Almost two years of (mostly) Germany now and the love/hate relationship with the language goes on. From a non-native speaker's perspective German is in its complexity a frightening instrument of power, but also an infinite source of linguistic pleasures. In my case, especially in its written form.

Frustrations mostly deal with the spoken word, especially on TV, on stage or such. To battle this, I had taken up a tradition to go see the latest transmission of Tatort with a friend every Sunday. These 90-minute murder mysteries have been on air since 1970 and have become quite an institution. I've come to believe, that Sunday Tatorts have taken the place of Sunday Sauna in my weekly rhythm. Both are somewhat purifying and masochistic experiences.

I discovered help from an unlikely source. Recently I voluntarily watched an English language film dubbed into German – not Die Hard 4.0 but V for Vendetta. No problem whatsoever, everything was loud and clear. With the mandate given by the results of the revered PISA study, I've had a bit of a stuck-up outlook on the culture of dubbing, but now the tables turned. There, I may have found the missing link.