The days are romping past. In two months from now, I’ll be jumping on the plane and getting out at Frankfurt, and I’m barely into week three of my three-month course.

Part of the problem is that I should go a lot faster than the class, who are planning on taking a year to go the distance at two hours of class time each week. I could race through the book, I guess, but I’d be out of step.

Bearing in mind my friend’s image of German as a plateau with a steep initial climb and a modest slope after, I might aim to climb as much of that slope as possible, and use my private textbook – Language Hacking German – to fill in the colloquial and practical.

A bit of a break this week. Our tutor reported that after a visit to his dentist his mouth was in no shape to pronounce the language as it should be, and so he’d skip a week.

Fair enough. Last time I went to the dentist, I couldn’t open my mouth wider than half a sausage for weeks. Hamburgers were out of the question.

We’ve got enough to go on with. The next chapter has a wheelbarrowload of vocabulary and a cupful of grammar. Apart from learning Lili Marlene, I’ll be busy working through the exercises. And listening to the CDs, where native speakers aren’t talking through a mouthful of agony.

I won’t be up to Hamburger standard, though.