The next little bump.

I have finally started to talk a little in German with my host mom and people at school. It took a long time, but now that the ball's rolling I think things will go a little faster. Before, when I wasn't talking, my main fear was that I would say the wrong stuff, or I wouldn't know the word, and then I would make a complete fool of myself. That happens, but as it turns out, it's not all that bad, as long as I laugh with them.

Now that I am comfortable enough with my vocabulary and grammar to talk I am running into other problems though. I really didn't think that my American accent would be as much of a problem as it is. I knew it would happen, it has to happen. If I didn't have an American accent, who would have one? All Americans must at some point. Anyway, I figured it would just be one of those things that would be there, and maybe later I would work on getting rid of it a little, but it has turned out to be pretty annoying.

First of all, any time I say something in German to people at school (not teachers, only other kids) they laugh. Some are worse than others (I won't name names, except Patrick). Usually it's just that one word that I get wrong that sets it off, something that seems simple like "ich" which means " I " , it's not pronounced like "itch" or as in "dish" but somewhere in between, and I can't seem to get there. Maybe Germans have a differently shaped mouth and/or throat that helps them belt it out? Back to the point, I mess up one little word, and then one person gets a little grin, and then it turns into a chuckle, and I'm lucky if it stops there. If it continues on to a full laugh, and other people join in, I have no choice but to stop talking a laugh too, even if I don't get it. It can get worse though! The only way it gets past the laughing stage is when it somebody turns around to someone else and says "Oh hey, did you hear Kevin? No? Oh, Kevin, say it again." I'll get more into that later. The laughing doesn't last long at all, and it's all in good humor so there's no problem. It usually doesn't bug me that much but I could live without it.

About the "Oh hey, did you hear Kevin? No? Oh, Kevin, say it again." thing, I think I could make some pretty good money from this. Some times people come up to me and say, "Hey, Kevin, say _______." I've learned that if I say no, it continues to, "Oh, come on, please say _______." At this point if I say no, it can go a few ways. Sometimes they give up, if the word isn't that funny or if nobody is else is there. Sometimes they just keep asking again and again. But sometimes, and this one's the key, someone says, "Hey, come on now, I'll give you 10 cents when you say it." It's hard to turn those offers down.

The words that they want me to say mostly come from two different sources. The first is when I say something and it sounds funny with my American accent, and the person that heard it wants other people to hear it. That kind isn't my favorite, cause I don't like repeating my mistakes when I know I did something wrong. The other kind is when it's a funny word in general, one example is "Syrupartiges Piswasser" (sp?). It means syrup-flavored piss-water if you couldn't see that one, and one guy (I won't name names) uses it to describe Coca-cola. I think I got 10 cents for that one. Another one is "Wanderdunen." If you know what it means, great, if not, don't worry. It's pretty funny. There is another source for these phrases and words, but my German is good enough to mostly avoid it by now, and that's when the words are racy or mean slang, but I don't fall for that trick.

The reality of my accent hit hard the other night when I stopped by McDonalds (which seems to be very popular in Germany). I order two cheeseburgers in my best German ("Zwei Cheeseburgers" for anyone who wants to know). Now, cheeseburger is the same word in German as in English, and "Zwei" is pretty short and simple, but for some reason, the lady behind the counter (she wasn't American/Brittish) said, "For here or to go?" I was pretty shocked, and I did the stupid thing and answered in English. She went on to say, "Is that all, two euros, and thankyou,". I still wonder if my accent was really bad enough on just those two little words that she noticed I wasn't a German speaker and switched into English.

I'm sure it will improve sometime!

-Kevin

A preview from the next post: Christmas markets!