Memories of my German Language Class!

Lynda Jensen Sobieski, Miss Scott, Chester Tom

We all had a language class that was part of our curriculum.  I remember it being in my junior year, most of us took spanish, french and there was also german. When I received my list of classes my language listed was german. That is great but I already spoke german. I wanted to change my language to french. I thought that would be an awesome language to learn and who knows I may go there someday. I had to go and see Miss Scott..does anyone remember Miss Scott?  She was the german language teacher in our school.  She was Scottish, but had an excellent german vocabulary.

So, here I am in her office and she asked me what I wanted to study instead.  I told her that I was eager to study french and she then asked me what do you plan to use it for?  I don't know..I just want to learn it and I may go to France one day.  She started to speak to me in german and I answered her when she came out very loudly, "you don't know the proper german, you speak low german:".  Wow!!..I got upset at what she said and found that to be pretty harsh words.  My pronunciation of some words were not correct as she later explained and felt that I would be better off in her german class where I will learn to speak "proper" german.  I walked out of her office so disappointed.

The class was almost full and I was surprised on how many were interested in german.  I felt good and thought I had one over on everyone since I already speak german.  Not so..whenever a new word was introduced, Miss Scott would call on me to pronounce the word to the class.  "Did you hear how the word sounds?"..class said "yes", then Miss Scott said  "That is not how the word is pronounced", ofcourse the class laughed.  This happened a couple of times until I told Miss Scott that it was upsetting to me.  When she explained to me why she was so rough was that she wanted me to improve my german and since I was speaking it at home, we were starting to include english words and losing the german I already knew

After some time, I grew to like my german class and Miss Scott and enjoyed the challenge.  Towards the end of school, an opportunity was brought to us to be an exchange student in Germany during the summer months.  We were to attend classes at a university and would stay at a host home for that whole time.  The cost was not that much but enough that we could not afford to send me.  It would have been a really wonderful opportunity.

After that conversation with Miss Scott, we got along very well.  Infact, she wrote in my yearbook in german and it says "The dear little Senaf, I wish you well in everything".I appreciated her concern and help because german has a proper and a lower vocabulary and to speak it correctly in business the proper is much needed.   (proper and low means regional language)

I am inviting everyone to share your story of your language class. You can comment your story below or if you are unsure about writing a blog, send me the information you want posted and I will post it for you. We all are interested in your experience.

Have You Traveled?

WHERE HAVE YOU TRAVELED TO??

I was going to post this as a poll on Facebook and then decided to post a poll here.  I was not happy with the result since it would take many lines to post all the countries in the world and would take up ALOT of space and it would defeat the purpose.  I decided to ask the question right here in the blog and anyone can use the comment to leave his or her response.  In order to know who you are there are a few steps to take.  

If you are commenting as an Anonynous (you don't have to sign up with a 3rd party) then leave your full name and the year you graduated.  If you have an account with any of the others listed and have a picture uploaded, it will show your picture and if not then no picture.  But for each one who comments, please give your name and year you graduated and tell us where you have traveled.  

If you were in the military, where did you travel while serving our country.  I am sure we have many alumni who have served in the military and traveled not just in civilian life.  We want to hear from you too!!

I will leave a comment first and then anyone can follow!!

Is Shorthand A Dying Art??

I decided to write about shorthand since most of us had taken shorthand in high school.  I am sure many of you will relate to this and recognize the script or may even be able to read it.

I was first introduced to shorthand in my junior year when I and a group of other girls entered into the Pre-Tech program which required us to take business courses and office skills.  The Pre-Tech program consisted of a 2 year study of shorthand, typing, and academic studies needed to complete in order to fulfill my grading requirements and continue to the next level of my studies. With the completion of the 2 year program we would be able to attend a 2 year community college. We were the first group to enter into this program. You might say that we were the ones that were the test group being the deciding factor whether this program was going to continue depending on the success of the program.

I can recall how exciting it was to learn shorthand.  I also knew that once I understood it that other people would not be able to read it.  Everyday we learned a new

consonant

vowel

punctuations. 

It was a fun class and I learned alot.  Here is a video of the introduction of Gregg Shorthand Dictation.  You will have to mute the music on the right side Ipod in order to hear the video.  As the man is talking, he or she is writing it all down in shorthand. 



Here is an article about a woman who translates shorthand from documents and it is titled Miss Stevens, can you take a letter? Shorthand skills dying out   Her name is Letha Sanders and she is a shorthand translator and she has turned it into a business.  Here is her website Shorthand Translation Services.


How many still use shorthand at your job or in writing your journal?  Has court stenography replaced shorthand? Would high schools bring this art back into their curriculum? For anyone who has been through this program and remembers shorthand, let us know what you think about this.  Are you or have you used shorthand at your present or previous jobs?  You can leave a comment on after this article.

References:
Gregg Shorthand - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_shorthand
Gregg Shorthand on Facebook "like" page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gregg-shorthand/106179482745866
Gregg Shorthand Dictionary - http://books.google.com/books/about/Gregg_shorthand_dictionary.html?id=J5kLAAAACAAJ