Front
Back (apologies for my handwriting!)
The text of the postcard is
Dear Ellen,
In my feeble attempt to learn some German via Duolingo, I am also learning that I don’t know much English. For example, today I am doing a lesson on ‘Genitive Case.’ I don’t know what that means, but I can only assume it’s language you’d use while visiting Geneva. Stuff like, “hey, nice watch!”
Sincerely,
DumbFunnery.com OR @DumbFunnery
In this post I am going to attempt to use my fledgling German knowledge to express my hatred of a fly that is inside my house and does Top Gun style fly bys of the tower (my face) and I want to kill him but he never seems to land. Except for on my legs when I am eating.
Hallo Fliege,
Mein freund, du bist nicht gut. Und ich habe kein liebe für du.
Ich bin stark, und groß, aber du bist schmutzig und … um, nicht stark.
Hmmm. Ich spreche ein klein Deutsch so das ist schwer. Ich brauche … etwas.
Mit hass,
Mich
And now a translation to see how I’ve done. I can already tell you – not well. But let’s see it. I am lacking a vocabulary. You want me to say hello to a potato? I can do that. But to fully express my hatred for a fly? That’s beyond me.
Hello fly,
My friend, you're not good. And I have no love for you.
I am strong, and tall, but you are dirty and ... um, not strong.
Hmmm. I speak a small German so that is hard. I need something.
With hate,
Me
Recently my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting Prague, Czech Republic. It is a beautiful city that seems to have a mystical and unsettling charm that is amazing.
It also features a language that, I think, was created by an English speaking cryptographer.
Pants
Spanish – pantalones
German – hose
Czech – kalhoty
Hello
Spanish – hola
German – hallo
Czech – ahoj
Friend
Spanish – amigo
German – freund
Czech – přítel
Ok. Well.
I thought I would find a bunch of words that would illustrate that Czech was incredibly confusing to me and somehow more foreign than most languages. With Spanish, French, German and Italian I’ve seen or heard enough words/phrases that it doesn’t boggle the mind. With languages that use different letters … of course it’s confusing. But Czech was letters I know in orderings that I’d never encountered before. There was no ‘wo ist die bahnhof’ (where is the train station), there was ‘kde je vlakové nádraží’ … go ahead, try and guess how to say that.
I’ll end with the most beautiful phrase in German I know, “Ich fürchte, es gibt einen Spinnenaffe in meinem Salat, bringen Sie mir bitte ein Paar chirurgische Handschuhe und einen Zylinder. Sofort. Oh und auch ein Monokel.”
DumbFunnery 