Pretty much sums it up right there. One full week at language school with a big list of ups and downs.
We had the oral placement test last weekend, and with my self-taught Deutsch I got placed in A2 (the language proficiency is A1-A2-B1-B2-C1-C2). I thought it was going to be fine but I only lasted 3 days in there. They were going over past tense and stuff I'd never even thought about, christ, I haven't even learned the German alphabet let alone special verb tenses. So I got switched into the second half of the A1 course which is much better for me. We're going over Akkusativ und Nominativ, which is what I need. It's better I get a foundation and understanding of the basics before I get ahead of myself.
When I was in the A2 class, I think my bigger struggle was trying to put words into sentences. Sounds stupid, but it's true. I had no prior experience of actually speaking the language. So anytime I tried to talk it was a struggle to figure out what I was trying to say, and it will be that way for quite a while.
Something I finally realized is that I am going to need a whole different mindset for speaking to be fluent in Deutsch. Sentences are structured in a completely different way than what I'm used to. The second verb in a sentence goes at the end of the sentence, something I never did in English or Spanish. It's really weird and has been hard to try and get used to. Right now, I speak so slowly that a) whoever is listening needs really good long term memory and b) half the time I forget what I was trying to say anyways. It'll get better, but it's gonna take a while. And anyone who actually knows me knows that my middle name ain't Patience for a reason...
My host family is still the bomb. I've been able to do a little of speaking practice with my host sister and the other language student that is living in the house. It's kinda nice having someone to talk with that has a lot of patience and can help when I stumble. That and we watched Hauro, a Japanese anime film, in Deutsch. That was interesting.
We went on a city tour yesterday given by our language school tutor. It was very interesting hearing about the history of Köln. It was founded in 50 AD by Agrippina and then she married Caesar (I think). When it came to deciding who would be the next leader, she killed her husband so her son could be the next leader, then her son killed her cause she was getting too power hungry. Crazy family problems. That and there are still gates and wall portions that are 800+ years old. Then we learned that the Dom took over 400 years to complete an is still technically not done. There is so much history here. And I've only begun exploring it all!!!
Just on the bus to Frankfurt for the day. There is a CBYX-PPP alumni barbecue today that me and a few other PPPlers are going to. Should be a fun time, and hopefully ill get some good speaking practice!
Original Publish Date: August 4th, 2013