Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache (Ungekürzt)

Geschrieben von Mark Twain

Erzählt von Alex Wolf

Die schreckliche deutsche Sprache (englischer Originaltitel: The Awful German Language) oder auch Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache ist ein kurzer humoristisch-satirischer Essay des US-amerikanischen Schriftstellers Mark Twain aus dem Jahre 1880. Twain, der sich zu jener Zeit auf einer mehrmonatigen Reise durch Europa befand, schildert darin die - wie er es empfand - Skurrilitäten, Absurditäten, Widersprüchlichkeiten und generellen Schwierigkeiten beim Erlernen der deutschen Sprache als Fremdsprache.
Die erste deutsche Übersetzung erschien 1891 in Band 6 Bummel durch Europa der Twain-Werkausgabe Reisebilder und verschiedene Skizzen. Der Essay wurde in Deutschland in zahlreichen Ausgaben auch separat veröffentlicht und gilt als bekannter als das Buch, in dem er erschienen ist.

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: Bookstream Hörbücher
• Erscheinungsdatum: 20. Nov. 2020
• ISBN: 9783991173649

Mark Twain

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American humorist, novelist, and lecturer. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, a setting which would serve as inspiration for some of his most famous works. After an apprenticeship at a local printer’s shop, he worked as a typesetter and contributor for a newspaper run by his brother Orion. Before embarking on a career as a professional writer, Twain spent time as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi and as a miner in Nevada. In 1865, inspired by a story he heard at Angels Camp, California, he published “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” earning him international acclaim for his abundant wit and mastery of American English. He spent the next decade publishing works of travel literature, satirical stories and essays, and his first novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873). In 1876, he published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a novel about a mischievous young boy growing up on the banks of the Mississippi River. In 1884 he released a direct sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which follows one of Tom’s friends on an epic adventure through the heart of the American South. Addressing themes of race, class, history, and politics, Twain captures the joys and sorrows of boyhood while exposing and condemning American racism. Despite his immense success as a writer and popular lecturer, Twain struggled with debt and bankruptcy toward the end of his life, but managed to repay his creditors in full by the time of his passing at age 74. Curiously, Twain’s birth and death coincided with the appearance of Halley’s Comet, a fitting tribute to a visionary writer whose steady sense of morality survived some of the darkest periods of American history.