Learning to Speak a Foreign Language
Over the Christmas holiday, it suddenly occurred to me that I can keep playing the I-don’t-understand-German card… but it’s a big fat lie. See, somewhere along the line, I started understanding. When someone gave me directions to our seats at the show or told me that tickets to the museum was sold out, I got it.
I never planned on learning a second language. In fact, I was grumbling through Spanish 101 when Martin and I met. He can still tell you horror stories about Katie taking a language class. It was a bad mix for a simple reason – I had no passion for learning to speak anything more than English. I was honestly taking the classes because I had to and because Spanish seemed like the obvious choice. I mean, it’s not like I was ever going to live outside of the United States or anything, right?
It didn’t help that I sounded so much like an American that I had to WRITE Spanish words down on a piece of paper just so that Spanish speakers could understand me. Spanish class and I were enemies. If I were the vegetarian, it was my medium rare, double decker bacon cheeseburger.
And now here I am, trying really hard not to type this post like a German speaker attempting English… which I seem to be struggling with every so often when I sit down to write to you. I am nowhere near close to being finished, but I am at a point where I feel comfortable. After my next exam, I figure I’ll be starting the 300 level (in American universities) or B level (by European standards).
People continually contact me about moving to Germany, and the biggest fear is the language barrier.
When we moved to Germany, my vocab consisted of words like “Croissant” and “Autobahn” and “Bratwurst”. Oh, and “Bier.” Who doesn’t know that one?
All of that was okay. I was golden for the first few days. Hold up two fingers. ”Croissants, bitte.” Wait for the clerk to hand me my purchase while I read the total on the cash register, juggle coins, and finally hand her the biggest one I have. (Don’t want to appear to be a foreigner and take too long, you know.) Point out the cooler in the bakery and tell Martin, “Bier.”
You learn as you go. And you *need* to take German classes here. Yeah, the law says so. But I think it’s important to really understand and embrace your new home. Would I sound too dorky to admit that it’s actually pretty cool to study here?
The things I most love about studying in Germany are:
- The teacher is a native German speaker, so you learn to sound like a native
- The teacher won’t speak your native language. Okay, most of my teachers have been able to speak English, but they sure can’t say more than a word or two of Vietnemese, Polish, Turkish, or any of the other languages my peers speak. So everything – from day one – is in German. And that’s really cool. It’s the reason I understand when German speakers talk to me today and why I sound a little less American than my Spanish ever was.
- You have to communicate with classmates in German… and then you have to hope you understand each other. Pregnancy – that seems to be a frequent topic when a married girl misses school because she’s ill. Well that and me trying to remember that when a Vietnamese girl says, “Kevin?” she’s really talking to me.
- The learning doesn’t end when school is over. Oh no. When our doorbell rings, when I grocery shop, when someone asks for help moving a stroller – it’s all in German.
- Your growth is really easy to measure. All of a sudden, you can order things at the bakery. Then you understand how much you owe without looking at the cash register. Then you start understanding the clerk. Do you want a bag? Do you like living in Germany?
As of about 2005, most people who move to Germany are now required to finish a specific level of German called “B1.2″, which is about 650 hours of German lessons and integration classes. I think it makes sense. We ought to have a very basic understanding of the local language and government.
I’m just so thankful that it’s actually fun this time.
Did you ever study another language? Did you enjoy it? And, umm, did you finish?
(Images by Katie of a Berlin sledding hill where, remarkably, no one seems to run over anyone)
Dear Katie, I’m so happy for you. You make my dreams come true: you live in a foreign country and you also speak the native language.
I speak, read and write in 3 foreign languages (english,spanish,italian) so as to be able to travel, say… in Italy and order pizza like a local. It’s my bizarre thing…says my husband…!
I think it started when I was in 2nd grade and “demanded” to learn english…! weird kiddo…
It helps a lot if you only read newspapers and magazines in the language you are learning at the time. Also watching movies (ahem…Heidi) with the foreign subtitles on.
In summer, I’ll be starting german lessons so…Berlin here I come (hopefully next Christmas)!
Still working on learning German…I know I can understand a little bit more now than I did when we first moved here, but I feel like the process is really slow going. I am the opposite of you because I loved learning Spanish and it came very easily to me. German is really tough for me and I feel like I don’t have the same motivation to learn it as I did with Spanish, even though there are SO many more motivating factors like communicating with local people, understanding what is said to me in public, and not looking/feeling like an idiot all the time. I will continue to plug along and hopefully I will start having more of those exciting moments when things make sense!
I wish there are a law being followed up in the states for people to have to learn English and to be able to communicate in English. I hate not being able to communicate with half of the parents of my daughters class. They all speak spanish. I speak Norwegian (Danish and Swedish), English and German. Now it seems like I will have to learn Spanish too and I really have a hard time learning languages.
I frustrates me that I know English and no one else have too. They don’t have translators for Norwegian in the schoolsystem here so if I had not known English, my poor husband (he’s american) would have had to translate everything for me.
Anyways the best way of learning a language is to submerge yourself in it and you are well on your way to it. Hey, my husband learned Norwegian quitting class and getting a full time job with older people who didn’t speak English so that he was forced to speak Norwegian to be understood. Took him a year. After 5 he spoke with a dialect.
When we lived in Italy I had to work on the military base (well, or not work at all, but I couldn’t work off base because it would be taking a job from an Italian). So my main times to learn and practice happened when we traveled around, went out to eat, went shopping, etc. So when people ask if I speak Italian, I have to answer that I speak shopping, restaurant, and traveling Italian! I totally know how to ask it you have more of that, have it in a different size or color, can you tell me how to get to such-and-such monument, I’d like these 8 things on my pizza, I’d like to reserve a room for two people on such-and-such dates, etc. :) Which, luckily, is mostly what I’ll need when we’ll travel back there. :)
Ironically, I have a very good accent and it was actually a hindrance to me sometimes! When I’d tell someone in Italian, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak much Italian…” apparently my accent was so good that they thought I knew more Italian than I did and would rush on saying something that I couldn’t keep up with!
I wanted to learn a foreign language so badly, but then my high school only offered Spanish, and most of the teachers couldn’t speak it very well at that. So by the time I was trying to deal with college level French having barely even heard it before, it was a disaster that took me from my required studies. If I ever get the chance to settle down and learn a foreign language for serious though, I’d be in heaven. You’re very fortunate, Katie!
Good on you! I live so close to Germany and we always vacationed in Austria when I was a kid, that I don’t even remember not understanding or speaking it. In fact Dutch television (I live in Holland) always has subtitles while German television is always in German (as you would now), so as a small child that couldn’t read ‘die Sendung mit der Maus’ was a favorite. Nowadays I use English so much (for work and blogging) that it is my most familiar foreign language, my German has gone rusty. But drop me in Berlin for a few days and it all comes back.
Oh and you do know that Croissant is French, don’t you? LOL
That sounds like so much fun!! I studied German as my language in high school (so 4 years there). I did an exchange student thing to Germany once but my host mother was an English teacher and rarely ever spoke German to me. Although I adored my host family I probably would have fared better having a family that spoke no German like another one of my friends had. My plan in college was to continue my German studies as I wanted to one day be fluent, but the whole college card never panned out at that time. I haven’t lost the will to someday be able to get by in Germany without sounding like a complete idiot. ;) I’d love to live there which I think is part of the reason I just LOVE your blog…that and you’re like-minded in the whole green and less is more thing. :)
How would you, or Martin, feel about the same 650 hour requirement of language lessons and integration classes here in the US? Just wondering if what feel so right in Germany wold feel so right to you here…
I took German for three years in High School, then two more in college. By the time I was in my second year in college, I found myself dreaming in German. I know I was because my dad was talking German in the dream and in real life, he did not. hee hee. that was so fun.
Now Many YEARS later, I am teaching Spanish people English. When we first started this class, I wanted so badly to talk to them. I found I was good in Charades and drawing. And for some very strange reason, all my German came back. I was formulating sentences in German in my head, so I could talk to them.
After about a year teaching, I went to Taiwan. I wanted so badly talk to them, and I began to formulate sentences in. . .
. . .Spanish!!! Now that surprised even me.
have a great time there. I wish I could do that too.
~a
I’m glad you’re learning and enjoying it! I wish people were required to take a class here to learn our language and government. Sure would solve a lot of issues.
I am a french-speaker from Montreal, Quebec (Canada). So English is our second langage – we are studying it in school.
In high school I was in a special school where I had to learn Spanish. I was quite fluent, back in these days.
Finally, I took German classes in order to speak with my in-laws. I have not finished the course, but my boyfriend helps me to continue.
So I’m 21 years old and I speak ±4 langages. I’m not perfectly fluent in two, and I have some difficulties in English, but I can handle a conversation. :)
(And as it is my first comment, I want to congratulate you for your amazing blog. You make me dream of a perfect home!)
Well, I’m Italian. But grew up in South Tyrol, learning German at schooln and practising it with friends…
Later on, I started with French (that was in secondary school) and finally at university I began with English.
I spent a whole summer in France as an au pair and my French was absolutely good at THAT time, so many years ago. My degree at university was in Foreign Languages and I became a teacher.
I had to teach English, NOT my first choice, definitely, so I began going to Britain to practice it… (that was more than thirty years ago!) and I continued to do so, to be able to teach a decent language!
Now I’ve retired from school, but I still go to Britain, regularly, as I do love the country and the people.
But I have many friends and relatives in Germany (in Bavaria) as well, and I come often to Germany too, so my German is still quite good.
Never been to Berlin, I’m afraid. Just to Munich, Regensbusg, Nuernberg, Augsburg, Chiemsee….
But I’d love to visit Berlin, everyone who’s been there says is a wonderful city!
Thoughts on making it a requirement for all people in America to reach a certain level of English speaking skills…
A lot of you have been asking this question or reflecting on it in the comments, so let me see if I can express my opinion on the matter.
I love having the opportunity to learn German in Germany. It’s a small country with a lot of people, so classes are readily accessible throughout the country. The government subsidizes the school. I pay around a euro per hour for lessons – and I am paying full price. Some people have a slight discount; most of my classmates attend for free. For example, my classmates from Vietnam collect unemployment in order to live. They can’t work and take care of their children and go to school at the speed of our particular course. Many of them are not skilled workers, and they have little education.
I imagine that a lot of Spanish populations in the US might be facing the same sort of situation.
The thing is – Germans pay ENORMOUS taxes. That’s how the country pays for the upkeep of the beautiful buildings, community enrichment, and… schools for foreign speakers. I don’t think you can make a mandatory requirement to have people learn the local language without providing a program where they can do so. That is a problem for the US, especially because the population is so widespread.
Hope that kind of puts a little clarity on the subject for you.
Katie
And p.s. I am eating up all the words many of you have written. How beautiful to be surrounded by people who do speak multiple languages or have always wished to. You inspire me to continue onward. Thank you for that!
I have to admit that I’m especially touched by those of you who are not native English speakers. I dream of being able to express ideas in German, and I figure I’ll finally consider myself fluent when…
I can come up with rhymes in German.
(the poet comes out!)
Katie
Do you seriously think “Croissant” is a German word?
another,
Languages are filled with the same words – “kindergarten” comes to mind. It’s a German word, but you and I say it all the time in English, right? Croissant is exactly the same. So while it may not be a German word with German roots, per say, it’s a word used in the German language as well as English, French, and probably other languages as well.
Katie
My husband and I are moving to Berlin soon (literally in a week). We are very excited, but also very nervous. Finding your website today has been a great help. A quick question- where do you take German lessons? Is it easy to find a school? We both want to enroll in classes as soon as we get there, but are not sure how to go about finding classes.
I am Canadian, native English speaker and learned French all through school, even though my moms side of the family are all fluent french speakers at home (Most are from Quebec where English is a second language) yet i had such a hard time with even French, despite the great amount of exposure and required speaking (with grandparents ect.) that I experienced.
I am now living in Japan, trying to learn Japanese is soo difficult! I was not expecting it to be this hard to be honest. I assumed that being here and living here it would come easily – sink or swim they say right?
wrong! I live in a big city, all the signs are in English, most people speak English and all are eager to practice speaking English with us foreigners! All of my Japanese friends are so excited to speak to me in English..I rarely have chances to use Japanese! Its astounding! I can have basic conversations and understand much of whats going on in social settings but it def is the hardest thing i have ever experienced!
Though I am trying to stick with it and not get complacent even though the truth is English speakers actually do not need to learn Japanese to live here! scary! :)
Japanese is very difficult to learn, even for someone like me who speaks fluent Chinese (which means I would have known almost all of the kanji characters).
It took me more than 3 years just to get to intermediate level, I can read newspapers, understand simple conversations & watch some Japanese dramas without the subtitles, but that’s about it. Ask me to compose an essay or carry on a business discussion, I will bang my head on the wall… :)
We live and work in Africa… working on a 3rd and 4th language simultaneously – after having gone to school to learn French.
I found learning French relatively easy… Zarma and most of the other local languages are not written and I’m more of a visual than auditory learner. It is coming – but slowly.
One other thing I’ve found – when you learn a language spoken in a culture that is so very different from your own – you also have to learn a new way of thinking because languages are reflections of cultures, too. Direct translation doesn’t work. That is true in any language context… i.e. in French you say “I have hot” vs “I am hot” – because the second has a very different meaning. Finding the same to be true on a much more extensive level as I work to learn Zarma.
That said – I love languages and will probably be learning them for the rest of my life…
Richelle
Hallo ALL!
You are all so lucky…I grew up with a grandfather who spoke German but only in the presence of his sisters and brothers. I was always secretly jealous that he wouldnt speak it to me! It made me interested all my life.I took it in high school for a year and 1 semester…but never caught on…I had foreign penpals from everywhere…then I met a man over the internet in 2006 from Holland In Den Haag and we became very close…fromthat point on,after I withdrew from College in 07 thing’s were not going so well for me,the man sent for me and my 2 children to fly to Amsterdam to live with him…and we did queens day. The childrenattended the basis school Anne Frank and learned so fast they became my interpreters. Needless to say my Dutch was horrible, I hadn’t any friend’s and I felt miserable when his love for me grew cold…but I fell in Love with Holland and GermanyMost people dream about moving to Miami of San Diego I dream of europe…he sent us back to the US december of 09 before the Holiday’s…we have all been depressed ever since…if only I could have tried harder and not took the breakup so hard…But thats the end of that stage but I still keep in contct with a utch woman there and I have a very good friend in mainz whom I’ve been writing for almost 5 years and we never met while I was in Europe, now, we both want me to move back to europe…this is NOT going to be an easy task…I don’t want to give up but …HOW?? and I want to feel happy again! I MISS IT SO MUCH!!! So does my 12 year old sonIf anyone has any ideas…please send them over nd thanks for this Blog!!!Do Comment.
Hi
I hope my comment is appropriate and accepted. I have been on a search to find my way back to Europe being American helps and makes entry a little easier but the language barrier still exists and I’m fully aware of this so, pardon if I look through your blog its just very interseting.Thanks.
ReThe requirement for schools to teach foreign language: I’m 100% for it! when we came back to the U.S and I enrolled my son and daughter back into Americn school,they knew Dutch so well that the english was hard to learn again for them.And they now are condemned for being inthe Netherlands by they’re american teachers, who have never been out of the United states They have put my son in a special class and pretty much punished him and refuse to give him…get this,” Foreign language- its too hard and too much of a burden for him” I am quoting one of his teachers during his IEP meeting!. Yes its about time that americans grew up and …forgive me be a little more open minded…and give the children in america more language options, they are really losing out, I know that now from living in Den Haag.And when a child is young, they learn the fastest and the memory stays with them longer.
Thanks!
Hi again,
http://www.howtogermany.com/pages/language.html
I just found this and its made me excited http://www.goethe.de/germany they have 2,4,and 8 week Intensive language training programs. or Individualized training…sounds good to me.
Christine.
Christine, you may find the greatest happiness by looking deep inside of yourself instead of a place. My knowledge is only in embracing where we already are, so I wish you so very much luck in your journey. Truly!
Katie
I love your comment ‘Your growth is really easy to measure’. I’ve lived in Germany for about 18 months now and it was after a year that I realized I understand what people say to me for the most part. Even if I don’t know all the words I can still understand what’s being said or asked. It took a bit for me to realize this was even happening! My speaking skills, on the other hand, still need a lot of work! Practice, Practice, Practice :)