in the local dialect. I can’t figure it out. I have been living with this language for three months. I am the most dedicated student in my class. I mean I am a ridiculous overachiever. I go home and paste stickers on inanimate objects like my fridge and in the morning belt out “Hallo Mein Kuhlshrank, wie ghet’s dir?” Needless to say I am all over this language- I snuggle with it at night, I caress it’s odd shaped sounds. What more can I do? I just can’t seem to speak a full sentence. Jesus has the right attitude though, he seeks out alternative media.
Jesus watches You-Tube in German and I HATE HIM for it. It’s like from one day to the next his sponge-like brain downloaded the whole program from the Internet. During the break he whips out his computer and teaches us “Street phrases”. Sometimes he invites me to see Klaus Kinski films with him. Jesus can even tell a joke in German. How the hell did he get to that level in 2 weeks? Everyone in class is just so enamored by his fast progress that mostly I spend my class hours seething in rage. Because I loathe him so much I have started going to church. I figure, ok, I’m a sucky Catholic-Jew-atheist and I hate a guy named after the Son of God. A few hours of cold, hard wooden PEW should make up for it.
Jesus, however, has one flaw. He speaks over other students. He finishes my sentences with his divine intervention. Like if I were to say “Today can we talk about Politics?”, he jumps in and changes my ending to “Civic Duty or Social Welfare”. Recently some of the other students have started to notice his censorship. Sometimes, we meet in secret to discuss how we can rid ourselves of his goodness and language tyranny. Jennifer, Ricardo and Stefano suggested that we tell the administration that he speaks out of turn, but I’ve got bigger plans. I mean he down right hijacks the beginner course with his fluency.
Last week I found out that JE-SUS was not who I thought he was. I went to the “Christopher Day- Pride Parade” and saw JE-SUS necking with his new boy toy. JE-SUS has a German boyfriend and THAT’S where he’s gaining all that knowledge from. I knew it. No more MS. Nice Frau. If one can actually speak a language and then enrolls in the beginner course just to feel better about their mid-level proficiency, isn’t that a sin? Yesterday, Jesus finally got the ole GERMAN boot. He’s now a low level member of the Middle Group. His ‘You Tube’ can’t help him now, then again, neither can my stickies on the fridge. I guess we’ll both have to spend the rest of our spongy cerebral years soaking up the hard stuff like everyone else.
