It's mostly 20-something girls that work at Haar Hunter, so I decided to tell them I was gonna practice speaking German with them. They are actually pretty good at English because they start learning it at a young age.
I was telling them the usual Kindergarten-level stuff...I come from the U.S.A., I live in Graz with my husband {which, by the way, to say my husband you say "mein Mann"...sounds so vundee and possessive} and then I started to make jokes in German and they were laughing. Even the girl back in the corner mixing hair stuff starting laughing. I got a huge rush of adrenaline and was so perked deed up! {They could have been laughing at my pronunciation or my incorrect use of words, but 'Ich glaube nicht so!'} Ich mache joke in Austria!! Ich still funny in another language! Love my life.
Then when I was blow drying my hair...{yes, here they let you blow dry your own hair to save the 16 extra Euros it would cost if they did it and then they come back to do a finer cut on your hair once it's dry to make sure it is perfecto! Oh, and they let me use the straightener and after she realized I am a crapper at doing the back of my head, she did it for me for free. Danke!}...anyways, I was drying my hair and one of the girls came up to me and said "Frage" {Question}. Sure. She asks "get, got, gotten?" She wants to know when to use each. Uh oh. I drew a blank. Of course I know which one to use in a certain sentence, but I couldn't think of the actual rules. English has never been my strong suit.
So, I tried to use examples of each in a sentence and told her 'gotten' is used with 'have'. Is that always true? Dangit. I felt so stupee. I know I am opening myself up to some criticism from my grammar patrol family, but I think this situation requires a little more explanation than the normal English-speaking person knows off hand. The British don't use 'gotten' anymore....stopped about 300 hundred years ago. A lot of them think it is something Americans made up, but we didn't...we just don't throw out words...we love 'em up.
Oh, and I did tell them "Well, I know the difference and when to use each and when someone doesn't...well, that's when you know they're a little redneck." So, you see...now they know I'm not that good at English and a snob. This is why they don't let any ole English speaker teach English...you gotta know the reasons behind it. Ooh, so boring. Give me some paints or statistics.
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3 comments:
You make me laugh too!!!! I want a picture of the new doo please.
I think alot of grammar we dont think of on a daily basis if at all. When I was taking the level 1 German class my teacher pointed out a lot of things that got us thinking of our own language. I forgot exactly what things she pointed out but it was along the lines of what the german girls asked you. We dont really think about how we structure our sentences we just do it becuase we grew up with it.
I havent studied since the class but im thinking I need to. I can say very basic stuff but late at night when im walking my dog theres always one german driver that pulls over to ask me for directions. I hate it because I cant answer them really. I know Links and Recht and number of clicks or kilometers but I cant give specifics or really understand what there asking. One guy as soon as I said 'sprechen' he rolled his window up and drove off lol
Mrs. Orman would be so dissapointed. Remember the dracula Orman we colored up for Halloween?!
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- Carolyn