The language and culture I am learning about is German. Alex Lang will be taking on this rather daunting task and in return I will help him consolidate his knowledge of the English language and share a little of my own culture with him.
During our first meeting we outlined our preliminary plan but our conversation took a turn down many different avenues as we discussed what we would each like to learn from the other. For myself it was to gain a basic understanding of the German language and be able to construct sentences and questions to be able to communicate conversationally. We spoke of Scotland and its many myths and legends including that of the Loch Ness monster “Nessie”. I hope to learn about some German/ Austrian folk tales and maybe practice reading some German.
Many turns of phrase in English are due to the beliefs of our ancestors for example; when someone sneezes we say “bless you” this is because many years ago it was believed that when you sneezed it was part of your soul escaping and by saying bless you the soul was encouraged back into the body. From this discussion I learned that in German you say gesundheit.
For our next meeting we plan to go to an Italian restaurant and learn different foods. I am looking forward to learning more German.
Comments