as soon as i’ve throttled down the basics of french (i’m aquaplaning from a place where i remember that ‘ou’ means ‘where’ and that it’s pronounced ‘oo’) (this might be never because french is the language of insanity) i’m going to try my hand at german. because being baffled by gendered nouns in one language just isn’t enough for me. i’m insatiable.
from the little i’ve gleaned, i like german. the way it sounds is similar to afrikaans (the ‘ich’ bubbles from the back of my throat like early morning pleghm [i’m a charmer i know]). everything sounds mildly threatening in german: Der Bus kommt. Stimmt so. Ich habe Verstopfung (the bus arrives. keep the change. i have constipation.) the language that has given birth to words like ‘schadenfreude’ and ‘kummerspeck’ just can’t be wrong if it feels this right.
the french ‘r’ and its nasal vowels aren’t flowing. ich habe verstopfung. unless you’re from the cape flats this lewd frothing ‘r’ is foreign to afrikaans. our ‘r’s’ mean business. our ‘r’s’ are still angry about apartheid. pronouncing an ‘r’ in afrikaans is like spanking, but with more spit. in theory i think the german ‘ich’ and the french ‘r’ are probably necking first cousins, but in practice my throat refuses to acknowledge them when they’re together in the same room.
german seems to be about pronouncing all the letters. even the ones you don’t like. french loses half of what you’re saying between points a and b, like immigrants trekking through porous, drug-controlled borders. you’re never quite sure what happened to jesus but you’re certain it’s not good and you never talk about it.
anyway, ce ne sont pas mes oignons. c’est la fin des haricots.
in which i try to learn french 