Just finished my first German written assignment! It's very strange having to write paragraphs that end up of consisting of very short sentences, very short words, and involve looking up every second word in a dictionary followed by checking the correct use of everything in a grammar book. I LOVE IT! And I even get to pay for it! Bliss!!!
My German class is incredibly lively compared to other language classes I've done in the past. Everyone has to speak German as that's the only common language between us, and this means I'm DESPERATE to speak English after two hours of intensive German! We're seven students from all over the world: Italy, Hungary, Ivory Coast, Portugal, a Spanish speaking country (not sure which one as she started one of the weeks I was away, and as we don't have a break, I haven't had a chance to ask her where she's from), Sri Lanka, and Denmark (me). The teacher is Swiss.
The other students have lived in Switzerland between 4 and 16 years so their spoken German is pretty good. The reason they're on this course is to get an understanding of the structure of the language and to improve their writing skills.
I mentioned above that the class is very lively, which is brilliant. There's a lot of drilling of verbs going on which we all do at the same time. When it gets to the teacher asking each individual student a question, if there's a delay of more than three seconds before he/she replies, one or two of the other students will have given a couple of replies - not necessarily the same or the right one. Last week our teacher had to tell us off for interrupting each other constantly. We're all adults but completely turn into attention-seeking teenagers in the classroom. (Look at me! Look at me!)
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| My study |
Two weeks ago at work the Swiss girl, Sara, and I talked about how to introduce German to our colleagues. We came up with the idea of Sara writing one word in German and then the English equivalent below it on a post-it note every morning and stick up up by the coffee-machine for all to see. This has been quite successful so far and we have learnt: Kartoffeln (potatoes), Rosenkohl (brusssel sprouts), Wildschwein (boar), Gabel (fork), Messer (knife) etc. Yes, there's a theme: The HR-director asked if we could start with words you find on a menu so she knew what to order - and more importantly what not to order! Thursday everyone in the office was walking around mumbling: 'Messer.' 'Messer.' 'Messer.' under their breath.
The picture below was taken earlier today, when Paul and I had walked to Zurich from Oerlikon (takes just under an hour) and sat down for a well-deserved break by Lake Zurich. Eventually this swan (or its brother, who can tell, they all look the same apart from the black ones) got too close for my liking when it started nipping at my right shoe. And that was the end of our break. Even an animal lover like myself has a limit when it comes to personal space and invasion of said space by fowl, fish, or field mice.
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| NO PHOTOSHOPPING! |
So yet another drama packed week!
Lots of love,
Karen x
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