Don't feel bad about your inability to speak German after only a few years' formal education. Nowadays, American students aren't even taught enough about their own language, a version of English, that they can read a few paragraphs and understand what it was about, nor can they write more than a paragraph about a single subject, before the "stream of consciousnes" takes over and all purpose is lost. I have two boys in their first few years of "higher" education and, having met some of the people now entrusted with passing along an "education" to them and others, I find them sadly lacking. They speak badly, read little and fail miserably to express themselves succinctly and coherently in writing. Current generation textbooks are showing the decline of the spoken language here. Sadly, the average German 15-year old not only speaks better German than our average 35-year-old speaks english, but he speaks better English than that same 35-year-old. Fifteen years ago, the average American had sufficient command of English that he routinely used on the order of a hundred words to express himself. Today's average is closer to 35 words. No wonder nobody knows what's being said! If you're making an honest effort in Europe, people will put up with your deificiencies. If you expect them to speak your language, you're in for a hard time. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list(a)wfi-inc.com> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Tuesday, March 07, 2000 9:00 PM Subject: Re: VCF Europa Update Christian, It hasn't helped me. I took 5 years of college German and speak less than the average German 2 year old. Honestly, it's humiliating, because I'm still in the habit of telling people that I know some German...only to stumble on the most basic words and sentence structure. I think it would come back pretty quick, but I don't have the time (or energy) to study it on my own, and very little opportunity to use it in a practical setting (despite Hans' brave attempt to try to understand my gibberish). I still have a large bookshelf full of German classics; someday, someday. Aaron