Die Fälle

Hey, kids - remember your old buddy grammar? You used to play together in grade school, but then something changed - you started hanging out with literature, and one thing led to another... Now you and grammar don't talk much.

Well, grammar and I have just bumped into one another in Germany, and boy was that awkward! At first, I didn't even recognize her, and then when I finally did, I couldn't remember any of her names ("Participle," I never would have guessed that! Must be Dutch.)

So anyway - you should really call her...

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The good news is this: German seems a lot more logical than English - at least the baby words I'm playing with right now. Things fit together in really logical patterns, and most of the "gender" and conjugation is pretty easy to figure out. All the names of the various bits and pieces of grammar are slowly coming back to me, which helps a lot. I remember when verbs came in present, past and future - I guess I blocked out all the pluperfect and past participle melarkey.

Dammit, Jim! - I'm a scientist, not a linguist!

We're heading into the weekend, so that means a steady diet of hot tea and German. I need to be able to understand at least a little of what's going on when I jump into the belly of the beast on Monday. It's just improbable enough to work!

Today, my towel came in handy for: drying my thermos.

Tschüs,
Jeremy