Berlin: Speaking German Badly
Today, I walked to the Markthalle (it’s like an indoor marketplace situation) and bought vegetables. I asked for them in German, the vendor told me how much they cost and asked me if I wanted a bag. I paid. Then I went to a cafe and ordered a fresh orange juice, to drink there. The barista asked if I wanted a large or small, and I told her large, and also a bottle of sparkling water please. All of this happened in German!
When I moved to Berlin in August, I had almost an identical errand day, on a similarly sunny and hot day. The key difference was that all my communication happened by flustered gesture and – when I was lucky – in English. At the time, I wasn’t sure how much energy I would pour into learning a new language as an adult. After all, I am only here for a year, and my work happens in English. I could get by, I imagined.
But it turns out that I didn’t want to live a year of gesturing vaguely at strawberries instead of asking for erdbeeren, bitte (once again, that is something I did today! Please clap). My Duolingo streak had been chugging along, but after the chagim I started working with a tutor. My goal was explicitly not to become a perfect German speaker (I have no hope or aspiration to ever properly understand “der, die, das”), but to be able to communicate.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Approaching to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.