The Best of Me(68)
In the subchapter “Getting Closer,” one learns to say, “I like you very much.” “You’re great.” “Do you want a massage?” On the following page, things heat up. “I want you.” “I want to make love to you.” “How about going to bed?” And, a line that might have been written especially for me, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it myself.”
Oddly, the writers haven’t included “Leave the light on,” a must if you want to actually say any of these things. One pictures the vacationer naked on a bed and squinting into his or her little book to moan, “Oh yeah!” “Easy, tiger,” “Faster,” “Harder,” “Slower,” “Softer.” “That was…amazing/weird/wild.” “Can I stay over?”
In the following subchapter, it all falls apart: “Are you seeing someone else?” “He/she is just a friend.” “You’re just using me for sex.” “I don’t think it’s working out.” And, finally, “I never want to see you again.”
Hugh and I returned from China, and a few days later I started preparing for a trip to Germany. The first time I went, in 1999, I couldn’t bring myself to say so much as “Guten Morgen.” The sounds felt false coming out of my mouth, so instead I spent my time speaking English apologetically. Not that the apologies were needed. In Paris, yes, but in Berlin people’s attitude is “Thank you for allowing me to practice my perfect English.” And I do mean perfect. “Are you from Minnesota?” I kept asking.
In the beginning, I was put off by the harshness of German. Someone would order a piece of cake, and it sounded as if it were an actual order, like, “Cut the cake and lie facedown in that ditch between the cobbler and the little girl.” I’m guessing this comes from having watched too many Second World War movies. Then I remembered the umpteen Fassbinder films I sat through in the ’80s, and German began to sound conflicted instead of heartless. I went back twice in 2000, and over time the language grew on me. It’s like English, but sideways.
I’ve made at least ten separate trips by now and have gone from one end of the country to the other. People taught me all sorts of words, but the only ones that stuck were “Kaiserschnitt,” which means “cesarean section,” and “Lebensabschnittspartner.” This doesn’t translate to “lover” or “life partner” but, rather, to “the person I am with today,” the implication being that things change, and you are keeping yourself open.
For this latest trip, I wanted to do better, so I downloaded all thirty lessons of Pimsleur German I, which again start off with “Excuse me, do you understand English?” As with the Japanese and the Italian versions, the program taught me to count and to tell time. Again I learned “The girl is already big” and “How are you?” (“Wie geht es Ihnen?”)
In Japanese and Italian, the response to the final question is “I’m fine, and you?” In German it’s answered with a sigh and a slight pause, followed by “Not so good.”
I mentioned this to my German friend Tilo, who said that of course that was the response. “We can’t get it through our heads that people are asking only to be polite,” he said.
In Japanese I, lesson 17, the actress who plays the wife says, “Kaimono ga shitai n desu ga!” (“I want to go shopping, but there’s a problem and you need to guess what it is.”) The exercise is about numbers, so the husband asks how much money she has. She gives him a figure, and he offers to increase it incrementally.
Similarly, in the German version, the wife announces that she wants to buy something: “Ich m?chte noch etwas kaufen.” Her husband asks how much money she has, and after she answers, he responds coldly, “I’m not giving you any more. You have enough.”
There’s no discord in Pimsleur’s Japan, but its Germany is a moody and often savage place. In one of the exercises, you’re encouraged to argue with a bellhop who tries to cheat you out of your change and who ends up sneering, “You don’t understand German.”
“Oh, but I do,” you learn to say. “I do understand German.”
It’s a program full of odd sentence combinations. “We don’t live here. We want mineral water” implies that if the couple did live in this particular town they’d be getting drunk like everyone else. Another standout is “Der Wein ist zu teuer und Sie sprechen zu schnell.” (“The wine is too expensive and you talk too fast.”) The response to this would be “Anything else, Herr Asshole?” But of course they don’t teach you that.
On our last trip to Tokyo, Hugh and I rented an apartment in a nondescript neighborhood a few subway stops from Shinjuku Station. A representative from the real estate agency met us at the front door, and when I spoke to him in Japanese, he told me I needed to buy myself some manga. “Read those and you’ll learn how people actually talk,” he said. “You, you’re a little too polite.”
I know what he was getting at, but I really don’t see this as much of a problem, especially if you’re a foreigner and any perceived rudeness can turn someone not just against you but against your entire country. Here Pimsleur has it all over the phrase books of my youth, where the Ugly American was still alive and kicking people. “I didn’t order this!” he raged in Greek and Spanish. “Think you can cheat me, do you?” “Go away or I’ll call the police.”