Posts Tagged ‘accent’

The most prominent thing that comes with living in a foreign country is for sure your accent. When we first moved her it pissed me off a lot that everyone asked us where we were from after we said a single sentence. Even the staff at Starbucks knew we weren’t american after we ordered a damn coffee. It took me some time to get along with this, but after a few weeks I kind of forgot about my accent.

I already told you that the language hasn’t been a real problem for us, but that we still have our moments. I have learned the hard way that the more you think about your accent and the way you talk, the worse it gets. So with time I kind of stopped fighting with myself, just talked and it got so much easier for me. Another side effect is that the more comfortable you get speaking a foreign language, the less people notice that this language is foreign to you.

Noone asked us where we are from just because of our accent in a long time. And today, when we went to a BBQ, a woman we talked to even thought I was american. When I told her I was german she was a little shocked and said that she didnt hear an accent at all!

These little steps are definitely just tiny steps in the right direction, but they make me proud. And the best: They make me feel more comfortable with talking english.

Tomorrow morning we are taking a plane for a weekend trip to London. We are not only there to have some time away from everything, but also to meet my best friend Petra who moved to London three years ago. By now Petra is in love with a scottish boy and they live together in London. Cute as they are, they offered us their spare room for the weekend.

We met her boyfriend Robert for the first time in August 2009. Petra brought him along for the wedding and they stayed with us over the weekend. Even if I sometimes find it hard to understand his thick accent, I love to hear Robert speak! I am so into the british accent, especially the one spoken in the North of England, where Robert grew up. But even if I kind of love this guy and really like talking to him, my shyness takes over as always. I have tried so hard to talk english to Petra last time, but I always found myself switching back to german after a few minutes.

I absolutely adore Petra’s english, which by now sounds perfect and could be mistaken for a british person’s talk. I am very curious, if I will ever be able to talk english as fluent and self-confident the way Petra does. I will definitely try to get my act together, forget my doubts and just talk english this weekend. I know that I need all practice I can get – and who would be a better person to practice with than my best friend and her british boyfriend?

Perhaps one day we will visit those guys and be mistaken for American folks in London. But till than I am happy to be recognized as a German with good english skills.

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.