Dem Tweet könnte ich verstehen!

»Der einzige Weg, ein wirklicher Meister zu werden, ist, immer ein Schüler zu bleiben.« – Zen-Weisheit #anfängergeist

— Marcus Raitner (@marcusraitner) June 9, 2014

Today I saw a retweet from one of my German friends. At first glance, I spotted bits and pieces I could immediately parse.

“Weg” is way. “immer” is always. “Schüler” is school goer, i.e. student. So I slowed down and walked through it.

“Der einzige Weg” - the one something way. Hmm…must be “the one and only way”

“ein wirklicher Meister” - I remember Entwickler being a software developer. This sounded similar, so I loosely dubbed it “a working master”.

“zu werden” - Well, “werden” is for future tense, so I figured it meant “to be”.

“ist” - is

“immer ein Schüler zu bleiben” - always a student to remain

String it together and I gathered: “The only way to be a master is to always remain a student.” That sounded proverbial, so I was highly confident I was right.

I cross checked the expression on Google Translate and got “The only way to become a real master is to remain always a pupil.” Sounds pretty dead on to me. In my excitement, I could not help but respond: 

@marcusraitner @ewolff ich könnte alles verstehen! — Greg Turnquist (@gregturn) June 9, 2014

Naturally, Eberhard responds:

@gregturn :) schön - wann kommst Du nach Deutschland?

— Eberhard Wolff (@ewolff) June 9, 2014

Well…it might be awhile I can find THAT amount of spare time. I suppose I’ll have to settle for chatting mit meine Deutsch Mitarbeiter am SpringOne im September. Tschüss!