Wednesday, May 30, 2007

It's time to learn German

I go to a Chinese bible study every weekend. The hosts live in Reihen. To get to their house from my apartment, first I take tram #8 and transfer to tram #6 at Claraplatz, and vice versa on my way back home. I've done quite a few times already so I thought I could go without a map.

Last time when we finished the study, it was almost 11pm. I got on tram #6 as usual, just as I was settling in my seat, the conductor uttered a long long sentence in German. Since all my neighbors seemed extremely composed, I decided to ignore the announcement.

A short moment later, I discovered the tram was crossing the Rhine River --- but it should have stayed in this side of the river until I get to Claraplatz! I hurried to get off the tram, since I was standing in the pouring rain so I got on another tram heading the opposite direction without knowing where I was heading.. finally arrived home by taxi.

The miserable experience forced me to bring my German study into agenda. So yesterday, for the first time in my life, I opened a German book and thought I would like to at least memorize some vocaburary. The first word came into my eyes was "frau", meaning "woman", or "Mrs/Ms".

I praise God that this was indeed a very blessed day in my life --- because I had thought this word means "to". I've seen it many times on the envelops of the mails I received: "Frau Mindy Fang". I took it for granted that it means "To Mindy Fang", and for the past entire month, I had been comfortably and confidently "frau"ing everybody on my outgoing mails... including:

Frau: British Consulate Geneva

....... (speechless)