Auf Deutsch, Please: Why I'm Thankful I Took German in High School

When I was in high school, we had a choice of three languages: French, Spanish, and German. There was pressure to take French. My mother had taken French in high school. There was pressure to take Spanish. I remember my father suggesting that I take Spanish, since so many Spanish speaking people were coming to the United States. His reasoning was that it would be practical and helpful in the future to be able to communicate with these people. It just made too much sense.

Being a typically rebellious teenager, given my mother's choice and my dad's advice, I chose German. I got a lot of flack for it, too. But I stuck with it, in spite of what my family thought.

My girlfriend and I spent countless hours writing those important teenage notes back and forth to each other entirely auf Deutsch (in German) just in case they were intercepted. That constant practice for three solid school years made us pretty good at writing and speaking German!

Thankfully, this diligence paid off junior year, although in a most unexpected way. The French and German clubs took a ten day whirlwind trip to Europe that covered France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. My dad graciously paid my way, but I'm sure he would rather have been sending me on a trip to Latin America.

In Germany, our bus driver was a jolly fellow named Heinz. I don't know how, but he handled that big tour bus like a Formula One driver at the Monaco Grand Prix. It was pretty harrowing watching out of the window as he sped along the narrow roads of the Alps. I don't recall many guardrails, either.

At one rest stop along a particular road, the wheel chair door on the side of the bus was inadvertently left open. As we continued along the winding road to the next picturesque bluff, the door, which was adjacent to my window seat kept banging open and closed. I kept hoping some light would go off on the dash board that would notify Heinz of the situation, but he just kept driving along, accelerating after every curve in the road.

Finally, we stopped again for a scenic picture break. I ran up to Heinz, tugged his jacket, and said, "Heinz! Die Tur schliesst nicht"! That is German for, "Heinz! The door won't shut"! He chuckled and casually went to the side of the bus and gave the wheelchair door a hearty slam. He wasn't in the least bit alarmed, but I am sure I lost hours off my life span from the whole ordeal.

After that very practical use of my German skills, I found little occasion to use the language for over 20 years. Yes, it was fun to be able to understand the occasional German tourists in restaurants or understand when the actors spoke in those old movies. But none of this justified three years of high school study of the language.

Fast forward to this past Thanksgiving, 2008. I discovered the world of freelance writing on the internet. In addition to advertising writing jobs, many employers advertise the need for translation work on the many sites I scour on a daily basis. I'm happy to report that German translation jobs come up frequently!

Now, all I need to do is brush off the cobwebs. I've been practicing and reviewing for a month now. My goal is to be confident enough to start bidding on some of these German translation jobs by spring. Then, I can finally justify to my dad why German was a good language choice. And, Mom, had I taken French, your daughter would probably have been lost over a cliff in the Alps- lost to a freak accident involving an open wheelchair door on a speeding tour bus.......