Deutsch lernen - languages, cultures, teachers (and Bori)

I think I am lucky to have the opportunity of learning a new language (German) in a first language environment, and that I was able to spend the fist 4 months of my studies in a truly professional language school. Today's post (after a long pause) will cover these experiences: since I am originally an English as a second language teacher, the topic is of vital interest for me.

I have first experienced learning a new language in a first language environment during our one-year stay in Wales, Great Britain where my father was working as a guest researcher at the Swansea University. At the age of 9, I started school there with almost no knowledge of the English language: I could count to 10, say "hello", "yes" or "no" and combine these words with Hungarian sentences resulting in a strange gibberish :-) Then only two months later I was fluently speaking English with my classmates. I can still remember my first complete sentence uttered to one of my pals: "Can I borrow your sharpener, please?" - all this in a full British accent :-) This unbelievably fast learning process seemed completely natural for me at the time, I kind of just picked up English without even noticing. This huge childhood experience turned out to have a long lasting influence on my future language learning. It was, naturally, a good influence because I continued to "just pick up" English later on, too, without any real struggles to learn vocabulary or grammar. However, this "unconventional" learning process proved to be a bit of a disadvantage during my university years: while learning English linguistics I faced difficulties with the structural parts of grammar and linguistics because I never really learned English based on proper grammatical rules, as usual in schools. Today English is a part of my life: I watch movies, listen to music, read and sometimes even dream in English. It goes without saying, I will never be a native speaker but I get on quite well :-)

And then came German... a completely unknown language which I have never studied, only heard my friends complaining about it often, how difficult it was. They said it sounded too strict, it had these obscure sounds and even the words had genders (neutral, too!)... I hardly knew anyone who actually liked German - not a good sign at all. Despite all these I was really looking forward to starting my German course in December last year. Of course my attitude towards German was a whole lot different from anyone I spoke to earler: I was going to live, study and maybe even work in Germany, I seriously had to start mastering the language! :-)

We attended the DID - Deutsch Institut language school, one of Germany's biggest and best language schools. It is specialized on teaching German to students, adults, groups and individuals and has all the EU and ISO qualifications that certify the high quality education. Our school was located in the Mitte, one of Berlin's recently re-descovered and booming quarters, full of bars, restaurants, cafés, galeries and small designer shops. It is a bustling and colorful quarter that can be accessed easily with all means of transportation. For the first two months of our German course we were accomodated with German "families", which was intended to give us a full experience and opportunity to familiarize with the culture, atmosphere, etc. This co-habitation did not work out exactly as it should have in our case, but at least we will have plenty of funny stories to tell to our children when we get old :-)


My group consisted first of 4-5, later 8-10 people, with persons joining only for shorter periods and others staying longer, as I did. It was an extremely interesting experience to start learning a language from the absolute beginning and I often wondered how great challenges our teachers must face: talking, explaining grammar and words, practicing exercises with a strictly basic set of words they could use, and also, motivating us to speak even if we were reluctant to do so! I have to say, the teachers were excellently prepared all the time. Usually 2-3 teachers belonged to a group, which would, on the one hand, ensure that we don't get "bored" with each other by the end of those 3-4,5 hour days; on the other hand, allow opportunites to create more personal interaction, in addition to the regular studying. We could freely talk to our teachers about several interesting topics, they would give us lots of useful tips where to go in Berlin, what to see, eat... and they always showed great interest in gaining some insight into our own cultures, as well, since we were a really multicultural, multi-ethnic group.

Hungary is a really small country, especially if compared to big countries, like Germany. Still, we Hungarians tend to think that "everyone" knows at least a little about our country, just as we do about other countries. Well, I had to realize that this is so not the case :-) Apart from a few people, who had some kinds of personal experiences, no one really knew anything about Hungary from my group. This was alltogether not a big surprise for me, but still... interesting. I even met a German (!) who did not know that Hungary was a member of the European Union, and asked if I needed a VISA. FYI, Hungary has been an EU member country since 2004 :-) We are only 1000 kms east from Germany, but how really far that can be...

Anyway, being in this first language environment has far less "miraculous" effects on me now, I guess I am older :-) Still, since I hear and read German everywhere, and I "have to" speak it wherever I go, I think I am way more ahead in my learning process than I would be in Hungary. Although it is just the beginning, I get on quite OK now.

I am a bit sorry that school is over, but my studies don't stop here - Berlin, here I come! :-)

Have you had similar experiences?