Ich heiße Christene.
Ich komme aus America und arbeite in Europa.
Ich wohne in Austria.
This is obviously the easy stuff - so I'll stop there on that.
But let me rant - just a bit (bitte?) about the feminine/masculine/neutral
aspects of the language... *cough, cough*
You probably know - but just in case, let me have some fun here...
I found out the other day, that banana is feminine... can I be very obvious
here? Shouldn't this be masculine?
And who exactly decided that the kuche & waschmaschene were going to be
feminine? My mann does the cooking by the way, not the Frau
as this might suggest. OK - I do the laundry but come on.
And why is the fernseher (tv) neutral? Shouldn't that at least be masculine?
I mean - wouldn't we all agree here?
I started a class last month - quickly figured out it was NOT working when my
teacher asked me during a break if I found jesus yet.
When I told her I was Buddhist, I was informed I would forever be unlucky as
a Buddhist and life would not be good until I found him - jesus I mean.
So that took care of that.
And really, as much as I liked my Turkish comrade, speaking after him was never a
fun task as he spoke with very low, closed lips, blurred all his speech turkish or
german and seemed to be in some kind of competition for teacher attention.
When I found out Ulrika, a Romanian nun I figured out was largely keeping me there,
was being advanced to the next class,
I left defeated and wondering if I would ever care to learn the language of my
mann, my new home and a place I am coming to leibe.
Then as luck would have it, this week I began a new course with Isabella and one
other student, Shane from Australia.
One would think all this english-speaking would stunt my german language studies
but it's fortunately, been the exact opposite.
Only 4 lessons - going on 5 by Friday - and Isabella has caught us both up to the
intermediate class.
We'll be joining the new group starting Monday - and sadly, saying goodbye to our
spunky Italian/Austrian and British teacher.
I've been able to have a good laugh with both Shane and Isabella about all this
masculine/feminine stuff and most of the time, we break out into speaking german
on our own accord.
I finally stopped mixing english, spanish and german and actually think by the
wedding, I'll be able to really communicate with everyone - without asking for helfen
or cringing as they quickly revert to english to save me embarassment.
I'm having fun building sentences and speaking any chance I get - ordering, shopping,
asking and sharing whatever german I can. Really, most of the time I think I come
across OK and actually say or ask what I mean... but sometimes, I am guessing
I am telling them their hair looks like shit, their sister is a prostitute and I never
want to talk to them again.
