I am trying, really trying, to get motivated to start up German classes again. My teacher and I have our first lesson in over two months next week. We can call it the start of the fall semester. However, a sense of hopelessness at ever learning this language is winning out. My brain just can't absorb anymore at my age.
At the pace I am going I may reach the B level classes sometime in 2009. I wish I could blame my teacher but he is a saint. I fumble and mumble, never really saying anything without taking forever to construct each sentence and then it's wrong anyway. Two times wrong. Wrong grammar and wrong pronunciation.
I know I need to learn. I just don't want to anymore. I may have to completely surround myself with English speaking expats. An insulated bubble protecting me from the dour German faces as I try to navigate through everyday life.
Maybe I should take another couple of weeks off...
Posted from Basel
5 comments:
Don't give up yet! You'll get there eventually. After a while something goes click and you don't even need to think about it any more. But once you've got all the grammar down, the best way to do it just to go out and mingle with the locals and force yourself to speak. It's really scary, but it works. Besides not knowing any English speaking people I had to do an awful lot on my own when I moved here and it helped me learn the language really fast.
I feel your pain!
Thanks for the encouragement! I will keep at it for now :)
If you are speaking English at home, it takes a LOT longer! You have a tame German, use him!
I found it helped to teach kids in German. They don't mind your making grammar mistakes!
Looking back, the things that prevented me from learning really good German were 1) having an English wife and 2) being put into a position of authority straight away, so (Germans being German) the people around me were afraid to correct my hideous grammar.
I feel your pain too. Seeing that so far still nothing has given me the ability to go out in public and just whip out great German sentences, I don't feel motivated to keep trying anymore. The only thing keeping me thinking about it is other people always asking me about my German classes. I feel like I need to stay in them, just to say I'm in them. And I try in class, I really do. But I don't try anymore in life.
Good luck!
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