“Ich bin Hans…und Ich bin Franz; und zuzammen verden wir dich…aufpumpen!” shouted my muscle-bound classmate and myself, clapping our hands just before yelling “aufpumpen” for emphasis. Our junior year college German class was laughing so hard that students were wiping tears from their eyes; at least two ended up on the floor holding their stomach while convulsing on the floor, a danger to themselves and others.
What we had said, in German, was “I am Hanz, and I am Franz, and together we will pump (hand clap) You Up!” My Junior Year German Lit class had broken up into groups of two or three in order to present skits (auf Deutsch, of course). My classmate and I chose to embrace an *authentic* renditioning, in the native German language of our erstwhile heroes, that extremely popular Teutonic Duo of the early nineties, Hans and Franz, Arnold S.’s long lost cousins, wanna-be bodybuilders and Saturday Night Live regulars.
Almost every Saturday they appeared on the SNL stage, beginning or ending their skit with their familiar refrain, “Together, we will pump…you up!” So while the rest of the class chose to do something from Goethe, or Wagner, or the Nibelegunslied, we went the low-brow route; no Hoch Deutsch culture for us that day! Hans und Franz it was. They translated so well in German!
The Teutonic Duo, uberpopular in the day, would basically have little adventures that involved flexing their muscles at whatever problem they encountered - or threatening to call in their even larger cousin, “Ahhnulld!” “Vee Vill sqveeze your head between our muscular thighs until your brrlains come out your ears like tooth-paste!”
We *killed* the class that day, and got an A for our effort, of course. Even our professor had a hard time keeping it together. Our dear 65 year old German professor, the only man I have ever heard speak German with a Texas accent. He drove a Cherry-Red 67 Mustang Fastback as well, though hopefully not after quaffing a German lager or two. 
The riot in class that day, and subsequent adventures, is really the whole point of learning a foreign language - it is fun. Seriously fun. Of course there can be a practical side; travel, employment, enrichment. But the most important thing is to have fun with it. I went a long time without practicing, but have recently taken it up again, using the Rocket German software to regain my fluency (the software is really quite good). Even after going more than 10 years I can still engage in conversational German adequately; once you gain fluency, you never lose it completely. But being fluent is a lot more fun than just getting by, and fortunately, it’s coming back quite quickly.
Prost!
Tags: learn german fast, Learning German, study abroad, study german
