MSI Press Blog

  University German At Penn State, my German skills exploded. German being a heritage language at that time in Pennsylvania, it was, for all intents and purposes, a commonly taught language. Classes were full; the range of courses was impressive—from historical linguistics to contemporary literature and, of course, writing and stylistics at higher levels and composition at lower levels. I don’t believe that is the case now, given that German is considered a less commonly taught language (anywhere) these days. My two years of high school German should have allowed me to skip one semester of college German, the rule of thumb being one year of high school covers about as much as ½ semester at college. However, I tested out of first year, skipping two semesters, one for each year of high school. That, in my mind, is great testimony to the value of Mr. Hurley’s second-year class, the one almost all the students hated and the one I devoured. That deep foundation in grammar meant a lo...

    I was still in high school when I began the study of my sixth language—German. I did not choose German so much as following the only open path. Our high school offered only three languages. I was already taking classes in French and Latin. The third language was German, and being a future linguist—I knew that from a very young age—signing up for the German course was a no-brainer. German was my first non-Romance language, but English is a Germanic language. So, much of the way German worked was familiar, at least on a subconscious level. My German was immensely helped by my 8 th grade English teacher, who had been a stickler for grammar, especially diagramming sentences. Schools may no longer teach that, but they should. It provides a strong basis for both writing English and for learning other languages as it makes explicit the nature of grammar, and thus, the nature of meaning in all languages. I have always been grateful for that English class. German may have st...