At this point of my life I am starting to feel ashamed when someone asks me whether if I am able to speak German and for how long I have been here. Those two questions together create and answer that has no COHERENCE at all. That’s when the shame starts sweating from my skin pores.

The truth is that no one better than me knows how difficult is to learn German when everyone around you can easily speak English, and when -furthermore!- expressing in English is a challenge by itself. So today I would like to share my story (taught in my head infinite times as an excuse for every time I got the two questions mentioned).

I came to Germany without knowing a word of German. I could barely say „Hallo“. Since the very beginning I realize how hard it was going to really introduce myself into the city’s life without speaking the language. In spite of all my wishes, the first semester I couldn’t take a German course, and so the English kept developing and the German stayed straggler in a corner of my learning brain circuitry. After 6 months (much more than should have been), I had just learned some words from the daily life, but since I didn’t even get how the sentences were supposed to be built I was terrified of trying. I didn’t feel confident at all, so I didn’t try (HUGE MISTAKE). My very first class of German started in April, after seven months living in Germany were already gone.

My very first day in Germany and the big surprise
of finding what is called: „Ein Hochbett„

My enthusiasm have not diminished since that point. Actually, every day I feel like I am more motivated. And, although my pace has been really slow, like a turtle, I can always reach the finish line with a surprise (like in the kids‘ story: http://childhoodreading.com/?p=3). I maintain my motivation really looking forward to it.

Wenn Du den Strand magst oder ihn vermisst – dann kannst du zur Ostsee fahren. Das ist für einige von Euch vielleicht im ersten Moment erst einmal unbekannt, aber die Ostsee befindet sich im Nordosten von Deutschland und ist eines der beliebtesten Reiseziele der Deutschen. Du kannst dort verschiedene Aktivitäten am Meer unternehmen – wie Surfen, Kite-Surfen, Angeln, lange Strandspaziergänge oder einfach auch nur eine Pause von der Stadt haben. Natürlich genießt du auch das Meer und entspannst dich dabei.

Es gibt verschiedene Hotels, Pensionen oder Apartments für einen guten Preis. Am besten buchst du ein Apartment mit eigener Küche und kannst dich selbst verpflegen und sparst dabei ein bisschen Geld bei den Nebenkosten wie Lebensmittel.

Also, wenn Du ein Strandliebhaber, dich gestresst fühlst oder von der Großstadt müde bist , dann nutze die Gelegenheit und fahre zur Ostsee!!! Du bist mit dem Auto in knapp 2,5 Stunden da, aber auch die Verbindung mit Regionalbahnen ist sehr gut.

I had already listed the four trickier points in the learning of German. The declinations already got all their fame and detailed sentences were formed in homage to them. Today, I better talk about another point: The pronunciation. And since I want to make it understandable, I will switch to Spanish so I can properly try to put sounds into words.

Otro de mis enemigos en el aprendizaje del alemán tiene cara femenina y se le conoce como pronunciación. Sin contar el gran número de sonidos nuevos que tiene este idioma y que no existen en español, al existir palabras tan largas surge arrogante la imperdible oportunidad de tener todos los sonidos juntos en un solo lugar. “R”s pronunciadas como con un salivazo (sinónimo que me contó el diccionario y encontré más decente para publicación) atorado en la garganta al estilo del francés. “CH”s pronunciadas como un rugido de tigre, pero menos agresivo. “SCH”s como un “shhh” para ordenar hacer silencio, pero sin estirar los labios y sí manteniéndolos abiertos. “Z”s como una ts como cuando uno se molesta y dice: “tsssss, que tal ese…”. “A”s que parecen “E”s, “O”s que parecen “U” pero con cara de “I”s. “S”s y “V”s que obligan a vibrar las cuerdas vocales, la lengua, los labios, que por fortuna logré dominar previamente para el portugués y que al menos me liberan un peso. Por fortuna, a diferencia de cuando se habla francés (que también tiene una pronunciación difícil para mí, pobre hispanohablante) el alemán no es extremadamente exigente en este punto, de forma que aún pronunciando mal hay una alta probabilidad de ser entendido.

My final word for those who cannot read Spanish: it is ok, German seems not to be that picky with the understanding of bad-pronounced-words. Just untangle your tongue and keep trying.

Untangling! :P
(in Alexander Platz with Vic)

Einen Neue Sprache zu lernen ist für manche von Euch etwas schwierig oder auch stressig, aber mit Hingabe und Zeit findest du deinen Weg. Aus welchen Gründen du auch Deutsch lernst, du brauchst Geduld und keine Panik, du wirst es schaffen. Eine andere Sprache zu sprechen, wird Dir neue Türen öffnen und lernst neue Kulturen kennen.

Deutsch zu lernen ist vielleicht etwas schwierig – aber das wirst du auch fühlen, wenn du eine andere Sprachen lernst als Deutsch. Alles was du brauchst ist Motivation und jeden Tag üben. Versuch dabei zu entspannen und setz Dich nicht unter Druck! Vielleicht habt Ihr ja schon von den Basic-Tipps zum lernen gehört? Aber es ist hilfreich Musik zu hören, TV zu sehen, Tandems oder Bücher lesen……

Für mich ist es wichtig die Motivation und nicht frustriert zu sein, wenn Du mal nicht verstehst was Du hörst oder nicht das Sprechen kannst, was Du möchtest.

Rom wurde auch nicht an einen Tag erbaut!!! Du hast die Ressourcen, aber wichtig ist dabei zu entspannen, zu genießen und eh Du dich versiehst, wirst du jeden Tag besser werden.

In every learning experience the motivation is a crucial factor. What about those courses in the University that thought really interesting topics catching all your attention and led you to study as if you were playing a videogame (or reading a novel, or something not academically related). The trick is in the motivation, at least for me.

So that’s why today I am talking about this slogan: Mit Spaß um Erfolg (With fun to success). Fun is one of the thousand factors that can gate interest and therefore motivation. And as I say, nothing else is that important when learning, and especially when you are learning a language, that it is not going to have a final grade and affect your GPA.

When I was studying Portuguese (and also English, but let’s focus on my favorite one) I was surprised on how my teacher’s teaching technique was so effective. I was always excited about going to class, to do my homework… and so on. And for me the secret was on the dynamic of the course, it felt more like a friendly environment than like a strict formal class. So I studied Portuguese with all my motivation and excitation, and manage to develop pretty good skills.

With this course I have had the same feeling. I had already done my A1 course in Bonn, but the class was big, and the dynamism was pretty slow (boring I could say). We never got to play a game, or do “theater”. And although I was motivated, the reasons that drove me to the course where coming from the outside rather than form the course by itself. Here, the days I liked the most where those in the last week, when we were just “applying” in a funny and dynamic way what we had learned during the 3 weeks before. So we were interacting with little presentations, games and –most important- tons of laugh and making the learning of the German language more a pleasure than an obligation.

Proud of our presentation of Die Zeitung

If you ask me, is in this teaching method where the secret to success lies.

Today was my last day of course. Most of my classmates (ah! and I need to say that at the end we were just 6… don’t know what happened with the rest in the way) are going back home this weekend, me also. So, for ending this wunderbar month with a highlight (in Colombia we say, „cerrar con broche de oro“), we did one hour exam (what other than that could be a highlight? No, seriously, I mean it! ) and then went out to the sun and have kind of a home-brought brunch.

Does not look as a professional brunch?

At the end people get nostalgic. You start thinking about all the cool things you could have done but you didn’t. About all the German you could have studied at home, all the tandems you could have done (are you aware of tandems? if not, check it out!), all the activities you could have proposed to your classmates… all what you could have… but you didn’t. That’s the crude reality. And that’s why at the end people get nostalgic. And then you say good-bye with a long speech trying to state how much you liked all in spite of never expressing it.

Today was our last day of course. A pretty enriching one in my opinion. After one month, our teacher is stolz and we feel like we are a little bit closer to this difficult goal of learning German.

The survivors. Hand clapping for all us. We made it!
Although there is a longer way until the real goal…

Don’t worry (that’s more like self-consoling words). I’ll still be around here for a while. Bringing back the recent memories of my experience, and the reality of the days out-of-class.

Trying to keep the order of my entries I wanted to detail some other point I listed as „The biggest difficulties of the German learning“ (http://www.deutschakademie.de/berlin/blog/2013/08/27/the-ugly-face-of-deutsche-sprache/). However (lucky that I won’t get that boring!), I remembered that yesterday, when coming out of my German class in Wittenbergplatz, I found myself faced with a market. One of those delicious, noisy, crowded, odorous, colourful markets so common here in Berlin.

Markets… markets…. uhmmm, how much I like you. Here with my „family-in-law“.

 Since I am a super fan of those markets (somehow they remind me more about my country and my own culture and traditions) I was wanting to invite you all to dive into one of them and let it fill all your senses. Coincidentally, just next to the DeutschAkademie building in KaDeWe they take place at least twice a week. I also found a pretty cool website (http://www.timeout.com/berlin/features/909/berlins-best-markets) listing the markets in Berlin, and it seems like every Thursday (TOMORROW!!!!) it takes place exactly in Wittenbergplatz one pretty famous and antique Farmer’s Market.

Good food always present.

Apart from that, I wanted to share my experience in [which to the extend of my knowledge is] one of the biggest Flea-markets (oder Flohmarkt auf Deutsch), which also holds a crazily-enormous-out-door-karaoke. Plenty of things to see and buy (be careful if you suffer from some buying-compulsion), plenty of artists playing music and doing shows, food and bier offer and this huge karaoke that can complete your amusement on a sunny well-named Sunday.

The open air Karaoke. Look how much Publikum there is.

ps. I never said that I apologize in advance if there is any error in my use of English or Deutsch. Just leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to fix it and learn something!