On learning German

[igenlode]

Margaret Drabble on learning German:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/11/14/german-lessons/

Comments

[watervole]

That is absolutely beautiful.

The German words flow so well, and the translation helps one pick out how to say it as well.

How do you know the k is silent, or is that just by comparing the scansion to previous verses?

[igenlode]

Inflected languages have a massive advantage when it comes to writing closely-rhymed verse (see also Pushkin) and making it flow naturally; even my prose rendition isn't quite literal, because to speak in English of "The waves of the holy river" or "the red-flowering garden" doesn't really give the right effect. A rhyming English verse version is apt to sound more Betjeman than Byron:
"Oh, let us lie down by it,
Where the moon on the palm tree beams;
And drink deep of love and quiet
And dream our happy dreams."
https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/838
It's a brave attempt at the impossible, but it is not Heine!

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The k isn't silent; k in German is always sounded, even in words like Knecht (cognate to English 'knight'). It's just virtually indistinguishable in the Gothic type in the photo, which shows the actual book with the poem in it. If you click on the picture, 'trinken' is the word at the end of the third line on the second page — the penultimate line of the poem. (Still scaled down, I'm afraid; my original photo was bigger and clearer than that.)

The lowercase letter k in traditional German blackletter type is basically a t with a small extra bar across the top: