German Logic

I've rested. The Spanish has had time to settle. It's time to move on to Part II - it's time to learn German.

Right, so I've actually been learning German for awhile. 3 years in High School, leaving right as things started to pick up... then, in University, a semester here and a semester there. Perhaps more importantly, German was always second or third or even fourth place. Spanish was my major and Norwegian my secret hobby, and there was always some flavour of the month as well - Italian before Italy, Finnish before Finland, Catalan when I found a class for it. I never gave German my undivided attention. It's had to get by with bits and pieces.

So I'm hopeful about how my German will improve over the next months. I have a foundation laid, but I get confused by prefixes, I'm uncertain about my vocabulary, I largely ignore genders, and it just doesn't come as naturally to me as some other languages. But yesterday I started studying using the awesome flashcard website Vokker, and I can already see how the situation might change. There is a logic to German, even if it's a new sort of logic.

The word Zapfen, for example, is always masculine, whether it refers to retinal cones or pine cones, spigots or icicles.