TheYellowKnight Thanks! The funny thing here is that I got so sucked up into my story, had read about the Muslims in Brussels, etc., and wrote this entire chapter without ever thinking about Cologne.
I remember buying this book when I was 14… It wasn’t the shown edition of course; that edition dated back to 1970 (bought it in 1986) and it used the pre-1996 spelling (more of ß). In the first few lessons, there were simple sentences such as “Morgens ißt man gut in Deutschland”, “Die Tanne ist grün” … “Köln is eine Stadt”!
That was when I learned that all trees are female gender like in Latin, that there are three genders, etc. The basics. This is a sound method since you’re learning by context and always through natural sentences. There must be similar courses for native English speakers.
The hardest book I ever read in German was Hoffmann’s Die Elixiere Des Teufels, but it was worth it. There’s an adorable-looking blonde abbess in that novel; she’s well-read and most aristocratic and she inspired me for the abbess’s character in Senegalese Christmas In Rhineland. Hoffmann’s stories are amazing; his true voice is enough by itself to justify all the time spent learning German!
