PEWESAS

Maybe someone thought capitalization in English was just a master of style. Based on a lot of stuff I see online, I can believe that would be a take-away.

German’s capitalization rules are regular, but I don’t know them. I learned German entirely through immersion; by the time I left the country, I had one person say that I didn’t sound like a foreigner, but rather like someone from some other vague state. However, my attempts at writing it have been variously described by native German speakers as “funny,” “odd,” “peculiar,” and occasionally “hilarious.”

I did once attempt to take proper German classes after I got back to the States to try and fix my gaps. Do you know how intensely horrible it is to try to take language classes in which you’re fluent but can’t write? If you start at level 1, half the class is mind numbingly dull, because it’s all vocabulary and pronunciation. If you start any higher, you struggle with basic written rules you should have learned earlier. Worst is that there are a ton of classes designed for people who can read and write but need conversational practice, but almost none for the other direction. So I find myself in this odd state where I can read and write basic French - because I studied it in college for three years - yet I can’t understand or be understood conversationally. Yet I can hold a conversation in German, but I’m lucky if the reader can understand what I’ve written.

How did I get here? Oh, right: capitalization rules. Except these are just different font sizes mixed together, not even capitalization mistakes. Hmmm indeed.

To a Japanese speaker it looks quirky.

To an English speaker it looks deranged.

It’s for the anus