"The Awful German Language"

By Mark Twain. A humorous look at the German language.

Some long German words.

In 1880, Mark Twain wrote the novel A Tramp Abroad, a humorous account of his experiences traveling through central and southern Europe. In preparing for his travels, Twain started studying German. As an appendix to the book, he wrote the essay “The Awful German Language,” which comically explores the difficulties and troubles of the German language for anyone trying to learn it.

Twain pokes fun at, among other things, the way the German language uses gender and the length of some German words.


Some quotes from the essay:

"I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective."

 "July 1. -- In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient."

 "[German] ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it."

You can read the essay here:

German.About.com - The Awful German Language

University of Utah - The Awful German Language 

You can also listen to an audio file of the essay, found at these sites:

Project Gutenberg - The Awful German Language 

Librivox.org - The Awful German Language 

General information about the essay:

Wikipedia - The Awful German Language

What's your most frustrating learning experience? Have you run across a really long German word? Post it in the comments below!