My
Journey of Learning a New Foreign Language – German!
PART 2
WHY GERMAN?
Actually, I still had no idea which
language I’m going to choose after giving up on French and having such a bad
experience with the teacher… L
But I knew I might be going to take either
German or Spanish. The reason I was considering Spanish just because there’s a
huge population speaking Spanish, and the sound of this language is quite nice
to me. That’s it!
But I actually didn’t have ANY Spanish
speaking students!!
Now I do have some students who speak
Spanish, but not many.
On the other hand, somehow I don’t know
why, I’ve been receiving students from Germany, Austria and. Especially
Germany!!
My German students are outgoing, nice,
friendly, easygoing, and warmhearted!!! Some of my former German students even
ended up being good friends with me, and we are now still in touch!! That was
the moment I felt I have some resources of German, maybe…I can consider
learning German…? Maybe……
The Moment I
Decided to learn German….
As some of you might know that I had a
trip to Europe for Christmas and New Year in December of 2016. It was my very
first time stepping my foot in another continent and Germany is the very first
country in Europe that I've visited in my life. Of course, I also visited
Austria and Netherlands during this trip.
There was one night in Austria I
remembered, my friend who is also a Taiwanese and I were at a Christmas market
of Salzburg, having fun eating and drinking.
While we were having fun, there were two
locals looked at us trying to have a conversation with us out of curious I
guess….
(I also put the pictures above so you
can see what I'm saying is true..Haha..)
Here come the problem..
They don't speak any English!!!!!
OMG!!!!
😱😱😱😱😱
Luckily, my friend can speak some German
cause she used to do working holiday in Germany for one year. Then my friend
helped me translate everything they said so we can all communicate. 🙈🙈
While we were having fun chatting,
getting to know each other and drinking….🎉🎊
My friend turned to me and said: Katrina,
I need a bathroom, but you can stay here and keep chatting with them.
I was like….”but how….?! I don't
understand any German!!!!” 😱😱😱😱
So….My friend left me for the toilet and
I was there smiling like a fool, listening to them trying to talk to me slowly
in German wishing I could just magically understand what they said….Haha...I
wish 😂😂
Oh man...It was the longest 20mins in my life!!! There was a little voice in
my head after that day...
“I wish I
could speak German, so I could talk to them. Plus, it would be soo cool if I
could speak more than one foreign language!”
I have lots of German students, and also
some of them that I still keep in touch with. Which means…
If I were to learn German, I have the
most resources! Plus, learning German is useful to me since I have many German
students.
And I like the sound of German despite
the pronunciation is super difficult to me as a Chinese speaking native...😂😂
So, I made my
decision, I want to learn German!!
By the time I made my decision to learn
this language, I was not so sure how long it's going to last.
My attitude has been really relaxed; I
don't want to give myself any pressure to learn German, because I know pressure is a killer!!! It kills all
the fun of learning.
Although my attitude was relaxed, but I'm not
lazy! I do have some expectations for myself on the study! And that's very important!!!
So here I am learning German.
I started in February 2017 but stumbled
all the way studying by myself until now (September 2017).
Now I think I've found a way to learn
German which I feel the most comfortable with.
I've made lots
of mistakes along the journey. And I still keep making mistakes even I'm a
professional language teacher!!
During those time of study, I find that
the keys of
studying a new language are
- Persistence
- Patience
- Passion for learning
Persistence makes you keep going no
matter what and I believe my persistence comes from the passion for learning
this languages, because I just simply love learning this languages! Patience
makes you learn things step by step so you can have a strong foundation of
learning a new language!
Okay!
Speaking of persistence and patience. I
would like to talk about the mistakes I've made while learning German.
Perhaps, you might have the same
experiences as well on your journey of learning Mandarin, and this is exactly I’m writing and sharing my
experience of learning German! I want to suggest you all how to study Mandarin Chinese by my experiences
of learning German and by my profession as a Mandarin teacher!
who also comes
from Taiwan is the girl
I mentioned who
can speak German.
And I’m behind
her! ;)
Starting a Brand New Languages – Don’t Know Where to Start…..
___ to be continued_____
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