Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

You know the story: What do they call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One language? American.

So do we speak German (Deutsch)? Not really. For several weeks Bob has been dutifully studying the German language tapes he dug out of some boxes from California. I did take two years of German in high school (!) but much of my language lab time was spent exchanging head sets with Victor Owen so we could laugh hysterically at each other's German (mis)pronounciation. Our teacher, Herr Axmann, was not amused.

Then there was a month of travel in Europe in 1968 with the lovely Hilde (German) who translated for us in Germany and taught me a few key phrases like: "Entschuldigen, konnen Sie mir bitte sagen vo die Jugenherberge ist?" (Excuse me, can you please tell me where the youth hostel is?) My friend, Tina, recently said I would now need to learn to ask for the elder hostel. I was not amused.

German is a fascinating language. All nouns are capitalized (that will help) but there are three words for "the": der (masculine), die (feminine) and das (neuter). This is all fine and good until you realize that the word for girl is das Madchen (neuter); for table, der Tisch (masculine); and for tin can, die Dose (feminine). Go figure. We will all be amused.

But our German friend, Verena, says that in Germany everyone under the age of 40 speaks English. This is very good news!