When talking to friends and family from Norway there are always some questions that gets asked over and over again. How are you? How's uni? How do you like it in Germany? I'm fine, uni is awesome, and I love Germany. Then there's a last question. How's your German?. Not fine, not awesome, and certainly not lovable. So this question is harder to answer. Of course they are curious, how fast does it get better? Does it even get better at all?
Of course when living in Germany, you are forced to speak German in many situations, at the store, at the bakery, when buying food, etc, etc. I've learnt that with some simple phrases you come far. "Ist hier noch frei?", "Stimmt so", "Danke, Ihnen auch", or for the slightly more pushy Germans, and with these I mean the ones wandering around at the main-station inventing one crappy lie after another, to get a Euro or 100 from you. ("Ich brauche Geld, sodass ich meinen Frosch im Krankenhaus besuchen kann"). Be rough, people, be rough. "Von mir kriegst du nichts, verschwinde!".
Unfortunately (and yes, this is unfortunate) I have many opportunities to escape from German, after all I'm studying English, all the fellow-students are fully capable of understanding if I ask them questions in English. It would be better if I would use a huge sign in the forehead saying "Reden Sie auf keinen Fall Englisch mit mir!", so that I would be 100% forced to talk German, always. I guess this is a question of self-discipline, really.
I suppose I should try to answer the question though. My German is getting better, and it would get better whether I wanted it or not. It is impossible not to pick up words and phrases when you have German around you 24/7, and that is good. It's one of the main reasons why I'm here anyway. So I'm looking forward to see my own German bloom, I'm hoping that I'll speak German fluently by the time I'll have my bachelor. We'll see that in three years, won't we?
Guten Abend ^__^
Your english is great! Always wanted to leave the "home land" and go to others. That take a lot of time and money I'm not willing to spend. :)
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks :) Well, the Norwegian state would give me money wherever I'd chose to study, so I figured I'd do something exotic ;)
ReplyDeleteYour English is certainly better than that of most people in the U.S. I can't speak to the issue of your proficiency in German. Here in Arizona we are forced to speak Spanish. I always joke that I took four years of Spanish in High School - I had to take Spanish I & II twice. That was long ago. I enjoyed your post on your "boyfriend from Bavaria." It is refreshing to get a younger point of view. It's not really that different from my generation's. For more on language proficiency you can read my post for tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much :) I'm gonna check it out!
ReplyDelete