Started reading The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Dubravka Ugrešić. The novel proper begins as follows:
1. ‘Ich bin müde,’ I say to Fred. His sorrowful, pale face stretches into a grin. Ich bin müde is the only German sentence I know at the moment (3).*
I note this only because ‘Ich bin müde’ was also the first German sentence I was ever able to recall on the spur of the moment, without a pause for parsing. This amuses me now – as it amused me then – because it is curious to approach a new language with expressions of fatigue.
* translated by Celia Hawkesworth.