For anyone who is looking at relocating to another country with a different primary language, I would strongly recommend a language school. Was it hard? Fuck yes. Have I learnt enough to be able to manage day to day? Absolutely. Have I learnt enough to be considered fluent? Not even close. I have however learnt that you can’t take yourself too seriously, especially in a foreign language. You are going to embarrass yourself, a lot. And if you can’t laugh at yourself, don’t worry.  The other person will.

Attending language school, Mon-Fri for 4 hours a day was quite possible the dumbest I have felt in my life. I started in a small group, with 2 others and one of the most friendly teachers I have ever had. It took me a few weeks to get into a groove and I started using my German at the supermarket and the local cafe, which hosts some of the friendliest waitstaff who would clearly tell we were foreigners and would slowly introduce us to more German words) I flew back to Australia and subsequently stopped taking German classes for close to 5 weeks and then slotted into the group below as I had missed too much to catch up. This moment, however as much of a high I was on from seeing everyone back in Australia, was so much harder than beginning. I’d had five weeks off and can safely say I didn’t use my German at all. Oh, I had a few conversations with my mums partner as he can speak German but nothing that was worthwhile. Walking back into a class room (luckily I had the same teacher that day) and seeing a group of 12 all speaking what at the time I considered to be fluent, holy shitballs. I had gotten into a groove with my first group and was learning at a pace that I felt confident and manageable. This new group (I should point out I have made some incredibly friends from this group) was scary as hell and they had all already bonded and had inside jokes and little sub groups. I imagine this is what it would feel like starting at a new school mid way through a term/semester and feeling like you should be walking around with a sign that says ‘yes, I’m new. I know!’

Attending class for 4 hours, going for a walk/drink to quickly debrief, going home and trying to understand what you had learnt and then doing hausaufgaben (homework ) was pretty much how I spent 6 months. Throw in a couple of mental breakdowns and mini tantrums confined inside our apartment to avoid being ‘that’ person and that is trying to learn another language. One moment you feel incredibly smart and proud as you have been able to understand a local and give directions only to find out they were not asking for directions at all but wanted to tell you to avoid that area as police were responding to an incident. True story. Or thinking you are professional because you have memorized translations from Google Translate only to learn in class that most of the time they are bogus and not always grammatically correct. Germans aren’t afraid either to tell you when you have messed up which is great for learning, although sometimes you just want to fling an umbrella at them for telling you that object is in fact neutral not masculine so therefore although you have correctly identified it was dative and not accusative, the gender was wrong. Don’t even get me started on the genitive case….
My theory is speaking fast enough that they can’t hear the difference. Or laugh at your fuck up, which you know has occurred,  based on your colleagues face of sheer confusion. Until I can speak at the same speed as I can in English, my colleagues endure a lot of laughing from me, at myself, during work. Work is meant to be filled with laughter right?

All that being said, the German idea of literal translations doesn’t always work but sometimes it does. Or provides a giggle at least:

Birth Control Pill – antibabypille (anti baby pill)
Kettle – wasserkocher (water cooker)
Hospital – krankenhaus (sick house)
Nipple   – brustwarze (breast wart)
Glove  – handschuhe (hand shoes)
Skunk – stinktier  (stink animal)
Seahorse – Seepferdchen (sea babyhorse)

Some words are written the same, but pronounced slightly different with the accent. So before hearing them, I thought, this will be easy. Turns out the Australian accent is not that easy to understand and have had many conversations end with both parties acting out the word we mean so we could understand each other. Embarrassing? Somewhat. Hilarious? Always. Try and act out to somebody that they must shake the can of cream before use without looking like you are using a Shake Weight.

Obwohl Deutsch schwer ist, ich glaube dass es ein abenteuer ist. Manchmal habe ich kein idea was hast passiert aber manchmal verstehe ich sehr gut davon. Es kommt auf die situation an.

Much love,
J x