Today, this awesome little dude came up to me on the playground talking to me about this marker he found on the playground. The subject changed to where his mom, dad, brother, sister & himself were born. I had some general clues as his English & German are both perfect (one p Swiss, one Aussie). He eventually turned the subject to my lack of German speaking skills & told me, seriously, "you need to be able to speak German, tell me all the words you know. Do you know how to say no in German?" Thanks, that's actually one of the few I've got down little man. Then he turned to correcting my pronunciation & baffling me every time he said something in German. Thank you 7 year old, thank you very much.
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Another stark reminder of my German ineptitude: at Aldi the other day. A man approached me asking something about beans in German. I clearly deduced that by the two different packages of beans he was holding, with context clues, luckily, I am ept.
(eptitude (I heart made up words): definition It's the way you carry yourself when you've demonstrated the ability to be capable. In the English language there is the word "inept", but not its inverse. I think there should be a word to recognize the fact that we all can be "ept", and once we are we should wear that badge proudly) ---Since I don't have many other badges to be proud of in the language department, I am patting myself on the back about context clues...pathetic, no?
Right, so I said to him in German that my German is not so good. So he asks if I speak French. Of course, the two dominant languages in this country & I have to shamefully say 'no' to both. Thanks for knocking me back down to size Switzerland.
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Joe & I ran into our upstairs neighbors (the only people in the building who we have any communication with) at the gym. They somehow also knew that we were moving & asked us about it. First question: how much is it? Not where, not why, but how much. Cutting right to the heart of what's most important to people here.
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