11th February 2006 - Day 117

Cooped myself up in the room the whole day. Did some reading which I was supposed to finish yesterday.

I read. I understood. I forgot. I only have very a vague impression of the lecture notes I've read. Remembering the stuffs is one thing, expressing the idea verbally is another. I can imagine myself scribbling away during the mündliche Prüfung. Like some charts or derivations to help me in my explanation.

I think it'll be worth the effort to practise the following sentences.

"Ich bitte um Ihre Verständnis. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache."

Hah. I shall say it in the most incorrect way with wrong pronounciation and with lots of stammering.

Yeah, right. That's going to help.

For certain modules, I get the feeling that reading the lecture notes in German is not very different from reading them in English. It's much easier compared to when I first started reading. Maybe because I'm more familiar with the grammatical structures and vocabulary they use.

After all, they are engineering courses, not some poetry classes. There is only so much grammar and so many words involved.

So, back to the world of Zusammenhänge und Gleichungen.