Precerpt from My 20th Language: L6, German
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...