Deutsch: Leicht oder schwer?

Natürlich (one of my favourite words in German), being immersed in a new language is the best way to learn, but also overwhelming. It surrounds me everywhere, every day. Some of it is conscious, some of it isn’t. I work with German-speaking primary school classes for 16 hours a week. I spend 9 hours per week in a Deutsch Integrationskurs spread over three evenings. For the time in between I am influenced by the German language everywhere I go, I send some messages in German, I’m finding German movies to watch and I have spent the last two weeks setting up tandem meetings with many different people.

I’m not particularly used to teaching or speaking English to absolute beginners. The children in the classes I'm with tend not to respond, or at least not as quickly, to instructions and can become restless very easily if they don’t understand. These are completely understandable reactions when listening to a language they don’t really know. Managing a class with this kind of language barrier can be a challenge. But some of them, mainly the younger ones, are clearly eager and interested to learn and with them it is a joy to tap into their enthusiasm. For the others, I can only try through movements, gestures, songs and visuals to connect with them, and work together with the teacher when translation is necessary.

Meanwhile, I attend a German course to add some structure to my own learning. As it is an A1+ course, I’m not starting from the absolute beginning but have some basics in mind that need refreshing. The first class started straight in with the perfect tense and I was glad that I found the level to be rather suitable for me. I was also relieved not to be the worst in the class! I find myself gaining more confidence to try to speak and caring less about the mistakes I inevitably make (especially with the articles: der, die, das… ein, eine, einem, einen…ahh!)  To supplement the course, I have also taken up language tandems.

I knew from living in Finland the possibility of using Tandem meetings to improve language learning. I had never availed of the opportunity there but here I decided to give it a chance, not only to practise some German but also to meet new people. It serves the purpose well. I posted a short message on the bulletin board of the language centre of the University of Vienna stating that I would be interested in a “language swap” – I can offer English in exchange for German. Surprisingly, I received many, many responses and have a list of possible Tandem partners reaching double figures. Apparently many people want to improve their English speaking skills!

Each tandem meeting I’ve had so far has been in a different café in Vienna. I truly believe that I could spend every day here in a different café and I still wouldn’t make it through them all – it is astounding and it’s easy to enjoy exploring the Viennese café culture. The meetings are very informal, usually just meeting for a chat or taking a walk around the city. Some of the conversation is in English and some in German. In the situations where our speaking skills are of a similar match then I’m forced to speak more German, which can be frustrating when I can’t find the words I want to say but it helps me improve by practising. Most people will understand this feeling.

Recently, I met with a Tandem couple (Austrian guy, Lithuanian lady) to experience the Lange Nacht der Museen together. This was a special cultural evening in the city when all of the museums are open from 6pm to 1am and you can gain entry to all of them with just one ticket costing 11€ (student price – I’m still managing to take advantage of my Finnish student card.) Although the possibilities seemed endless with so many different kinds of museums in Vienna, we spent most of the hours in the National History Museum. It is an incredibly huge, impressive, old building with millions of items; you could easily spend the whole day there!

As an added extra on this particular evening, we took advantage of the guided tour to the rooftop of this magnificent building where we could admire the night-time view of Vienna with a “love cocktail.” The tour was only offered in German so for most of the time the guide was speaking too fast for me to understand everything. Nevertheless, I at least picked up some information as we stood in a storage room for skulls (where normal visitors do not have access) – there were 40,000 skulls there! A little bit creepy if you ask me… 

With all of these experiences with the German language I sincerely hope that the improvement will continue. I’m well aware though that I need to keep practising as much as I can in order not to lose it. And I have a fragile memory, given that I have many temporary influences in my life, never staying in one place too long, always meeting new people … learning a new language is a delicate process that I hope to nurture. Ist Deutsch leicht oder schwer? Is German easy or difficult? What do you think?