In the beginning, I viewed learning German as intellectual body-building: something that was good for your general form, but not all that useful. Like adding up license plate numbers while waiting at a bus stop, it was a good way to pass the time. I’d carry on conversations with myself in German, or call up girls I knew and leave messages on their answering machine in German.
When I came to Germany, I was shocked to discover that Germans actually spoke German. Deep down, I had always suspected that German was something only spoken in public. Once people went home, they shed their public persona and spoke the only real language: English.
The only real language, that is, except Spanish. Everyone knows that Mexicans speak Spanish. Except when they’re home. Then they speak English, like the rest of us. Right?
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Dunno about Mexico, but in Germany most people speak (sometimes badly) translated English. They just don't know it. People hear it on TV (all that synchronisation!) and read it in the newspaper. It sounds like German, it looks like German, so it's easy to assume it is German - but 90% of the time it's not really German at all. 90% of the time the terms were coined in English, the ideas were formulated in English, and all the debate that really matters is also in English. All we get is a translation, and all that does for us is to "shield" us from the original (usually untranslated and often untranslatable) subtext and context, and to discourage us from joining the discussions that matter, which are invariably in English. I say, German is all very nice for reading Heine and stuff, but for everyday discourse, let's just switch to English. It'll be better for everyone - except translators, I guess.
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