On the Road with Julie

Time to Read:

When can you say “I speak German”? Actually, when can you say “I speak…” for any language? This is an important and relevant question for me at the moment.

I have so much to say about my time in Vienna, and I’ll write about it all in a separate post. However, I’ve decided to write my German blog post—my blog post IN German (from Vienna)—about the German language itself and the process of learning German (in German, of course). This is the English version of that post. If you want to read the German version, click here!

There’s no question, when I first arrived in Germany, I didn’t speak German. That’s clear. I had learned enough German from watching easy german stories on Youtube to be able to show up in Germany able to understand a decent amount. But when I arrived, I was even too nervous to say “I don’t speak German very well” in German. It took me a few days just to be confident enough to say in German that I don’t speak German. Now, you can’t get me to order food in English. No matter what, no matter where I am – I’m giving it a go in German! And even if the waiter answers me in English, I’ll keep speaking in German! I’m not afraid anymore. My apologies to all native German speakers. Now, I do speak German, whether I can or not!

For four weeks, four hours a week, I took piano and composition lessons – totally in German! It was the most wonderful experience! I had a conversation with my German teacher in German about physics and the structure of the universe and consciousness. I spent a whole day traveling to Salzburg with a tour guide, speaking German. We talked in German all day long. We talked about politics, culture, and the differences between Austria and the USA.

So, I’ve spoken a lot of German!

Maybe, then, I can say I speak German?

But, also, maybe not.

All of this being the case, I also approached a small kiosk and asked, with all of the confidence in the world “When do you castles?” You might be thinking, “what the heck does that mean”? And you would be right. It is nonsense. What I meant to say is, “When do you close?” But, you see, the word for “close” and the word for “castles” sound an awful lot alike. But, it’s a “close, but no cigar” situation. The man looked at me as if I were a total nutjob. So, we switched to English. They closed at 9.

So, when can you say “I speak German”? Only when you can be absolutely confident that you can speak freely without accidentally talking about castles? If that’s the case, well, then I still don’t speak German. But I know now that I can have a conversation in German. And when I arrived in Germany, that wasn’t the case. And for me, for now, that’s more than enough! Yes, now I will say it, but with one slight qualifier. Yes, I speak German – although, sometimes, that includes a little extra about castles.

*ADDENDUM – While reviewing and correcting this blog post with my German instructor, he informed me that while what I said was not the regular way people would ask if something was closed, “Wie schlossen Sie?”any German would have understood what I was saying and that he thought it might not have been a native German speaker that didn’t understand me in that moment. He even said that, actually, I was using a more elevated form of speaking that just isn’t used anymore in daily talk. Take that! So, I was just TOO right. Whether or not that is the case – I think the overall evaluation of my current capacities, castle disclaimer included, is still apropos.