December 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?
Lately I’ve backed off of blogging about my adventures with the German language, mostly because I was starting to sound like a broken record. That doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped thinking about it though. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the long, slow process of learning German brings out the best and the worst in me. Still, over the course of it all, I’ve somehow gotten to the point where I can manage even lengthy professional conversations with strangers without needing to use English as a back-up. On the one hand, I’m pretty proud of myself, since it’s taken a lot of freakin’ work to be able to do this. On the other hand, it also requires me to constantly swallow my pride (and my insecurities), because I’m still making my fair share of mistakes. Funny how that works, huh?
If I want to continue improving my German, I have to give up the part of me that needs everything to be perfect. Doesn’t it seem a bit oxymoronic — in order speak better German, I have to be willing to make mistakes? But I’ve come to the conclusion that as long as I’m continually mastering the old mistakes and facing the new ones head-on, then at least I’m moving in the right direction.
Putting myself out there (grammatical errors and all) is an enormous challenge for me, and this year I’ve gotten better at letting go and immersing myself in the process. And I know in the end, the payoff is definitely worth the effort.
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This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 challenge.
Another option for covering your grammar mistakes is to speak in a Bavarian accent and swallow your endings like they do. Boarisch covers a multitude of (grammar) sins. :)
i am truly impressed by people like you who are able to learn a new language. i haven’t in CENTURIES.
I enjoyed this post! You nailed it: learning another language requires us to swallow pride and insecurities. I think that we hold communication so close to us that not being completely, 100% comfortable in how we’re communicating makes us vulnerable. Kudos to you for working to overcome that!
Harvey: Might have to try that, although I’ll surely get some funny looks up here in Hansestadt Hamburg!
Amy: Spoken like a true multi-lingualist. ;)
Cali: Yes, exactly — vulnerable was the word I was searching for the entire time I was writing the post — thanks for your comment!
Also for me. Pride is a worthy opponent.
Pronunciation (how strong is your American accent? Do you have any regional influence? Is that on purpose?), grammar (subject/verb agreement, irregular plurals and verb forms, adjectival declension, subordinate clause word order), vocabulary (not needing a script). Pick two of those. If you can get two of those things working, that’s pretty good. Two outta three ain’t bad, right?
I suspect that deciding which of those is the hardest or easiest varies from person to person, innately, and with exposure/practice scenarios. I started thinking about this recently after watching an episode of Das Perfekte Dinner featuring Stephanie, die Regensburger Eventmanagerin ursprünglich aus New York, on purpose, and Sarah and me inadvertently (see this episode, at about 17:30 in for our walk-by cameo — and thanks Jentry for calling our attention to it.) It always seemed to me that one out of the three were missing with her — the odd thing is that the missing element seemed to rotate. Not sure if that’s better or worse than having one constant weak area.
Halt die Ohren steif!