On Language

I've been meaning to write this post for about a month, but an experience I had last night illustrates the whole subject quite well, so I'm glad I waited.


When I moved here two months ago, I obviously wasn't the German language expert.  But nonetheless I felt I needed to have all of my social interactions in German because, after all, this is Germany, and I shouldn't be that arrogant American who thinks that everyone should know her language.


Over the course of the first month, I tried my best to order food, check out at the grocery store, etc., in German.  But when I would lose a word for a moment, or accidentally spit out a "thanks", the person on the other end would automatically switch to English, which I found extremely frustrating.  I interpreted the interaction as me failing and them being annoyed with me, and it really wore on me.


However about a month ago I realized that not all of these interactions are like that.  Often times these people I interact with want to practice their English, and see interacting with people like myself as a great chance to do so.


When I got to Prague a few weeks ago, I realized that it was my first time being to a country where I did not speak ANY of the language.  And no, it's not like Spanish or French where you can sort of figure things out: here's one example of a phrase... it means "I'm fine, thanks" - "Mám se dobře, děkuji".  So anyway, I was reliant on Lucy's 2 weeks of learning Czech, and my broken english I've perfected since being here, to communicate with people.  The most fascinating thing with me, as a linguaphile, was the interactions I had there with people whose first language was neither Czech nor English.  For example, we ran into a group of Argentinians on the way home one night and they asked us in English how to get somewhere, so we (trying to use our Spanish) explained it to them in mostly English, throwing in the Spanish we remembered from high school.  Another example was on the bus on the way back from Prague.  As we boarded the bus, all the people who didn't speak Czech, the bus people speak to them in English.  I was probably the only native English speaker of the group, but it's really interesting how the Chinese, Russian, French, German, and Spanish people all have to communicate in English while in the Czech Republic.  

As much as I did not want to believe it, but now do after living here for 2 months, English truly has become an international language.  I'm not sure how I feel about it - I have mixed feelings - but it should really make you feel blessed to have it as your first language.

The next week I spent in Paris, and had all of these experiences again.  Thankfully I can communicate in French, so things were easier for me than for my classmates, who had some interesting language stories.  I found French people to be, like many Germans, eager to practice their English.  However there, instead of switching languages and maintaining their annoyed look as Berliners do, they thanked my friends with a smile and nod for their "je voudrais..." and kindly offered the food names in English. 

On a side note, flying back from Paris to Berlin was one of the most linguistically confusing experiences I've ever had.  By that point it'd been 1.5 weeks since I'd been in Germany, 2.5 weeks since my last German class, and for the past few days I'd begun thinking in French.  Which to speak, French, German, or English?  After a week of being back here in Berlin I've finally gotten back into the routine.  But in one week we leave for Russia, and the day after I get back I'll be leaving for Barcelona..... so, we'll see how that goes.

So back to my experience last night.  My friend from HWS was in town and I was taking her to meet up with some IES friends.  We got to one of the train stations and there was an announcement in German that I didn't understand, but I knew it was something along the lines of the train not working because the route had been changed [and because whenever there is a train problem, it's the only announcement that is not translated into English].  Hearing us speaking English, a woman desperately approached us and asked us what the announcement said.  I apologized and told her my German isn't good enough to translate it.  She was disappointed and said "I only speak English and French", and later we found out Greek, as she's from Greece and was in Berlin for a tourism convention (which, is conducted in.. you guessed it.. English).  I took her to where she needed to go, because few metro workers speak English.  She kept expressing her deep frustration in the fact that these German transportation workers don't speak much English; she said that in Greece "all the transportation workers and waiters have to speak English".  Amazed, I asked "really?".  She explained that when she was growing up she chose French in secondary school and then later learned English, but that in public schools in Greece today, English instruction is mandatory beginning in middle school, and that students can then chose from a romance language in high school.  Talk about having some life advantages!

Anyway, this was a long post, but I don't apologize because it's all really pertinent and I find all of these interactions to be fascinating, and hopefully you found them mildly interesting as well.  


If you're interested in this topic, you can read this recent NYT article that Deanna sent me about polyglots; it's quite interesting!