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Hmm... I'm not sure this learning German through soap operas thing is Goethe Institute approved: I now know more swear words than is probably appropriate for someone only on their eighth lesson.

The key to swearing in German seems to be to say the word as you would in English while throwing some extra syllables around the place. Thus "piss off" becomes the expressive "Verpiss dich!"; ya "daft cow" becomes the assonant "bloede Kuh"; and my personal favorite "arsehole" becomes the glorious "Arschloch".

I think I'm so fascinated with this at the moment because you just can't get a good swear on in Japanese. It's a bit of an alien concept. It's hilarious watching Japanese subtitles to English movies. A scene will contain all these myriad bad words in the original and then just have the fairly pathetic クソ! (kuso) repeated endlessly in the translation.

But it's not just the swearing. German soaps are equipping me with the tools to lead a very dramatic life if I ever get to move there. I mean I've lost count of the ways I've heard to say "I love you" and "I'm sorry". And my hostage-related vocabulary is now more extensive than in my native tongue.
(I'm up to my third kidnapping in one soap alone!)

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