If You Wanna Learn German (Or at Least Try)

To learn German. Hard but not impossible.

In the words of Oscar Wilde, “Life is too short to learn German”, and boy, he was right. I don't know exactly when, how or why did I decide to learn this language, but for me it has been a pending matter for a long time.

The first chance came when I got an Erasmus exchange in Germany, in 2010. It was a vacant to study in English, therefore all my classes were in English. Bad start.

It is true that I was living there for 6 months and made really good German friends; but since my English wasn't that good back then, because I didn't have the chance to practice it enough before, my priority was to improve it. And, apart from that, German people speak English very well in general, so I was always able to communicate. On the other hand, it was not possible for me to speak in German, because when I got there my level was -2.

Even so, I did the mini-course for beginners that the university there offered and sometimes I used to do tandem with my friends, to see if I could learn something, at least. Well, I did learn something, but just a couple little things: “Hello, how are you?”, “What time is it?”, “Fuck you!”, “A beer, please!”... so typical. This is the clear example of a customary situation. It doesn't matter to live in the country, if you are not determined, you are not gonna learn the language. I came back proud of myself, anyway, because I could improve in English, but still with that pending matter with German was there. I wanted to learn it properly!

And finally last year I could find some time for it. I didn't want to go to Germany again like crazy without a basic knowledge and obviously I had already forgotten the so very little German that I knew, so I decided to do an intensive course in Spain during 5 months before leaving. When It was done, 2 months later I went to live in Bremen, in the north of Germany. There I did another intensive course for 2 months and after that I started to work. I was living in Bremen a total of 8 months, until December of 2014.

This is the language that I studied the most, because it has been the most difficult for me so far. Of course you can apply this to every language you want to learn, but in this specific case with German, this is my experience and my advice:

1.- It is essential to spend time learning the language in a theoretical way. German specifically has a really complicated grammar and you need to learn at least a base. At the beginning you have to think not only how to translate the words that you wanna say, but also how to decline and put them depending on the grammar. Headache for sure.

2.- If your goal is to pass a level exam, because you need it for a grant or a study or something, prepare it in an academy is OK, but if you wanna learn the language just because or to live and work in a country where people speak German...

3.-... there is a time when you have to leave the academy. Once you get a medium level, like a B1, you already can fly alone. You already have a good base and nothing more is gonna enter in your head. What you have to do is going out, interact with German people and practice. Listening constantly and living the day-to-day, you will be able to construct really complicated grammar structures automatically and you won't have any idea how the hell did you say it right, but you did.

4.- Surround yourself with German people. When we come from abroad, we use to gather around all together and even more if we go to a language academy, where there is only people from other countries. You can meet amazing people, but at the end you are talking all the time in English, more than other thing, or your own language. I made friends in Bremen, for instance, from Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Spain... so you can be talking in Spanish the whole day perfectly. It's great to meet people from other countries, but don't forget to meet people from the country you are living in as well!

5.- Don't allow that anybody talk to you in Spanish (English, French, whatever). It's pretty common to find German people who speak Spanish quite good, so if you have German friends, tell them to talk to you in German only. A good deal is to do tandem with them.

6.- Live with German people. It's an incredible way to improve the language. The first 2 months I lived with Spanish people, so we talked in Spanish the whole time, obviously. It's very comfortable, but we don't progress like that. The other 6 months I lived with German people and the different was huge. I asked them please to never talk to me in English, even if I talk to them in English at some point. Even when I didn't understand something, they always repeated me all in German. They were super patients with me, really helped me out and I actually noticed how my level was growing.

7.- Work in German. Living in Germany doesn't mean exactly that you can not work in English, Russian, French or Spanish. Nowadays everything is very international. But if your goal is to learn German, work in German. I was working in a coffee shop and not only did I learn a whole new vocabulary but I also was the only foreigner there; all my workmates were from Germany and they talked to me always in German. I really improved thanks to them and to the job.

8.- When you learn a language, at the beginning, the normal is to understand it better than you talk it. My case with German was the other way around. I could always say everything I wanted to say without any problems (with hundreds of mistakes, of course, but people understood me), nevertheless it was really hard for me to understand people. At the end, forcing myself with German all the time, I could understand practically everything and progress a lot.

How quick is to learn a language depends on each person, of course. There are people who have great ability and people who is going to learn more slowly, some of them would try harder and some others not that much, but what is clear is that we need to spend an amount of time. To get a moderately decent level, with respect to German, we need at least a year. To get a perfect level, we need half of our life. WE REMAIN OPTIMISTIC!

Although, no matter what happens, I can't help wondering: Which came first, Frankfurt city or Frankfurt sausage?

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