Que sera, sera…

Yesterday my girlfriends and me took a little trip to the future. We wondered what our lifes will be like in a few years, what jobs we will have, how much money we will earn and how it will feel like when I’ll come over to visit for the holidays. One of the girls begged me not to become that kind of person who seems to forget their native language within days of living in a new country. She told me about a boy she went to school with, who went to America for an student exchange month and when he came back always said things like: “Ah, I don’t remember what the german word for this was.”

I swore to her that I won’t get one of those persons, especially because I am not moving abroad alone but together with my husband, whom I am not planning to talk in english to. But this talk again made me wonder about how big a problem the new language will be for me. I am still so shy to talk in english, even if I know that my english is not the worst. I told you about the american colleague I have right now. He always talks english to us and I always have so funny answers in mind, but am too scared to actually say them. When I know I have to talk in english to someone (for example when we were in Florida), I always try to put sentences together in my mind before I say them. I know that I kind of get warm with people very fast and then don’t worry about my language anymore, but I am still scared that I will not succeed in a job in the US.

I try to practise my english nearly every day by reading english books, watching english movies, series or write in english, but speaking is still my weak spot. I may worry to much about that stuff, because I don’t know what will actually happen when we move to California and I feel very positive overall. But whatever will be, will be. Even if it means that I might never speak without mistakes or my german accent.

Tags: accent, America, California, english, Florida, German, Greencard, language, US

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Lessons to learn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.