Danny Carries on Swotting.
Things being relatively quiet in the Truck, I helped to pass the time by continuing to work on the "Hugo" German Grammars which I'd bought at Thorney Island, and now another opportunity came up. On the northern end of Cologne there was RAF Butzweilerhof, and there the RAF Education Branch had set up a German language school for us.
I suppose they must have offered full-time Courses for those who were required to know the language for official RAF purposes, but they also had informal "as opportunity offers" day and evening short courses for those who, like myself, were merely interested in it. I don't think there were any fees.
(Curiously, Wiki does not seem to know about this, and I suppose I ought to tell them, but as I have no start/stop dates for the Courses, and nothing to back-up my story, and I don't know how anyway, have decided to let that sleeping dog lie).
Of course, on a four-watch system, there was ample free time at home in the Volkspark, and I had no difficulty in organising myself into a class of "intermediates". I can't remember how much time per week I put in, or how long the Course lasted, but it must have been enough to be useful. At the end, they put me in for a GCE "O" level, I scraped through (can't remember what Grade - honestly !) and still remember the oral.
The system was this, they had a stack of old 78s (which played for 3-4 minutes a side). Each of these told a simple story in German. They played a record to you twice (I think), and then you were questioned (in German, of course) to test your understanding of the story, and your ability to discuss it with your examiner (btw, did they use the same idea then in our schools at home ? - certainly wasn't in French in my time - '38).
I remember mine well. A pudel had stolen a string of wurst from a fleischerei and galloped off with it; the rest of the tale detailed the pursuit of the thief and the eventual recovery of the wurst. (I suppose the butcher ran it under a tap, repacked it and put it back on sale).
But the real interest in all this lies in a side-story. We students took (facetiously) to greeting each other, after lunch, with "Guten Nachmittag" - which no German ever says. "Guten Morgan/Tag/Abend" and "Gute Nacht" - yes. But not "Guten Nachmittag" !
And then a strange thing happened. The German civilian staff on the station (drivers, cleaners clerks, cooks, gardeners etc) heard us addressing each other in this way, and reasoned thus:
"These Englander are being instructed in the German tongue by their Herr Professor . This must, therefore, be korrect. Indeed, have we not seen an open copy of "Duden" * on his desk ? That clinches it - if it's in "Duden" it Must be Right ". Accordingly they started saying it among themselves; the practice spread; and in the end we were well on the way to having created a sub-species of German going around saying "Guten Nachmittag" ! I often wonder if it caught on to any extent.
* (Wiki will tell you all about it)
Gute Nacht, Kameraden, Schlafen Sie Wohl,
Danny42C.
(You gotta speaka da lingo !)
Last edited by Danny42C; 16th Nov 2013 at 23:34.
Reason: Spacing.