We bought some homemade Birnenschnaps (pear schnapps) at a Kirchengemeinde Herbstfest (church community fall festival) a month ago. It has a very gentle soothing effect when I've had just about as much Deutsch as I can process. Our skills are improving, but a little knowledge (and reasonably good diction skills) can be a dangerous thing. When I get in over my head in German conversation, I smile and nod a lot.
After church a couple Sundays ago we went to the Kaffeestunde (coffee hour) and I sat down with an older fellow—balding with an enormous mustache—and put together my little German sentence, "Wir sind Amerikaner und wir freuen uns über jede Möglichkeit unser Deutsch zu verbessern..." He welcomed me charmingly and expressed his delight at meeting an American who tries to speak German and next thing I knew he was telling me (in rapid fire German) about the FBI in Pocatello, Idaho, his experience working with the KGB (could he really have said this??!!??) in St. Petersburg and something about his field being Psychology, so he could tell I was really intelligent. Before long he had launched into some deal about a young woman who was attracted to Goethe (or maybe it was Schiller), but she was afraid of his powerful intellect. (All his subject matter was delivered with an abundance of "jazz hands," as though that might improve my understanding.) Then, thinking that Scripture might provide us with some common ground, he proceeded to express his opinion regarding the false translation (from the Greek into German) of Christ giving St. Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the word nicht (not) when it should really be nie (never). Taking my nod as a sign of approval, he shifted into high gear, and launched into a thorough clarification of the death of Rasputin—which, by coincidence, I had just read about online a day or two beforehand—so I was not completely lost, but I couldn't recall any of the vocabulary that had to do with weaponry. I suggested that after the poison, stabbing and gunshot wounds, Rasputin had been thrown into the river and had died of hypothermia (what do I know...this was just what the online story said), but my Gesprächspartner said, no, "Er war getrunken," so we talked about the false friend anti-cognate problem—getrunken doesn't mean "drunk," it means "drowned." Then he quickly returned to the subject of Russians who had been assassinated, and he told me all about Trotsky in Mexico. I think.
In retrospect, I was able to process some of this very one-sided conversation. I might have fared a little better if my eyes could've confirmed what I thought I was hearing—unfortunately, this gentleman wears his walrus-mustache like some kind of lip camouflage. He gave me his Visitenkarte (business card) and asked for mine—people are always doing this.
I'm sure there's a printshop near the Marktplatz. On the way home I'll buy another bottle of Schnaps.
