Blog Marathon- Day Four: The Beauty of a Native Language

These days I'm feeling much more comfortable with my German. In fact I speak it all the time (save for my English and IB history classes which are taught in English). I can fairly easily hold a conversation in German with friends and family, speaking to new people no longer frightens me, and German has replaced English as the common language amongst the exchange students. I will admit, I don't speak perfectly. There are still grammatical errors and mispronunciations galore, and I occasionally have to ask for a translation of a word. But hey, I'm getting there. What's most important is that I'm understood.
After speaking and reading mostly German for the past few weeks, tonight I got the opportunity to speak only in English for a few hours. A neighbor and friend of my host family, attends a weekly English conversation group and she invited me to come with her tonight.
Before and after the lesson I spoke German with the neighbor, but she warned me that the teacher had a strict policy of speaking English only inside the classroom. I was absolutely fine with that. It was a bit strange at first speaking English with these people, and I often caught myself about to say a German phrase every-now-and-then, as it has almost become second nature.
Once I got used to the switch though, it was quite exhilarating. I'd almost forgotten that I do have a native language, and given the opportunity, I can and will talk someone's ear off.
The teacher told me to introduce myself and tell the people about where I come from and she let the class ask me questions. I ended up talking a lot about Vermont. I'd brought a map, a few postcards, and some brochures for Ben & Jerry's, Cabot Creamery, and so on. I shared a bag of maple candy too.
And so I talked and I talked. I talked until my mouth and throat were dry from talking too much. I was completely thrilled with my ability to simply think of what I wanted to say and then say it. This is a luxury I don't often get with German, when I have to worry about how to translate something first. I would compare the feeling to running with weights for a long time, and then finally getting to take the weights off and remembering how easy it is to run with nothing restraining you.
Finally we moved on to the next part of the lesson where each of us was given a prompt that we would then transform into a short anecdote to present to the class. The others had received their prompts the week before and had prepared some notes to help them. Despite my neighbor giving me my prompt a few days prior, I didn't bother to prepare anything. I only read it once and then left it at home. And why not? I speak English. I could just make up what ever I wanted right then and there. That's the beauty of having a native language.
When it was my turn, I took the seat at the front of the class and began to speak. My prompt was about the last time I bought a gift for someone. So I told them all about the Christmas present I'd bought for my host sister. When I was finished, the teacher said it was so good that she wished she'd taped it to use with other classes. No big deal, guys, but it turns out that I'm pretty good at speaking the language I've been speaking all my life. Who knew?
After the lesson, things switched back to German again. Before driving home, my neighbor treated me to some ice cream. There's always a large selection of sundaes you can order in an ice cream cafe in Germany. I couldn't resist ordering one sundae called Kartoffel (potato). Germany known for its ice cream made to look like spaghetti or pizza, but this was a new one for me. The sundae did look quite like a baked potato. It was made of hazelnut and chocolate ice cream rolled into a potato shape and the covered in a fine chocolate dust to give it the look of potato skin. The whipped cream and chocolate sauce on top were made to look like sour cream and gravy. Oh Germany, you never cease to amuse me.
Before I wrap up this post, I would just like to give a special birthday shout out to my friend and fellow exchange student Adriana. Happy Birthday! Alles gute zum Geburtstag! ¡Feliz Cumpleaños!