Re: Minimal German

From: Jim Oxford (JOxford@net1plus.com)
Date: Thu Dec 03 1998 - 12:46:06 EST


At 9:28 12/3/98, John M. Sweigart wrote:

>Fellow list members;
>I have always wanted to learn minimal German. Is there in these days of
>advanced technology a short cut way of doing so? I mean simply learning
>how to read rather than going back to school, language labs, etc.? If
>there are computer tools, what would you recommend? Please reply off
>list.

john,

when it comes to becoming proficient in another language, i'm not sure that
any technological advancement will ever take the place of time and hard
work. no, i do not think that you would have to return to school for
language labs, etc. you may consider finding a good german grammar that is
tailored to your needs (conversation, reading theology, etc.), working your
way through it, and then, since your interest is nt and greek, start
reading a german nt. since you know the contexts and will have a
rudimentary understanding of the language, you should see appreciable
improvement in your grasp of the language as well as experience a personal
sense of achievment, which in turn becomes a tremendous sense of motivation
to learn the language even better.

i spent several years at tuebingen university in germany studying with
professor dr peter stuhlmacher, and before i left, i did the above. i also
read as much bultmann as i could get my hands on, and even though he can be
difficult to understand at times at the conceptual level, at the
grammatical and syntactical ones, he is quite lucid (this is sharply
contrasted to schlatter and stuhlmacher who are clear at the conceptual
level but unbearable at times at the grammatical).

and while it may not have been the most "scholarly" thing to do, i watched
a lot of german tv, especially dubbed american shows like "the cosby show"
and "cheers." i doubt you will be able to do this in the states, but
perhaps you could go to a video store and rent german movies.

one more thing. after i had a basic sense of the language, i also read a
lot of children's books such as the fairy tales of the brothers grimm
(which can be gruesome at times), the diary of anne frank, tolkein's lord
of the rings trilogy, twain's huckleberry finn, etc. because i knew these
books from my childhood, the experience of reading them in german was quite
rewarding and pleasurable.

sorry to have rambled.

regards,

jim

Jim Oxford
Ph D candidate in NT
Baylor University
joxford@net1plus.com

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