Learning German

I really like the sound of German. Call me weird, but since our days in Austria I’ve loved the sound of it. When we moved back to the States, whenever I’d hear someone with a German accent I tried to engage in a little conversation with them. Our decision to come here to Augsburg was to get completely immersed in language and culture learning. So, soon after we arrived we went to work on figuring out how to learn German.

During that search, we were introduced to a German teacher and we really hit it off with her. It was right in the summer and unfortunately she was in the middle of classes and unable to help us right away. After we moved, we reconnected to get her opinion on language learning options. We opted to try to learn with her as a private instructor with both of us learning at the same pace.

That worked out well for the first two months, but we realized that the best decision for our family was to immerse Ian in a full time course and immerse me in full time keeping us all going. It was really crazy with both of us trying to study like 20-30 hours per week, acclimate our family, figure out how to live  and keep the house going.  We decided, however, that it wouldn’t be wise to completely take me out of language learning but to slow it down a bit. Right around this time, our instructor needed to slow down her pace as well and  so it was a perfect solution. She and I kept meeting and Ian started attending class every day for 5 hours per day.

For the past 2 months we have been meeting every Tuesday night for 2 hours. She then gives me homework for the week, and speaking exercises to complete with a speaking partner. Today I want to express that I’m really thankful for her. She is very understanding and patient, so giving and encouraging. She is just such a nice person to be with and I look forward to the day when we can have fluent fun conversations. Each week we get to learn a little bit more about each other and I learn a little more German. Tonight we actually finished up the A1 level of Berliner Platz and I’m moving on to the next book!

Thank you Katherina for your help in opening up my world little by little, piece by piece.