Your commentary (“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Dec. 13) caught my attention because I was born and raised in Germany. Your essay about my native country and its language is flattering, and I enjoyed reading it.
I would like to add one more reason why German was chosen as a study language in American colleges, at least in the 20th century. Many students of physics elected German to be able to research scientific papers that were written by German physicists. Sometimes there is no substitute for the original text.
I just moved to San Luis Obispo a few months ago. Is there any kind of club or organization whose members are pursuing the study of German? If there is, I would appreciate some information about it.
Thanks again for the newspaper commentary.
This article appears in Dec 20-27, 2012.