Ironically Disadvantaged

To some this post may not seem justified, but if you want to you can come and experience why I believe I am disadvantaged in way because I went to school in America. Here it is...I am the only student in my language class that speaks only one language fluently. For two of the students in my class this is their fourth language, and yes, the other three they speak perfectly. Why is this? Because most everyone else in the world learns to speak English with their mother language. Some learn it immediately while others start learning it in kindergarten or later elementary age. I am not trying to have a pitty party, but the fact that I only know English well is a problem. Why? Because our language while complicated it some ways is simple in others. For example we say the dog, the girl, the cat, the man, and the car...no matter the context. In Deutsch we say der Hund, die Madchen, die Katze, der Mann, and das Auto. Every word is either feminine, masculine, or neutral form and the article "the" changes to "der, die, or das"(and then others if it is plural). But it couldn't be that simple as each article "der, die, or das" can change to "den, dem, am, im, ans, ins, zum, zur, vom" depending on if the sentence is accusative, nominative, or datative. And sometimes the prepositions have diferent words depending on the context. Every other language has the different tenses and forms...except English. So today I asked a question...How do you determine which preposition and article goes with the datative and accusative, how do you identifiy each? Okay, apparently that was a stupid question...until I told them English was my only fluent language and I only know a little Spanish, but at least there are rules for why something is feminine or masculine...in Deutsch you just have to memorize them. Oh yeah, Spanish has two article changes, but at least they are easily identifiable. Anyway, the instructor had to take time out of class to accomodate only me. Everyone else was bored and I am embarrassed!
The sucky part is one encounters this problem in every sentence in the language. My one great wish is for our public school system to mandate language training at a much earlier age. High School Spanish was some what funny and no one took it seriously...we just wanted to not have to take it in college. I know some schools systems do it on their own, but I think it is valuable as you never know where life can take you, and learning it at 5 is probably easier. I am certainly living proof that life can pick you up and drop your ass in the middle of Europe! So wish me luck as learning a language intensively at 30 is not really that fun when you have no frame of reference. I am 3 weeks in and 5 to go on...the sad part is that after this course I would have to take 6 more months to speak it fluently. I am going to think about that one!

Auf Wiedersehen