One-year-old Naumann in Hemlock, Michigan.
Courtesy | Stephen Naumann
In this Quick Hits, Associate Professor of German Stephen Naumann talks about dreaming in German, being a baseball player, and traveling.
What first drew you to the German language, and what keeps you passionate about teaching it?
In my family, we grew up with German heritage. My parents didn’t speak it at home, but they both knew the language a little bit. It was just something that surrounded us — songs, prayers, recipes, things hanging on the wall, things like that.
How many languages do you know?
English, German, and Polish I know well, and a little bit of Spanish. In college, I studied Biblical Greek and Hebrew and classical Greek and some Latin too. My Greek, I have hung on to — I keep that polished every day — but I’m not as sharp with my Latin and Hebrew anymore.
What is one misconception a lot of people have of Germany or the German language?
Sometimes German gets this sort of cartoon reputation as being very guttural and harsh. I think a lot of that has to do with American cinema, in part, but really it’s a beautiful language and very conducive to poetry. If you read some German poetry, I think it won’t take long before you do away with that preconception.
What did you want to be when you were a little kid?
A baseball player. I got to play baseball in college and a little bit after college in the summer league.
If you weren’t teaching, what’s a career you would like to try?
I would be a writer. I think that’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing and never did full-time. I would love the chance to embrace that — to write fiction or creative nonfiction.
What’s one thing about German culture that you wish more people understood?
I think the Germans are the world champions of travel. The Germans are the people who spend, per capita, the most days outside of their country in the world. They absolutely love to travel. Not just internationally, but the Germans have this healthy balance of being out in nature, in the outdoors, traveling, exploring new places, and then coming home and enjoying where they live and where they’re from. You see that in literature, you see that in fairy tales. So many fairy tales have to do with a journey, and it’s just really part of the German consciousness.
What are your hobbies?
I love to travel. That’s very German. My wife and I love to travel any chance we get. I love sports — playing and watching them. We have a two-year-old son — almost two next weekend — so we just love spending time with him, reading to him, and playing with him.
Do you have a favorite German word that doesn’t translate well into English?
My absolute favorite is the word Fernweh. There’s this word Heimweh, which means a pining for home, like homesickness, and that concept we have in English. Fernweh is a pining for being far away. It’s really your heart tugging because you need to be somewhere else, you need to explore. Part of exploring, part of traveling, is you really appreciate some of the things that you have at home — your own culture, your own language, all those things about yourself and where you’re from. I think you don’t gain that appreciation if you don’t go abroad. So Fernweh is absolutely my favorite word. I love its meaning, and I love how you can’t say it in English without using a whole sentence.
Do you ever dream in German?
Yes, I do. I tell students, that’s a big moment, especially our students who go abroad. I say, ‘Hey, sometime this summer, there’s a good chance you’ll wake up and you’ll have a dream and realize you were just dreaming in German.’ You can kind of jump up and get really excited. That’s a cool thing. That means it’s becoming second nature to you.
What advice would you give to a student who is intimidated by learning a new language?
I would invite them into my office, and we could sit down and have a cup of tea and talk through it. I would tell them that learning a language is a humbling and humiliating experience, but it is also so rewarding, and you have to learn through mistakes. No one expects you to be competent when you start.
What is the best piece of advice you would give students graduating from college?
Keep your eyes open for an opportunity that you don’t expect. You might think you have all these things planned out in terms of a career path, life, and some of the best things will come. There’ll be blessings that come to you, opportunities that come to you that you would never have thought of, so be open to those.
