The final day of our German course in Berlin! I feel a big sense of accomplishment that I have finished this month as it was very hard work and I feel I learned a lot.

Everyone was in a very good mood in class. There are plans to meet later for food and drinks, but unfortunately I have to pack for my trip back to the UK (I am leaving tomorrow) and wont be able to join. But I think everyone else is going and I’m sure they will have fun. I am excited about continuing my German studies – once I’ve had a break of course! I’m also very excited about seeing all my old friends again. And soon it will be December and then Christmas! Ironically, the city where I am from, Leeds, holds a German Christmas market in the city centre every year! I should go and visit it when I am there, it will make me feel at home ;)

For our final lesson it was pretty much business as usual – we still had to work hard! And there was a final test as well. But everyone seemed to be feeling very positive. I did ok on the test, not as well as I would have liked, but I have missed a few days of course due to being unwell, which means there are some gaps in my knowledge.

So this is my last entry! I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog. For my final photo I wanted to show a picture of my favourite graffiti – though unfortunately some of it has already been painted over. It shows a grandma digging up the road but she is mostly gone. There is lots of beautiful graffiti and street art in Berlin. I recommend wandering around and seeing how much you find.

The course is nearly finished! We have been taking a number of small tests, though I was absent for some of them. Tests and exams are something that I dont do so well at. I get very stressed under exam conditions and it means I forget a lot. So I dont do quite as well as I would have liked, but I think that tests and exams dont reflect everything. I think how much you have learned overall is reflected in a number of things: how much more you are able to converse and understand what other people are saying, how many new words you recognise, whether you have finally understood some of the grammar, whether it is now easier for you to read German and understand it. These are all things that I feel have improved for me, to varying degrees.

Today I went for Frustuck in my favourite cafe as a treat. The class I’m taking begins at 15.00, so I have almost the whole day before that to work on my hausaufgabe or walk Lucas. I have planned to return to the UK for a little while to see friends and relax – Berlin is a lot of things, but relaxing is not one of them!  I also begin to feel a little homesick after a while. I try to visit the UK roughly every few months, though this sometimes isnt possible if I’m too busy or cant afford it. Lucas is going to be taken care of by a very nice Australian girl that I met. I’m leaving on Friday and I will be gone for about a week. Maybe when I come home it will be snowing in Berlin?? I have been told that the snow usually comes at the end of November or early December.

Here is a picture of my fabulous frustuck! Its called ‚Bavarian Frustuck‘ and is a potato omellette with toast!

Well today was raining a lot! Rain all the time is a bummer, but I still made it into deutsch kurs as I was feeling better today. Something hard about learning in a group is feeling that everyone is learning faster than you or that you are getting left behind. Because I have ended up missing quite a lot of lessons, this has happened to me on occasion. When there are particular words or grammar rules that everyone else seems to know apart from you. But I think its also important to remember that there are some exercises that are easy for some people and hard for others, and that this tends to even out. I know that there have been some exercises that I’ve found very easy and that others have struggled with, and equally there are times when its taken me a really long time to understand and other people have understood immediately. My advice is to not worry about this too much and if there is something that you find particularly hard, don’t be afraid to ask the teacher to explain. If the teacher is good they will explain it to you until you understand. For me that sometimes means having it explained in English. What I have liked about my current teacher is that she is happy to explain things as many times as you need :)

I have been ill quite a alot this month which is annoying as it means I have missed out on some of Deutsch Kurs! this happened again today. I made a trip to my doctor and got anti-biotics. I hope I havent missed too much!

It looks like we are going to have a week of rain this week. It seems to have been non-stop today! My dog Lucas hates the rain, even though he has a special water-proof jacket to wear when its raining. But its certainly not as much fun walking a dog when its raining!

Something that has been hard about doing an intensive course is balancing it with other areas of your life. If you are coming to Berlin with the specific purpose of going to school, then you can devote the bulk of your time to that and still of course have free time to do what ever else you want. But if, like me, you live here and also have work committments and want time to see your friends, then things can get pretty busy! But, like someone told me, in Berlin everyone is busy! Its part of the city.

This is the last week of my course. So far I have taken courses 1B, 2A and now 2B with Deutsch Akademie. I plan to also take M1, but I’m going to wait until after Christmas as I want a break! I find it also helps to have a breather in between courses, especially when it is quite intensive.

Here is a picture of Lucas who certainly didnt want to get up on this cold and rainy day!

Last day of German-course week and a nice big lot of Hausaufgabe! Some days the workload can be pretty intense, especially if its something you have trouble understanding. I think the longest its taken me to do the homework was 4+ hours! But in that instance there was a lot of it and it was something I found difficult. Normally, it doesnt take more than an hour or two. So yes, if you take this course, prepare to work hard! Unless you are more gifted with languages than me, which wouldnt be difficult ;) I’m always pretty tired by the end of the week! But its worth it of course, learning a language is never going to be easy.

For day 12 Im supposed to write about my favourite places to eat and drink in Berlin! I’m actually in my favourite place right now as they also have wireless. Its a cafe just up the road from my house and they do very good fruestuck! They also do nice coffees and cakes. Its quite big, and there is a big room towards the back a lot of families come to eat. In the evening it can get pretty busy.

Here is a photo of the cake stand, if you can see it…I was trying to be discreet!

It feels strange that I’m more than halfway through my course now! It has been a lot of hard work but I am confident that I am progressing. Hopefully in another couple of months I will be roughly at a point where I am able to get things done without too much trouble! Things like getting the plumbing in my apartment fixed for instance :) It also becomes frustrating when you know what you want to say but arent able to say it!

I have found that I am able to have small conversations. When I am getting food from a take away place they often ask me about myself and where I come from – basic questions like that are easy! Also, when I am out walking Lukas people are often interested in him and ask me questions. I think this is because he is very handsome :) A lot of the dogs in Berlin tend to be very small – I suppose this makes sense as people’s apartments are often small! There are also a lot of Daschunds of course, or sausage dogs as they are popularly known in the UK! These dogs are the exact opposite to Lukas: small and plump with short legs! They are very sweet though.

In terms of the course and what exercises have been the most helpful – I think its the games! We play a particular game where we have cards with a word written on it and we have to describe the word in German and try to get the people on our team to guess what it is. We’re all getting pretty good at this…and we get quite competetive! This is helpful for learnin :)

Here is a photo from the canal near my apartment – you may have noticed that a lot of my photos have contained swans in some way! This is because they are one of my favourite sights in Berlin :) I also really love the canal.

Well the Hausaufgabe yesterday was extremely hard! Sometimes I can finish it in an hour, but yesterday’s took me four hours and I couldnt even finish it! It was about what I was talking about yesterday, the Pronominaladjektivs. I think it will take me a while before I understand these. I am lucky because my mum speaks a bit of German, so often if I am having trouble with my hausaufgabe I phone her and she can help me. But now that I am progressing and the lessons are becoming more advanced, sometimes she doesnt understand either! It would be good if I had a very patient German friend who could help me, but somehow I feel shy to ask.

I am also very shy about speaking German, which is a bad habit! I am finding that I am understanding conversation more and more, which I’m really glad about, but I still feel very shy about speaking back! I may try one of the konversation kurses offered at Deutsch Akademie, or will advertise for a tandem (where you meet someone to practise conversation by way of exchange, so in my case I would practise German and the person I was paired with would practise English).

I have been told by people that the only way to improve your spoken German is to really practise it, which makes sense. It is my goal for this week to begin practising more.

In terms of sights in Berlin – well it really depends what interests you! I love film, so my favourite museum is the film museum – I would definitely recommend that! I also love animals so I enjoy going to the zoo and the aquarium/reptile/amphibean house. I love the kanals and the parks very much as well. There are always a lot of swans in the kanal,  especially around Kottbusser tor. A lot of people feed them so whenever they see a person they begin swimming towards you!

Montag.

Today I feel very exhausted after an extremely busy weekend with my friends! Amy left on Sunday and Serena left early this morning. I was so tired that I considered not going to class, but then I remembered that if you miss a lesson it can be very hard to find your place again, so I made up my mind to go!

We are doing something called pronominaladjektives, which I find very difficult. The lessons are quite varied, sometimes I find that after a bit of effort I have a fairly good idea of what is going on, other times it is super hard and I feel like I’m just taking guesses! This was one of those times, though I think it would’ve been easier if I knew all of the prepositions by heart. I can see that this is something I will need to revise!

Life in Berlin is a lot of fun, I’ve said that before but since I’m supposed to write about my Berlin leisure activities I thought I would begin with this fact! My favourite leisure activities are meeting with friends, walking with Lukas and going for fruestuck/kaffee in a cafe and just soaking up the atmosphere. I have been here for almost 7 months and I often still feel excited just walking down the street as it is such a beautiful city!

My favourite places to walk with Lukas are along the kanal near my apartment and in Hasenheide park, especially in the Hundt park! Lukas is very shy in the hundt park, he mostly stays by me. I think maybe the other dogs are speaking German? Either way, he seems a bit confused by them and doesnt play much. Maybe dogs do speak in other languages too!

Today I am very excited because some of my friends from the UK arrive for a visit! One of the hard parts of living in a different country is missing your friends back home. My friends are called Serena (from Italy) and Amy (from Wales). They both love Berlin so they are very happy to come here – this is another very good thing about living in Berlin, people always want to come and visit you! In the 6/7 months that I’ve lived here, I think each month I have had a visitor of some sort.

Here are my friends – this is what they do to relax! Amy is carving a pumpkin :)

I’m now planning activities for my visitors – I want them to get an authentic taste of Berlin and see how much is on offer! My plan is to take them to some of my favourite places to eat, both restaurants and take-aways, and to some of my favourite bars and to some museums. This weekend there seem to be a number of performance/cabaret nights in Berlin, so we will go to see some of these as well. I also insist that we drink Roetkappchen (Sekt), which is a very popular drink in Berlin, very expensive in the UK but very cheap here! As I live in Kreuzberg I am very fortunate because most of my favourite bars and places to eat are right on my door step! There is a cafe just up the road from me that does amazing fruestuck, a great sushi restaurant in Kottbusser Tor, a great place for falafel in Schoenleinstr and a great bar in Neukoelln. I feel very lucky to live here!

In terms of the online Deutsch Kurses, as I have no internet at home I haven’t had the opportunity to use these much yet. But I do recommend looking on the internet if you are having trouble doing your Hausaufgabe, or simply want to practise :)

Another day at Deutsch Akademie!

I like that we use games in the group sometimes…it does somehow make learning easier! I just hope it all sticks. As the course progresses and things get more complicated, I sometimes begin to feel overwhelmed by how much I still have to learn! For a long time my main difficulty was the grammar, so I worked on this in particular. But now that I understand the grammar better I realise that my vocabulary is not so good! So now I need to remember to try and work on both in equal amounts. One of the things I find the hardest to understand is the cases: nominative, genetiv, akkusitive and dativ. This is something that isnt so much of a part of English. I’m hoping that when my understanding of the vocabulary increases and I get used to reading German sentences, that things such as case will begin to come more naturally. At the moment I find myself looking it up in my book to remind myself!

Like I said in my previous entry, everyone is very friendly on the course. My main friends in Berlin are the friends I already have here, and Lukas of course! I met my friends here when on visits and through acquaintances – I used to know a few people from the UK who lived here. These days my friends tend to be mainly French, Swedish, German and American. At the moment I only know 3 other English people in Berlin! My personal experience is that it is not hard to find a sense of community in Berlin, which of course is a very positive thing!