{"id":248,"date":"2020-01-04T03:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T03:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/?p=248"},"modified":"2025-12-04T03:20:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T03:20:33","slug":"when-you-lose-a-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/2020\/01\/04\/when-you-lose-a-language\/","title":{"rendered":"When you lose a language\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p id=\"33da\">When one slowly loses a language, you start losing with the spoken expressions, but also gather hundreds of grammatical mistakes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"d3af\">But the reading always remains!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have lost much of this language\u2026. but I can understand everything but to express myself correctly????<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"996\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1-996x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1-996x1024.png 996w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1-292x300.png 292w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1-768x790.png 768w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1-1494x1536.png 1494w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1-1992x2048.png 1992w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-1.png 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 996px) 100vw, 996px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"6d93\">How to reclaim a language? In Munich I went to the bookstore and just started copying nice phrases\u2026 I forgot how pretty German is, and how much more tolerance there is for strange things like passive voice. In English you\u2019re taught to chop sentences apart, simplify and assassinate all that is passive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-2-768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-2-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-2-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-2-1152x1536.png 1152w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-2.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"6d93\">English is a language of action! Brevity! In German sentences can unwind like Russian folding dolls into entire paragraphs, branching even across entire pages\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have lost much of this language\u2026. but I can understand everything but to express myself correctly????<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-3.png 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I love German books, the refusal to see everything in black and white, especially anything to do with war. There are thousands of shades of gray everywhere, although I guess the view of war, especially with the postwar generation, does have one absolute belief: that war is bad. To even suggest that there are lessons to be won from war is still pretty controversial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"984\" src=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-4-1024x984.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-253\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-4-1024x984.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-4-300x288.png 300w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-4-768x738.png 768w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-4.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"982\" src=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5-1024x982.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-254\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5-1024x982.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5-300x288.png 300w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5-768x736.png 768w, https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"0b62\">Over about two weeks in Germany and Switerland, it was nice to reclaim the sounds and vowels and intonations in my mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"f56d\">I\u2019m always wondering how to retain these rhythms when you return to the English speaking world. I guess the only way is writing in a foreign language?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"26e9\">And the great advantage that Americans have is this childish self-confidence and a complete lack of shame of going in public and making big sloppy mistakes. I have that going for me, I guess!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When one slowly loses a language, you start losing with the spoken expressions, but also gather hundreds of grammatical mistakes\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,35,4,8,1],"tags":[38,36],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-germany","category-inspiration","category-travel","category-uncategorized","tag-languages","tag-munich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.miromi.com\/artblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}