Irony?

So, if you haven't picked up on it by now, I have always been fascinated by language. Even as a child I used to babble in my own made up language (my mom is convinced it was Italian - but upon reflection I think it may have been closer to Portuguese).

The fascination started early (dictionary!), but really as a child there weren't that many outlets for my infatuation to grow. Once I was in school, I definitely enjoyed English class, but we never really focused on the language itself (although I always did well on my vocab tests) but rather on literature with an occasional grammar lesson thrown in.

In high school the new option to explore my growing passion for language was to take a foreign language. Now, any rational, reasonable, sensible person living in California knows that if you're going to learn a foreign language, the only one that really makes sense is Spanish. And if you really don't want to take Spanish, then the next most logical would be French. What did I choose? German.

I think there were about 3 or 4 different teachers for Spanish, and 3 for French. But there was only 1 class taught by 1 teacher for German. We started freshman year with 30 people in our class. And by senior year there were about 20 of us left. We spent 4 years bonding with each other and our beloved "Lehrerin." We were each given a German name to use in class. I was "Maria" for 4 long years (that would be 4 long years of my teacher belting out the opening strings of Maria from West Side Story every time she called on me in class). It was wunderbar!

By sophomore year I was so enthusiastic about German, that I decided to take French at the same time. And freshman year of college I finally added Italian to my repertoire.

Of course, in college I discovered there were actually courses in this amazing subject called Linguistics - where all you did all day was study language! It was incredible! You could take a class in any part of language you were interested in - the details of grammar, meaning, the structure of the sound or even the impact of language on society.

And now, several years later - I have my degree in Linguistics, which, even though I'm not currently doing anything with it in my career, I do not regret one bit. I still live in California. And I still don't speak Spanish.

But I did get a job working for a German company. Go figure!