On the up

Well, as it turns out, things got worse before they got better. But it's on the up now. Basically, myself and a group of others (mostly Australians) have been axed from the FU language course. According to the authorities, our German is too shit for their "beginners" level. We were given a list of other places that offered language courses, directed to the office to get our money refunded and sent on our merry way. 

After wallowing in our sorrows for a few moments, myself, Thea (another girl from Melbourne Uni law school) and Maria from Spain rode the U-Bahn hard, checking out these other language schools and eventually enrolling in one. It's called Deutsch Akademie and it's in a posh part of town, sandwiched between up-market department stores and Western franchises. It starts on Monday, so I have until then to bring myself up to speed with the trickier aspects of the grammar.

It's just on 19.00 and I'm back from the Amerika Gedenkbibliothek, a library I've found that doesn't require an annual fee. The entrance is plastered with signs prohibiting a lot of things I can't understand, which is fine by me. It seems like everyone there is also studying German. The reading rooms are humming with the sound of strangers having fledgling conversations. There's a happy sense of community and people are willing to practice on anyone. A man from Turkey who was sitting next to me asked me some questions and suffered through my pigin German, then offered me some of his Kit-Kat as a consolation. And so I made my first German-learning speaking friend.

This is the first time I've committed myself to learning a language in a meaningful way. In high school the teachers were so uninspiring that it was more fun to feign ignorance than learn the subject matter. And while weekly Swedish lessons before I went to Lund gave me a reasonable grasp of the basics, the fatal combination of Swedes speaking English perfectly and the lingua franca of the exchange community being English all but convinced me to forget I ever spoke it. 

Everyone has been saying that immersion is the best way to learn a language. But I'm torn between my desire to meet people to make Berlin a little less lonely and my desire to nail German (as much as my beginner 1B level will allow). I think the answer lies in meeting friendly Germans with time, patience and a preference for speaking slowly and repeating themselves often. Another excuse to frequent bars, hurrah!

I'm sorry if my so far my blog has been preoccupied with my German language soap-opera. But this is the reason I'm here so early and I'm sure that once this works out, everything else will fall into place. Then I'll start seeing the sights and taking photos and living the life a little more.