I'm trying to learn German. I say trying because for three weeks now and for two months last year for five days a week I get up at 7am and go to class for 4 hours. You would think that at this point I would be able to speak German. I can't. Learning German is an endless exercise in learning rules then learning 792 exceptions to said rules. They put the verbs at the end of the sentence! That is when they are not busy breaking up verbs and putting one part in the middle of the sentence then putting another part at the end. I do not necessarily want to listen to your whole sentence before I know what the fuck it is you are talking about. I am not a good listener. I do not have the patience to indulge you and your drawn out thought process.

Last night one of my good "friends" (I put friends in quotation marks because I'm not sure how much longer our friendship will last considering the new rules of engagement) decided that it was time for me to speak German. This was decided in the middle of dinner and he promptly switched to his native tongue. It all started well enough with me sitting there with a smug look on my face thinking "Ha, we've already been speaking for an hour so I've already told you everything that is going on in my life so I don't have anything left to say so I'll just sit here in the setting sun with my glass of wine and enjoy the silence." But then he started asking me questions. And expecting me to reply. In GERMAN. What ensued was a frustrating evening with me looking lustfully at little children who just point at objects and say words and answer everything their mothers say with "doch."

It's days like this that I think back fondly to the time when my biggest language barrier was the Cork accent.

In my next German rant I'll explain that they love to tell you that "everything is pronounced exactly as it is spelled!" Which would be brilliant if I could even hear the difference between "o" and "ö" and "u" and "ü".