1.10.2005

More scary German

Okay, you're probably wondering, "what's up with her obsession with scary German?" Well, if you've ever studied German, unless you're Dutch, you've been scared, too.

I wasn't going to mention the scariness of it again, until I found the great book, 1001 Pitfalls in German. Note how many pitfalls there are. That's a lot.

Plus, the author, who's a professor, admits that it's scary: "The very sight of some German compound nouns may frighten you. They may appear monstrous and cumbersome, may compound your confusion and make you want to pound your head against the dictionary."

Written Japanese and Chinese can also cause head-pounding, so they're not excused. But their grammar isn't the nightmare that German is.

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