AMD 2

For my second AMD assignment, I chose to read Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language." I have always been told by non-native English speakers, that English is an extremely difficult language to understand. But, according to Mark Twain, German is even more difficult. One part I found particularly interesting was when he was talking about the gender of nouns and the word der (the.) First, Twain seemed annoyed that all nouns had genders and most of the genders seem arbitrary in their assignment, but the part that most frustrated him was the difference in der and how it changes with each noun and case. I too find der to be confusing, there is no different way of saying "the" in English, so I find it perplexing that German requires different ways of saying der. And, in my favorite part of the essay, Twain says, "In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip"

One point in the essay, Twain briefly talks about how all nouns in German are capitalized, and, to be honest, I cannot tell if he is being sarcastic or not. The beginning of the paragraph seems completely sincere, but by the end it seems as if he is bashing the language again. I for one, enjoy that all nouns in German are capitalized, but it will take a great deal of getting used to, furthermore I'm afraid that I will eventually start to capitalize all my English words too. Overall, Twain writes a funny essay with some great points about the quirkiness of the German language