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Summary <p>After a decade in Germany, I was still anxious talking to native speakers – then I realised my language skills weren’t the problem</p><p>I have prefaced every conversation with, “<em>Entschuldigung, mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut</em>” (“I’m sorry, my German is still not very good”) since I moved to Hermsdorf, a little village in east Germany in 2015. Its purpose was to act as a disclaimer upfront so that the German person I was talking to wouldn’t expect me to articulate complicated ideas or respond promptly and accurately to everything that was said. But mostly, my opening line was a plea for mercy, a signal that I was still learning the language and would greatly appreciate it if they spoke more slowly and clearly. They would always graciously reply: “<em>Ja, Deutsch ist eine schwere Sprache.</em>” German is a difficult language, they all agreed. And for the longest time, that was true.</p><p>Growing up in Kuala Lumpur as Malaysian Chinese, I speak English almost natively, given that Malaysia was once a British colony. I also speak Malay, Malaysia’s official language, and Mandarin and Cantonese because I needed to communicate with my grandparents. Before moving to Germany, I already spoke Italian after working on board cruise ships for years alongside Italian officers, and conversational French after dating a Frenchman. Then, I met the man who would later become my husband in a bar on the 63rd floor of a building in Singapore and a thought occurred to me: “Wouldn’t it be funny if I have to learn German this time?”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/01/language-skills-germany-native-speakers">Continue reading...</a>

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Hidden blurb --- !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::RSSEntry published: 2024-04-01 07:00:04.000000000 Z image: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/86e22dfaadd76dc0e12e4599c3f5f85af8537132/0_35_2000_1200/master/2000.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=15af6b9c47b291023354eeaa043e371d entry_id: !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::GloballyUniqueIdentifier guid: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/01/language-skills-germany-native-speakers title: I stopped apologising for my poor German, and something wonderful happened | Ying Reinhardt categories: - Languages - Social etiquette - Germany - Society - Life and style summary: '<p>After a decade in Germany, I was still anxious talking to native speakers – then I realised my language skills weren’t the problem</p><p>I have prefaced every conversation with, “<em>Entschuldigung, mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut</em>” (“I’m sorry, my German is still not very good”) since I moved to Hermsdorf, a little village in east Germany in 2015. Its purpose was to act as a disclaimer upfront so that the German person I was talking to wouldn’t expect me to articulate complicated ideas or respond promptly and accurately to everything that was said. But mostly, my opening line was a plea for mercy, a signal that I was still learning the language and would greatly appreciate it if they spoke more slowly and clearly. They would always graciously reply: “<em>Ja, Deutsch ist eine schwere Sprache.</em>” German is a difficult language, they all agreed. And for the longest time, that was true.</p><p>Growing up in Kuala Lumpur as Malaysian Chinese, I speak English almost natively, given that Malaysia was once a British colony. I also speak Malay, Malaysia’s official language, and Mandarin and Cantonese because I needed to communicate with my grandparents. Before moving to Germany, I already spoke Italian after working on board cruise ships for years alongside Italian officers, and conversational French after dating a Frenchman. Then, I met the man who would later become my husband in a bar on the 63rd floor of a building in Singapore and a thought occurred to me: “Wouldn’t it be funny if I have to learn German this time?”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/01/language-skills-germany-native-speakers">Continue reading...</a>' rss_fields: - title - url - summary - author - categories - published - entry_id - image url: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/01/language-skills-germany-native-speakers carlessian_info: news_filer_version: 2 newspaper: US general21 macro_region: USA author: Ying Reinhardt

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