Deutschland aka Germany
 
 

Dr. Jones' connection with the German language began, oddly enough, because his proficiency in Spanish placed him out of four semesters of college language courses. With no languages to take at USCF, the guy who was registering him for courses suggested he take German instead. Being the empty-headed freshman he was at the time, he agreed. Although he did well in the two semester sequence, in no small part assisted by the language lab TA who was also taking the course and allowed him to listen to the tapes outside of the lab, he was relieved to have this part of his undergraduate education behind him. Little did he know that he would need every bit of that and a great deal more in thirteen years.

In September of 1975 Dr. Jones found out he would find himself in Basel, Switzerland in twelve months. He and his wife set about to learn as much German as inexpensively as possible. A local adult education sequence, records borrowed from a friend and trying to review on their own comprised their preparation.

They arrived in Switzerland to discover that Baselers speak an unwritten dialect of German called Basel Dytsch. To the untrained ear it only vaguely resembles German. Fortunately, Dr. Jones' colleagues at the Physical Chemistry Institute all spoke perfect English and perfect hoch Deutsch, high German, the official, not the local, language of Basel. Dr. Jones, thinking he had only one year, threw himself into the learning of this language. The sympathetic departmental secretary, Madeline Stenz, was a great encouragement to him in this regard. He would not leave the lab at the end of the day unless he had memorized three new words in German. Often he would be alone at the end of the day, all the native German speakers having long since departed, trying to get his fatigued brain to record more data. His colleagues at the Institute also proved to be a great asset and would patiently answer his questions about the language. He learned from this that German is learned by rote, without a formal knowledge of grammar unless one is a German major, in contrast to how English is taught in America. He often was asked questions about English, since most of the research results were published in English. The Swiss were somewhat surprised to hear rules cited in addition to corrections of flawed English.

The local newspaper, the Baseler Zeitung also proved helpful in enlarging his vocabulary. He still reads this always daily on the web in an abbreviated form that keeps him current on local events in Basel. Additionally, he subscribes to two German internet wire services that give him the daily news from a German perspective and a weekly summary of the world's current events. These coupled with a marvelous, "smart" English or German on line dictionary through the Technical University of Munich provide all the tools he needs to watch the world through the eyes of the German language.

He and his family were privileged to visit Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany in the summer of 2000. It was a special joy to be with Grace Community Church missionaries, Christian Andresen and Cary Green and their families in Berlin.

Additionally, he reads the Bible in German on a daily basis. His favorite German translation is the 1994 revision of the Luther translation. He enjoys listening to tapes of sermons in German, and he also enjoys, as time permits, reading German translations of Dr. MacArthur's books. He would welcome the opportunity, if it is His will, to use this to advance the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ among German speaking peoples.

Back to Index

  
 
© S. Caldwell 2001.