January 23rd, 2004

German, the language of love?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Love lures French kids to German:

Come and learn German – a language of love! Hundreds of advertisements in France this week will promote the unusual message to try to woo teenagers to a language they often consider difficult and ugly.

“Language is the key to understand a partner, his culture, working manners and lifestyle,” [French President Jacques] Chirac and [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder said in a joint statement on Wednesday ahead of “Franco-German day”.

It should be noted that Chirac does not speak German. (At least, not yet.) Schröder likely does not speak French, though the article doesn’t mention it explicitly. Personally, I like the sound of the German language. It’s the language for when you mean business and for getting the job done. The sentence structure builds up all this potential energy, and then all those verbs come flying at you in rapid succession – bam bam bam – and the sentence suddenly gels into place. It’s like speaking in reverse Polish notation. What’s not to like?

Category
Old New Thing
Topics
Non-Computer

Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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