Learning foreign languages have always been my vision! It opens an arena of the rich culture of the people who speak those languages. Coming from a country that is rich and diverse in culture, it is no surprise that I was interested in learning more about the cultures of other countries too. The European culture is one that always fascinated me. Right from Greek to Roman to the English to German and French, the culture is diverse and captivating.
Language makes us know more and feel closer to the culture of different people and countries. One of the inspirations to learn foreign languages was my aunt who happened to work for Mitsubishi (Perhaps Mitsubishi’s Lancer cars will throw light about the company!), who had some Japanese books in her shelf and the language and the script never failed to intrigue me. Nevertheless, I understood not a single character in that book! However though, it was a book filled with pictures and Japanese characters.My uncle who has traveled to many European countries has been an inspiration to know about France, England and Germany. It is these interests that were sowed, made an attempt to choose French as my second language in Higher Secondary Education (Hmmm – Now I hardly remember any word there in French!). It was the lazy days post college final year days, awaiting my day to join the software company, I happened to see an advertisement for enrollment to Learn German in the Goethe Institute. This Institute is a world known organization for teaching and certifying German to people. The Goethe Institute in Chennai is called The Max Mueller Bhavan – honoring the German who was responsible for spreading Indian culture to the West, by translating Vedas and many of our consecrated texts!
The proximity (about ½ hr travel and 15 minutes walk in the not so hot July sun of Chennai!) was fine enough for me, that I enrolled along with my best friend to learn Deutsche. Learning German was such fun and the lecturers were the best I had ever come across. It was the type of teaching and learning that inspired me so much – There was so much of interaction between the 20 odd people in our class, the bunch being between 18 and 25.
There were so many songs, videos, small plays, dialogues, audio quizzes, crosswords, picture matching and what not that we came across as a tool to learn! It was learning with fun and there are so much that I still remember in Deutsche, even after 4 years of no Deutsche! I happened to attend the weekend classes and I would expect with child like eagerness who waits for chocos and toys, for the weekend classes to come. Such was the people who learned with me, such was the ambience, such was the lecturers who taught, such was the method of teaching – Also to mention the wonderful hot snacks that we had for breakfast on our Sunday mornings – The whole group would chit chat and there was a variety of people from different stages of lives. Few were working, few were still in college, some in their schools and few were waiting to join work – It was an enthusiastic mixture of people.
I was unable to continue the second level of German, however some day I really want to join and go up ahead in completing the 7 levels (It had 7 levels for completion then!).
As an appendix perhaps, here are some beautiful words/sentences from the language
Herzlich Willkommen – Hearty Welcome – This was how my teacher welcomed as we entered the class!
Guten Tag – Good Day!
Danke – Thanks!
Wie ghets – How do you do
And most importantly
Ich liebe dich! – I love you!!! – My my, what uproar it caused when my teacher wrote these words within a heart shape and translated it!!! – Those are ever green memories…
Auf Wiedersehen…(See you again!)
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