Aufgabe fünf: Ich denke, ich werde weinen!

I think I'm gonna cry! (No, it's not a bad thing.) :-)

So I woke up at an ungodly hour of 5:15 this morning, unable to fall asleep. I make sure Alan's up to catch his flight to Cologne (he is), and check my messages. I tell the boys (auf Deutsch) that Alan's leaving, and I'll be in the city Monday and Tuesday and come back on Wednesday. "Oh good, then I'll be able to spend some time alone with you too." Continuing in German, I lifted a finger to point this out, and I said "Das würde nett..." and then put my finger down. They looked surprised, as a proudly dangled my sentence: I had spoken my first sentence of Süddeutsch!

What I said was "That would be nice!" You see, in proper German, I literally would say "That would nice be." But in southern German, the "be" is assumed. They always leave it off in that context. (Just like "Wir können alles" means "we can do anything" but the "do" is implied, not said, in southern German.)

And they don't teach you that in class. They're so proud. :-)