I have to confess: I was interested in learning German purely by chance. I was recruited as an intern in my college’s German studies center (which later, merged with other nation-based studies center into Language Training Center). Instead of getting compensated with money, I get to learn A1 level of German. Seemingly, it wasn’t a difficult language to learn. Compared to Arabic, in which I have to memorize a thousand line/alfiyah to understand sharaf (and it’s syntactic brother: nahwu).

The interest later developed into a fond feeling of etymology—and simultaneously, the love of the language and philosophy. Aside from French, being able to read in German (in my ideals) unlock the possibility to dig deeper into the heel of philosophy as it’s core as language game (Spielsprach).

I have been refreshing my German skill for 200+ days now. Thanks to Duolingo. Yet, I am only remotely capable of reading any German literature. The only thing that I’ve been able to read these days are children stories—and even so, I still have the urge to open my worterbuch. Due to my impatience, lately I have been feeling a bit…frustated.

Two hundred days, zweihundert Tage. If only I had been more active to seek a peer to learn the language with, I ought to be fluent by now. Alas, I don’t have any German-speaking colleague to exercise my skill. All I have is Lili and Duo, and both haven’t been really into giving structurally or naturally sound language. I am still having a hard time differentiating the nominative, accusative, dative, and genetive form of the nouns!

Sometimes, I wish I was being thrown into German speaking environment and forced to linguistically adapt. If only.