Saturday, August 15, 2009

Snoring!! Was I?

Today on my way back to house from my course with the tube, I had a strange incident. I was very much tired as usual, I do get tired everyday after continuous 5 hrs of lectures in estranged language. I have to travel almost an hour to reach my house, well for that I make sure I get a comfortable place in the direction of travel for myself to sit. The train has not left yet, then came a typical German guy and sat next to me. He looked at me and we exchanged greetings, well that's a common practice here that even you greet the strangers.

Probably, I was very much tired today than usual and I did not realized wen I did fall asleep may be deep asleep. I woke up little later to realize that the guy sitting next to me has already left. Well, I slipped back to my unusual deep slumber. I could only wake up after I think I had enough of it and I realized that the train has halted somewhere. It's a halt one before mine. Then I realized the guy who was sitting next to me was getting off and he gave a wry smile at me before he was off the train. I did not understand, why did this guy who was sitting next to me moved away to a different place and why did he give a wry smile wen he set off. Well, I could not figure it out yet exactly wat has happened.

Was I snoring that he got disturbed or irritated with it and moved away from me?????...........

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Do I know German?

Well, it has been almost 8 months now, wen I first came to Germany with initial blues of German language. Every now and then frens of mine from India and abroad do ask me if I can speak German. Well, many of my frens start their conversation with "Guten Tag" (Hello or Good Day) and end their conversation with "auf wiedersehn" (Bye). Well, for sure they might have got these words from "Google".

It has been a memorable journey learning German for me. I had no choice but to learn a little of it wen I was in India as German govt has made it mandatory to get thru the first level before we dare to enter Germany. Call it a curse or scare, I was cursing them a lot when I started learning German in Bangalore. It was a nightmare being an Indian learning a non-Indian language in India by a Indian. Yet, I had no choice, I had to clear the first level to be with my hubby. After faltering once, I realized I need to put in more efforts and somehow after joining Goethe Institute, I could manage to get thru it.

Well, now it's the time to go to Germany. I was very confident before coming to Germany that I can manage German a little. But the real fun began wen I arrived in Germany. I felt as if I have never heard this language before. People with blond hair and white skin speaking language which I couldn't follow. I tried very hard to understand them but I couldn't follow a word. The accent made all the difference. All that I knew in German was, "Ich heiße Seema" (I am Seema), "Ich komme aus Indien" (I am from India), "Ich bin neu im Deutschland" (I am new to Germany) and last but not the least "Danke schön" (Thank You very much)...

But soon I realized this wasn't enough for my survival in Germany. I wanted to become one among them. I wanted to communicate with people. Well, many of frens were also excited to hear about me, Germany and my German language. So I decided to join German language course.

My first day in class was good. I was excited and a bit nervous too. As I was new-bee, I was asked to give a brief introduction about myself which I was good at. I had memorized it hundred times before I went to the class though. All my classmates were astonished to know that I knew a bit of German. But little did they know I had already completed my first level but know nothing, well as long as I was in India, I thought I knew a lot, but it's all vice-versa wen I arrived here. Then my teacher tried asking me some questions with his typical German accent which I struggled to understand but somehow could make it. Later when I was asked to ask some question to my classmates I was all nervous and started addressing them in Plural form than in Singular which left a wry smile on my teacher's face.

As the days rolled on I began making frens at the German class and started speaking to them German, of course more with sign-language than words :-). Well that was the only common language for communication as none of my colleagues could speak English either as they are from different countries. Sometimes we struggle to find words in German. But most funny part was we used to talk with gestures and understand everything, well I should say we used to think that we understand each other. Everyone in the class speak German with their own mother tongue accent. Our German teacher used to have tough time many a times to understand the German words he knew from his childhood, as everyone used to pronounce them differently.

Personally I had trouble with reading and speaking. I have a mixed accent of Kannada, Hindi, Urdu, English and Tulu. Now you all can figure out How I speak German??? I read German like English. Even though German alphabets are like English they are pronounced in a different way. German language has 30 alphabets. 26 are English alphabets and other 4 are Ä (ae), Ö (oe), Ü (ue) and ß (ss). Till dated I cant pronounce well the latter ones :). It's been almost a year now that I started German lessons yet I forget the right pronunciation.

I hope someday or the other I might speak good German without my heavy accent and any mistake. A long way to go :). Well, wish me good luck too. Now you know how much German I know :-) Schön Tag Noch.......