in this home on ice
The time is nearing for the one semester students to be leaving for the States soon. Because of that I've been thinking, if I were only staying one semester, what would I be feeling right now?
To put it succintly, its fairly unimaginable. About a month ago I started thinking, what are the things that I am going to miss the most when I leave? And since then I've been trying to enjoy those things even more, and just continuing to take it all in. Its a shame that there is never enough time to fully process anything, because I feel like its all going to be a vague dream in times far from now. But I guess a lot would be lost in the translation (metaphorically speaking), and words are just my attempts at the captions to the memories.
Things are, as always, up and down. Last Sunday my Joy of Life flat-lined, but I think as a result I was able to be a little more inspired the next couple of days. On Tuesday I woke up and went to my creative writing class, read my contribution to our utterly stupid 'class story' and got a decent response, then came back home and spent the entirity of the day writing an essay due the next morning. I spent the majority of Monday reading the article on which I was writing the essay, and at parts on Tuesday I felt like I really had things going. By around 11pm when I finally decided the essay wasn't going to get any better, and just to send it in (email it) then, I decided those moments of inspiration throughout the day had sort of been baseless, but ahwell. I always have a terrible time writing analytical papers, and I'm not really sure why. I would think I have a somewhat analytical mind (not from math grades), but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. I had read the article pretty closely so I could have some solid points to write from, but it sort of all feels like it falls to pieces once you've spent twelve minutes debating how to word a single sentence. So I end up spending a lot of my time about how it sounds and not exactly what I am actually saying, and when you are writing in another language that is sort of a waste of time, because no matter how you think you are wording it it still doesn't come off like you have a native grasp of the language. When we do our daily writing exercise in my creative writing class I am generally the last to finish and have the least of an actual story/poem/whatever, just because I am wrestling with things. I am sitting there with my dictionary and a bunch of scratched out things and arrows, trying to gauge which word for "comfort" is really what I am trying to say. Its just recently occurred to me that a reason why I might have such trouble with oral fluency is that I don't speak english the way you learn to speak a foreign language. I think this is lessening somewhat, just with the crowdedness of both english and german, but a lot of how I feel I present my personality is in my word usage. I get a sort of offhand pleasure from using words not really in their traditional sense. And I don't think I'm generally misunderstood by other native english speakers, but when I am speaking (in english) to folks who weren't raised speaking english, I have to just drop any colorful language, and its just sort of boring. You never realize how many idioms and sayings you use in your daily speech until you really have to think about how other people are having to translate it.
Tonight I was at a house party of Jennifer's (a Californian student here) boyfriend's friend's, and there was this guy there that apparently is dying to study in California, so he came up and had a really excited conversation with a not-so-enthused Jacky and I. He was shocked that we'd want to learn German, that we'd be here to learn it! "But why German, it's so complicated!" And thats the thing that is funny- everyone loves the idea that their native language is one of the most difficult out there. I've heard it from practically everyone, no matter where they are from. I remember being here in Germany only a couple of weeks and talking to a guy in German about what he thought about learning English. I was quite surprised when he said that he thought it was really easy. Really easy?! English! He basically said that English is like German, but with way less complex grammar. Somehow I had grown up in America thinking that English was really difficult, "with all the idioms", or something. And so tonight when Jacky and I just sort of looked at the guy, instead of nodding heartily and agreeing, why yes, German is far too complex for our weak-willed American brains, I responded that, yeah its hard, but pretty much any language would be. There are languages that are easier than others for native English speakers to learn, but every language has its difficulties, and so you can either bemoan french irregular verbs or german adjective endings, but its all sort of the same in the end (though I think prepositions are generally a really difficult thing to master correctly in any language). I'll give you more of these examples in a couple of years.
To put it succintly, its fairly unimaginable. About a month ago I started thinking, what are the things that I am going to miss the most when I leave? And since then I've been trying to enjoy those things even more, and just continuing to take it all in. Its a shame that there is never enough time to fully process anything, because I feel like its all going to be a vague dream in times far from now. But I guess a lot would be lost in the translation (metaphorically speaking), and words are just my attempts at the captions to the memories.
Things are, as always, up and down. Last Sunday my Joy of Life flat-lined, but I think as a result I was able to be a little more inspired the next couple of days. On Tuesday I woke up and went to my creative writing class, read my contribution to our utterly stupid 'class story' and got a decent response, then came back home and spent the entirity of the day writing an essay due the next morning. I spent the majority of Monday reading the article on which I was writing the essay, and at parts on Tuesday I felt like I really had things going. By around 11pm when I finally decided the essay wasn't going to get any better, and just to send it in (email it) then, I decided those moments of inspiration throughout the day had sort of been baseless, but ahwell. I always have a terrible time writing analytical papers, and I'm not really sure why. I would think I have a somewhat analytical mind (not from math grades), but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. I had read the article pretty closely so I could have some solid points to write from, but it sort of all feels like it falls to pieces once you've spent twelve minutes debating how to word a single sentence. So I end up spending a lot of my time about how it sounds and not exactly what I am actually saying, and when you are writing in another language that is sort of a waste of time, because no matter how you think you are wording it it still doesn't come off like you have a native grasp of the language. When we do our daily writing exercise in my creative writing class I am generally the last to finish and have the least of an actual story/poem/whatever, just because I am wrestling with things. I am sitting there with my dictionary and a bunch of scratched out things and arrows, trying to gauge which word for "comfort" is really what I am trying to say. Its just recently occurred to me that a reason why I might have such trouble with oral fluency is that I don't speak english the way you learn to speak a foreign language. I think this is lessening somewhat, just with the crowdedness of both english and german, but a lot of how I feel I present my personality is in my word usage. I get a sort of offhand pleasure from using words not really in their traditional sense. And I don't think I'm generally misunderstood by other native english speakers, but when I am speaking (in english) to folks who weren't raised speaking english, I have to just drop any colorful language, and its just sort of boring. You never realize how many idioms and sayings you use in your daily speech until you really have to think about how other people are having to translate it.
Tonight I was at a house party of Jennifer's (a Californian student here) boyfriend's friend's, and there was this guy there that apparently is dying to study in California, so he came up and had a really excited conversation with a not-so-enthused Jacky and I. He was shocked that we'd want to learn German, that we'd be here to learn it! "But why German, it's so complicated!" And thats the thing that is funny- everyone loves the idea that their native language is one of the most difficult out there. I've heard it from practically everyone, no matter where they are from. I remember being here in Germany only a couple of weeks and talking to a guy in German about what he thought about learning English. I was quite surprised when he said that he thought it was really easy. Really easy?! English! He basically said that English is like German, but with way less complex grammar. Somehow I had grown up in America thinking that English was really difficult, "with all the idioms", or something. And so tonight when Jacky and I just sort of looked at the guy, instead of nodding heartily and agreeing, why yes, German is far too complex for our weak-willed American brains, I responded that, yeah its hard, but pretty much any language would be. There are languages that are easier than others for native English speakers to learn, but every language has its difficulties, and so you can either bemoan french irregular verbs or german adjective endings, but its all sort of the same in the end (though I think prepositions are generally a really difficult thing to master correctly in any language). I'll give you more of these examples in a couple of years.
posted by Meredesu at 4:45 PM
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