From 1st grade up until senior high we took German classes for our language classes aside from Hebrew. Back then, despite my half-German heritage, I didn't learn that much German when I was still 6 years old back then. According to my language teacher, Ms. Birnbaum (who was our German teacher from 1st-9th grade), German is classified as a Category II language, which means that monolingual English speakers must take 30 weeks to study the language to reach general proficiency in it. It's usually the same as English since both of them are Germanic-derived, except German is a little bit different than English as it has unique sound changes.
Literally when I was in the 5th grade, Ms. Birnbaum had told us about how learning a non-English language would open a lot of job opportunities which we can pursue after college. I mean, go figure, you really need to speak German to become a German teacher (obviously), what did you expect? To put it mildly, that's simply not the case because you don't need to speak a different language in different occupations, save for certain jobs where language is important, such as being a translator or interpretor. German teachers also said that learning German for a while helps you learn about German culture. And I could tell you guys, I'm certain you need to know some German to listen to German songs perfectly without screwing up. But hey, I don't need to memorize singing Deutschland Uber Alles without needing a sheet, alright? Like seriously, I really don't want to my voice to go off-key when I sing it in class.
Well actually, Ms. Birnbaum didn't teach us about German culture and songs in the 5th grade, all we did during that time was just German food and nothing else. That's right, you heard me - we just only ate liverwurst and tried making spanferkel all in English! Also, in German, we also learned that there are different terms for the word "goodbye" depending on where you live. The main term for that is "auf wiedersehen", which is the Hochdeutsch dialect for goodbye. But that's not the only term for that word. In Bavaria, people usually say "pfiat di gott" or "gruss gott" in that regional dialect and people who speak German with Kolsch dialect say "tchuss".
Anyway, near the end of our 8th grade German semester, we watched a series of short German films (usually 30 minutes) with English captions. When Ms. Birnbaum suddenly intervened and asked us if she could turn them off, many of us in the class, including myself, really did not want that because we couldn't understand what they said. Regardless, she turned off the captions which left us annoyed and confused on the spoken dialogue.
Also, I remember that there was a poster about lists of reasons to learn German. Some of these reasons sucked though, because some of them were written off-topic, like how it said most of the Western world's important works of philosophy and literature originated from Germany. Well, I seriously doubt that. Even though these important books are originally printed in German, there are some books that are written in different languages aside from German. There was also one reason that said "German and English are similar. Many words in German sound and/or look the same as equivalent English words." Naturally, although both German and English are both derived from Germanic and some words sound the same, not all words from German sound or look the same as English. Like for example, if you translate the word rifle into German, the final result would be "gewehr." See? Like that! Not all German words are related to English, go figure. I mean, at least give English a break.
So anyway, during the 4th grade, I went to a summer camp in eastern Iowa which had a German language class there. That was where I took German vocabulary lessons and even doing some tests on adjectives and adverbs. The program also had pictures of breathtaking sceneries of the Swiss Alps, the coast of the French Riviera, and also aerial views of different rivers, to which I paid attention to than listening to the questions.
There was also one time during language class when I was only 7 years old. In 2nd grade, we had a game in which someone gets to grab a bag of Haribo gummies in a box if they said a German word aloud. But since I was the guy that makes stupid decisions and also too indecisive in choosing something under pressure, I never took part in the game, which totally ruined my chances in getting a bag of Haribo gummies. Oh yes, and Haribo is actually a German candy company, which makes sense why we took part in a German speaking game.
Fast forward to the 9th grade, and during that time, our school used a language learning program that functions like Rosetta Stone in which we had to to vocabulary tests, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. However, our school didn't do the speaking tests because our computers' microphones were totally garbage. Seriously, those microphones are old-ass models dating from the late 90s and Principal Goldberg put no effort in updating the microphones to modern ones. Some of our classmates would do these speaking tests at home to boost their medal count, not only because they wanted to be proud of their achievements, it was that they could brag about having a higher ranking. Apparently, the student who got the highest ranking in Herzl was someone from the 11th grade whom I didn't know. This guy didn't just stop learning the German vocab, he also did tests Ms. Birnbaum didn't even assign. After finishing a hard German adverb test, he then continued on the European countries test, and then he did the same in Spanish and Italian.
At one point, this guy almost did tests that taught English vocabulary. But, since there was no reason for someone to learn English if it was their first language, the program required not to have English as first language. Since he almost took English vocab tests, he will have to go to the second language section, where he has to pick a non-English first language. Because he was of Russian Ashkenazi descent, he admitted that he would've spoken Russian as his first language, but he couldn't, out of fear that he couldn't switch the program back to his normal first language.
In conclusion, despite having to learn German for most of my childhood, I actually had fun studying it and taking part in the language learning programs. So far, I would consider German as my second best language ever spoken after English. Besides German and English, there are some other languages that I have learned either through school or my heritage. I'm not fluent in either of those languages, but I actually can use them to my advantage in order to get what I want.
Anyway, near the end of our 8th grade German semester, we watched a series of short German films (usually 30 minutes) with English captions. When Ms. Birnbaum suddenly intervened and asked us if she could turn them off, many of us in the class, including myself, really did not want that because we couldn't understand what they said. Regardless, she turned off the captions which left us annoyed and confused on the spoken dialogue.
Also, I remember that there was a poster about lists of reasons to learn German. Some of these reasons sucked though, because some of them were written off-topic, like how it said most of the Western world's important works of philosophy and literature originated from Germany. Well, I seriously doubt that. Even though these important books are originally printed in German, there are some books that are written in different languages aside from German. There was also one reason that said "German and English are similar. Many words in German sound and/or look the same as equivalent English words." Naturally, although both German and English are both derived from Germanic and some words sound the same, not all words from German sound or look the same as English. Like for example, if you translate the word rifle into German, the final result would be "gewehr." See? Like that! Not all German words are related to English, go figure. I mean, at least give English a break.
So anyway, during the 4th grade, I went to a summer camp in eastern Iowa which had a German language class there. That was where I took German vocabulary lessons and even doing some tests on adjectives and adverbs. The program also had pictures of breathtaking sceneries of the Swiss Alps, the coast of the French Riviera, and also aerial views of different rivers, to which I paid attention to than listening to the questions.
There was also one time during language class when I was only 7 years old. In 2nd grade, we had a game in which someone gets to grab a bag of Haribo gummies in a box if they said a German word aloud. But since I was the guy that makes stupid decisions and also too indecisive in choosing something under pressure, I never took part in the game, which totally ruined my chances in getting a bag of Haribo gummies. Oh yes, and Haribo is actually a German candy company, which makes sense why we took part in a German speaking game.
Fast forward to the 9th grade, and during that time, our school used a language learning program that functions like Rosetta Stone in which we had to to vocabulary tests, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. However, our school didn't do the speaking tests because our computers' microphones were totally garbage. Seriously, those microphones are old-ass models dating from the late 90s and Principal Goldberg put no effort in updating the microphones to modern ones. Some of our classmates would do these speaking tests at home to boost their medal count, not only because they wanted to be proud of their achievements, it was that they could brag about having a higher ranking. Apparently, the student who got the highest ranking in Herzl was someone from the 11th grade whom I didn't know. This guy didn't just stop learning the German vocab, he also did tests Ms. Birnbaum didn't even assign. After finishing a hard German adverb test, he then continued on the European countries test, and then he did the same in Spanish and Italian.
At one point, this guy almost did tests that taught English vocabulary. But, since there was no reason for someone to learn English if it was their first language, the program required not to have English as first language. Since he almost took English vocab tests, he will have to go to the second language section, where he has to pick a non-English first language. Because he was of Russian Ashkenazi descent, he admitted that he would've spoken Russian as his first language, but he couldn't, out of fear that he couldn't switch the program back to his normal first language.
In conclusion, despite having to learn German for most of my childhood, I actually had fun studying it and taking part in the language learning programs. So far, I would consider German as my second best language ever spoken after English. Besides German and English, there are some other languages that I have learned either through school or my heritage. I'm not fluent in either of those languages, but I actually can use them to my advantage in order to get what I want.
- Hebrew - learned throughout school and also through my Jewish heritage
- Russian - self-taught; mastered the Cyrillic alphabet in 11th grade
- Yiddish - learned Yiddish after finishing a summer languages course in Israel in the 1st grade
- Spanish - self-taught
- Afrikaans - self-taught while in South Africa
