Tut Mir Leid, Ich Bin Deutsch Lernen

It has been almost two months since I have posted anything on this blog.  This is not for lack of good stories to share, because I have many fun things to share from our summer adventures. Rather, it is because I have been taking an intensive German course in an effort to improve my horrific language acquisition abilities!

In August we passed our one-year mark for living in Germany.  I had thought that with a little bit of studying and simply by living in Germany and being surrounded by the language, I would have no trouble learning Deutsch.  Unfortunately, I was very wrong about this!

My kids attend an English language International School, and because of this, it was very easy to make English speaking friends.  Therefore, because we speak English at home, at school, and at social events, I have found that I have not been as immersed in the language and I had imagined I would be. 

 

The language school I attend is called Inlingua.  In the spring I had some private classes, which were helpful, but very expensive.  When the kids went back to school in August, I jumped into the intensive course, and I go Monday-Friday for 3-1/2 hours each day.  Now that I have attended for five weeks, I can clearly see that I am finally improving.  The problem is that the more I learn, the more I can see how much MORE I need to learn if I can ever dream of being able to hold a decent conversation without sounding like a toddler! 

At this point I am registered for three more weeks of classes.  I am afraid that I will feel like a failure if I quit before I can speak comfortably, so maybe I will continue on a bit longer if possible. 

 

In any country, the citizens (understandably) want foreigners to speak the language if they want to live in certain country.  While most people are kind, or at least tolerant of my incoherent attempts at speaking German, every once in a while we come across people that can be downright rude about the fact that we are living here and can not yet speak German.  It has made me wonder about how foreigners in the United States are treated.  So please be kind to people who may not speak perfect English, because living as a foreigner at trying to learn a language is more difficult that it looks!!