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.
2 comments:
Just one day away from speaking any German was a noticeable difference for me. Although, I do think speaking and listening over the phone are much more difficult than in person!
I noticed that too. Coming into work on Monday, if I had been pretty much on my own over the weekend and hadn't watched any TV, it would always take a little while to adjust.
The phone is certainly difficult. Even more so when you hear the strains of English in one ear while hearing German over the phone. Talk about scrambling your brain!
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