by Herwig Wandschneider

Was ist

„Gehasst, Gefürchtet,
Geschätzt, Geliebt"?

Did you know that English has more words than German? That was one of the surprises Dr. Barbara Schmenk announced to Teachers on their PD (Professional Development) day at the German Language School Concordia. The impression that German requires so many more words to express the same sense as English lies probably in the fact that German usually requires more space. German however combines more words into one (the combined words are not counted separately), and expresses things in a more complicated way.

Another surprise is that the frequent use of English words in the German language has begun to gradually diminish as evidenced in advertising, which normally reflects what is considered "in". However, the "Handy" still exists – and did you know that a "Bodybag" is a Rucksack? Actually, many Germans do not understand the English words and sometimes interpret them incorrectly.

Dr. Schmenk’s presentation on the subject of "German - Gehasst, Gefürchtet, Geschätzt, Geliebt" was lively and absolutely fascinating taking the audience from Mark Twain (gehasst) via Reichel, Schwerdtfeger (gefürchtet - „German is a military language", "eine harte Sprache") and J.L. Borges (geschätzt) to Dr. Jutta Limbach and all the poets imaginable (geliebt – „Ich liebe unsere Sprache" "Englisch ist ein muss deutsch ist ein plus").

Her presentation was humorously underlined with quotations and anecdotes.

Dr. Schmenk, a graduate of the University of Bochum and since September a member of the teaching team at the Department of German and Slavic Studies of the University of Waterloo, spoke also of the general dislike of the German language by a majority of the German population. This trend is now also reversing. The reversal is reflected in the competition for "Das schönste deutsche Wort" initiated by the „Deutsche Sprachrat" and the Goethe Institut. The results of the competition are published by the Book of the same title, Herausgeber Dr. Jutta Limbach. The book is a selection of the most beautiful declarations of love to the German language, with reasons given why the word has been selected.

For Teachers of the German Language School Concordia Dr. Schmenk made this a very interesting and informative PD-day with a humorous and entertaining twist.