Learning German

Learning a language when you’re old as dirt is generally pretty difficult.  Learning two languages simultaneously is a huge stretch, even for the most motivated, and make no mistake about it, Swiss German and High German are two different languages.   I suspect that I will come back to this topic again and again since it’s been such a huge element of our integration here but let me be clear on this.  It’s hard.   If I’d thought that after nine years of living here I’d be where I am now I’d have heaved a huge sigh of disappointment.   My German is okay, I’m classified as B2,  but it’s a far cry from fluency and I still can only barely understand Swiss German.  It gives me some comfort knowing that, as an American, the expectation bar in the eyes of others is extremely low.   Americans are assumed to know two words, danke schön and gesundheit (which doesn’t mean God bless you), so when I actually hold a conversation with someone they think I’m a genius.   A veritable polyglot.  They’ve no idea  how hard I’ve worked for  this measly B2.   Not to make excuses but a significant disadvantage to learning German while working at a multinational is that our lingua franca is English.  German is not the default and as strange as it sounds,  one must be intentional about speaking German, even in a German speaking country.  Which brings me to lunch.  Once I attained a certain competence level there was a temptation to hold meetings in German, especially when I was the only non-native speaker.  The problem was that usually I was supposed to be leading the meetings and I just couldn’t do it unless speaking English.  I needed the confidence  that was, for me anyway, attached to my mother tongue.   While I really wanted to learn German, I had a job to do so I ditched that idea and decided to use lunch for this purpose and, to make it most effective, this meant one-on-one.  I therefore built a rotation of colleagues who were kind and patient enough to speak with me and I discovered a terrific side benefit.  I got to know them personally.  For the most part, we didn’t discuss work.  We discussed family, hobbies, travel, pets and even, as my skills improved, politics.  Politics is an area that really tests you.  The vocabulary of course but more significantly, the subtleties.   The shouting at Fox News and MSNBC may have drowned out the subtleties but I don’t identify with the extremes so when I want to express my views I need to communicate the nuances.   I’m still not there quite yet but I’m much more inclined to dive in now and search for the words as I get going.