Foreign in Cleveland

It’s an odd feeling to be sitting in a restaurant in Cleveland speaking German, surrounded by people dressed for the Indians game that day. Or standing in front of the Rolling Stones exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

My friend and colleague Viktor was in the U.S., and we had gone downtown to visit the Rock Hall and get something to eat.

In Germany, I was self-conscious that my German gave me away as a non-native speaker. Here I could sense people around us turning their heads and noticing that we weren’t speaking English. I imagined what they might be thinking – that we were foreign tourists out sightseeing. It seemed a bit comical -- and fun-- to be a foreign tourist in the place where you live.

I had asked Viktor what he might want to do, and offered some suggestions such as the Indians game, or visiting museums at University Circle. I was surprised when he said he wanted to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It turns out he had played bass in a band when he was younger, and he was pretty knowledgeable about bands from the 60’s and 70’s.

I suppose it would be natural to go to a Beethoven festival in Germany, or to a Mozart exhibit in Salzburg. So it shouldn’t have been too surprising to visit the Rock Hall in Cleveland.

We took the train (the “Rapid”) from the Rock Hall to the Tower City complex to get something to eat. Not having done this in Cleveland before, I realized that I knew more about taking the train in Germany. I had no idea how often the trains ran, how much they cost, and where to get a ticket. We played tourist again, and asked some other people waiting on the mostly-deserted platform.

The difference between here and Germany was striking, as there was no ticket machine, no timetable for the train posted, and no display that told you when the next train would depart. We had to pay the driver on the train – something that would create a certain delay during busy times.

On the short trip we noticed the driver continuously chatting with one of the attendants, beneath a sign that said “No unnecessary talking with driver.”

Viktor turned and said, in German, “That must be necessary talking”.

Here was a cool benefit of a foreign language: being able to talk about someone and not have them understand.

Souvenirs from Germany

After an 8-month stay in Germany, you might reasonably assume I’d accumulated souvenirs and other German stuff to bring back home. But I resisted the temptation to buy a bunch of stuff that would just collect dust on a shelf.

I did come home with a couple of functional items: 2 beer glasses from Belgium, and my GPS unit.

Each brand and style of beer in Germany (Belgium, too) seems to have its own special glass. If you go into a bar or restaurant, and order two different beers, you’ll get a different glass each time. So ‘collecting’ beer glasses could get completely out of control.

Driving back to Düsseldorf after a work trip to Brussels, I stopped in the Belgian equivalent of Wal-Mart. I wandered around a bit, and found an entire aisle of Belgian beer. I’ve been told there are over 900 different beers in Belgium, and it seemed this store had a good percentage of them (that is only a slight exaggeration).

Belgian beers seem to be often served in more of a goblet than a beer glass. This store had a package of Leffe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leffe), which I like, along with 2 Leffe glasses. I figured this would be my beer souvenir. It’s possible to find Leffe in the U.S., so I figured I’d be able to use the glasses for their intended purpose.


The GPS unit was less of a souvenir. Since my car in Germany had a built-in GPS, I’d gotten used to having one. It saved me many times trying to find my way along streets that changed direction seemingly at random.

I bought this particular GPS unit because it has maps of both the U.S. and Europe. I’ve written previously about my experience buying this in the Düsseldorf airport and trying to get a VAT rebate, with no success.

On my way out of Germany, in the Köln-Bonn airport, I tried one last time. I went to the customs office, showed them my receipt and passport, and asked about getting the tax rebate. As in Düsseldorf, they said no, I’d been in Germany too long. But in contrast to the agent in Düsseldorf, they were quite friendly and apologetic. It occurred to me that this confirmed the perception that people from Köln are friendlier than those from Düsseldorf, who can have, shall we say, a bit of an attitude.

Back in the U.S., I’ve kept the German voice on the GPS unit – one of those little ways to keep some exposure to German. There are actually 4 German voices to choose from: Katrin, Stefan, Lisa, and Werner. I’ve got Katrin giving me directions. It’s comical at times to hear the attempts (computer-generated) at pronouncing U.S. road and city names. “Interstate 480 West” just doesn’t sound right in German. Neither does “fahren Sie auf die Autobahn”, when I am only able to legally drive 65mph.

Losing German

After 8 months away in Germany, I became pretty comfortable hearing and speaking German. I wasn’t fluent enough that people would mistake me for a native speaker – well actually people did, but they weren’t native speakers either.

Although I wasn’t completely fluent, the longer I was in Germany, the better I became at navigating what I did and didn’t know. I could hear a long stream of German, and from that mess pick out enough to understand the basics then use what I knew to say something back, or ask for clarification. And I always had the option of saying I didn’t understand.

Since returning to the U.S., I’d been wondering how quickly I might lose what I’d learned.

Viktor, my friend and colleague from Germany, called the other day. I hadn’t talked with him in a couple of weeks, and when he called and started speaking German it was a shock. I had to listen very closely and struggled with how to answer. I felt self-conscious speaking German and was starting to sweat.

After a few minutes my comfort level started to improve, but it was obvious and a bit discouraging to recognize that after just a month my German had already started to decline.

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising – if you hear a language every day you’re bound to absorb something. And if you use it every day, even just a little, you’re bound to improve.

The little realization I had is how much easier it is when everyone around you is speaking the language. You don’t have to make the effort to immerse yourself in it – it’s all around you. You’d have to make an effort to avoid it.

It would take a fair amount of effort and diligence to get even a portion of the language exposure I had while in Germany. I would need to: listen to German stations via Internet radio while at work (www.dw-world.de), listen to German-language podcasts while in the car (www.schlaflosinmuenchen.com is a good one), tape the daily Deutsche Welle show on the SCOLA cable channel, read German newspapers. This is all reasonably doable, but without the imminent need to use it on a daily basis, it’s easy to get lazy.

I liked to ask people in Germany about learning English. More than one person told me that learning English in Germany was quite different when they knew they would need to go to the US or England and use it every day.

That’s the other realization: the motivation to make the extra effort with the language comes easier when you have a compelling reason.