With this story I got second place in the Short Story Contest “Vergessen”, organized by the Kultur Büro of my uni – University of Münster.
My head and back throb after hours of working at my computer, coding, gathering quotes, keeping endless tables of literature neatly organized, trying to grasp as much as possible, defying my worst enemy: Vergessen. Das Vergessen, kein plural, nominal form of the verb vergessen, vergaß, haben vergessen. I look at the organized mess in front of me, my computer screen looking back indifferently. “Ordnung muss sein,” I remind myself, almost as an introduction to the last part of my day: reviewing vocabulary. I take out my flashcards from my Leitner Box and lay them on the desk. The color system looks wrong, but I will have to endure it: learning German is enough of a challenge as it is. Could I maybe improve them? Make them more efficient? I sigh. Reviewing comes first. Practice makes perfect. Üben macht…. perfekt?
A Leitner Box is a spaced repetition system designed to optimize your memorization capacity. You divide a box into sections and label them with numbers from 1 to 7. Whenever you learn something, you create a flashcard and file it into “1”. The next day, you review the same card, and if you still remember, you will then move the card into “2”. After the second review, things get a little more complicated: you need to consult your calendar. The pre-designed calendar contains which boxes should be reviewed each day. Box 1 is reviewed every day, so you have to make sure that there is new content being entered to the system. Box 2, every other day. Box 3, every five days. The interval of days keeps growing until your flashcard reaches Box 7, which marks the end of the memorization process and the achievement of ultimate success: the word or structure is ingrained in your memory by then. Festverankert, festgestellt, no running away anymore.
My Leitner Box is indeed a mess, but a mess that works for me. Cards are designed depending on the kind of word I’m learning. Nouns must include the grammatical gender, of course, to deal with one of German’s biggest unpredictabilities: der, die, or das? For instance, when I eat pasta in my language, I have to take it with a masculine object, el tenedor, but here, at my cold German dinner table, I must eat with the long silvery locks of a female fork. Verb cards, on the other hand, should include Präteritum and Perfekt forms, and don’t forget the usual Ergänzungen, akkusativ, dativ, prepositions that treacherously stab you in the back, each with its own Ergänzung because… why not? And then we have adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions…
Besiegen, besiegt, haben besiegen. Deutsch besiegt mich jeden Tag. Besiegen takes an accusative complement. Erinnern, erinnerte, haben erinnert. Ich muss mich an jedes Wort erinnern. Erinnern takes a prepositional complement (an etwas) but also a reflexive object –mich– because I am remembering me some words, for myself, for my property, to live within the limits of my mental castle, where I keep all my words strictly shelved. Are they like objects, like books? Sind Wörter Bücher? Or are they like people trying to escape? Ist mein Gehirn ein Gefängnis? Yes, that’s much better.
My literature notes, piled up in one corner of the desk, impose their discipline silently. Schmitt stresses that vocabulary is key in learning a new language. Oxford provides models of language learning strategies and self-regulation as cornerstones for successful learning. Schær argues that vocabulary size is one of the strongest predictors of listening comprehension. Vandergrift emphasizes the importance of listening strategies for language achievement. I need to tackle it all.
It is time for tea. I get my headphones ready. While I pour some water onto a sad-looking Teebeutel, I will play a Hörbuch, just to make sure that I am practicing my listening. Comprehensive input is when we ensure that the language input we are getting is within our Zone of Proximal Development, a concept coined by Vygotsky that refers to something we still haven’t learned, but that is very close to something we already know. We don’t start by playing Rachmaninov; we start with basic scales, and once we’ve mastered them, we can keep going, step by step, always toward a more achievable goal. Thus, I listen for the fiftieth time about a young wizard going to school, laughing at the same jokes, worrying about the same developments, but this time with Freude and a little bit of Angst, Befürchtung, Sorge_. Zuhören, hörte zu, haben zugehört_, takes a dative object.
Today, I have German class, and my amygdala knows it. I do a quick review before heading to the Sprachenzentrum on my bike. As usual, it is windy and rainy in Münster. Koeckeritz highlights the importance of mnemonics in interactive learning to create an organizational framework for encoding and recalling information. Schmuddelwetter. SchMUD, I repeat to myself. It is dirty weather, muddy, sticky like the word Schmuddel. It is wet, like Wetter is in Münster on most autumn days. While I ride my bike, I embody Schmuddelwetter to encapsulate it and make this word a prisoner of my mind. I can also feel Schmuddelwetter within, as my nerves whirl around my stomach.
I get to class. A shiver goes through my spine. Der Schauder, die Schauder, the nominal form of the verb schaudern, schauderte, haben geschaudert, an intransitive verb. The room is full of younger faces, laughing, speaking relaxedly to each other.
“Also”, begins the instructor (Die Dozentin, die Dozentinnen), “in der heutigen Diskussion werden wir eine eingehende Erörterung des Aufsatzes vornehmen, dessen Lektüre Ihnen als obligatorische Vorbereitung für die heutige Sitzung aufgetragen wurde. In Anbetracht Ihres fachlichen Hintergrundes in den Geisteswissenschaften gehe ich davon aus, dass die Komplexität des Textes für Sie keine unüberwindbare Herausforderung dargestellt hat. Sie haben mir Ihre Zusammenfassungen geschickt. Andrea, würden Sie so freundlich sein, uns Ihre Erkenntnisse hinsichtlich der strukturellen Beschaffenheit des Textes darzulegen? Insbesondere interessiert mich, welches Strukturmuster Sie identifizieren konnten.”
I start sweating. Der Schweiß, kein plural, nominal form of the verb schwitzen, schwitzte, haben geschwitzt. Vornehmen, vornahm, vorge… auftragen, trug auf, haben aufget… unüberwind… was?
“Sorry. Können Sie das bitte wiederholen?” The teacher looks at me compassionately and repeats herself, but I can’t hear her. I get the word Muster. Yes, das Muster, die Muster, the pattern, I know this. She wants the structure of the text. But my throat won’t yield. The faces are looking at me, waiting awkwardly for my answer. My heart pounds. I stand up. I make a run for it.
While I try to control my breathing, I feel a warm touch on my shoulder. It’s one of my classmates.
“Keine Sorge, alles wird okay,” she says, smiling tenderly at me.
“Ich habe mein ganzes Deutsch vergessen”, sage ich.
“Ja, ich auch. Ich bin hier, denn ich habe nichts verstanden. Ich sagte, ich würde herkommen, um dir zu helfen, aber ich bin nur hier, um dem Unterricht zu entfliehen.”
“Entfli… was?”
“Entfliehen, entfloh, haben entflohen” she mutters rhythmically, and I laugh. “Significa escapar“
As soon as those Spanish words hit my ears, there’s a breakout in my mental jail; words are fleeing desperately, stepping on each other and getting shattered against the walls of my brain. They will not come back, at least not today.
“¿Una cerveza?”
“¡Por favor!”
(c) Constanza Quinteros Ortiz