Time for German Language Practice
Living in our area of Germany and working with the group we do, makes learning German very difficult. At work we speak English most of the time (or many of the other languages we work in – German is not normally one of them) and 10% of the population in our area are native English speakers with many around us wanting to work on learning English. So we can go days without speaking German (not including speaking German at the grocery store or restaurants) So when there are opportunities to talk German, we take them. Lately, I got several opportunities to work on my conversational German.
The shooting club (everything here has a club) was having an open house. A friend of mine is a member there so I decided to go to. The club started in 1812 and the building isn’t much younger so it was pretty cool to be there. As it turns out, my friend wasn’t there so I got to meet some new people like a gentlemen named Hans who became my guide. He showed me the archery range, the rifle range and then the pistol range. This is where I got to hang out for a while talking with the range guides as I watched several people who have never shot a gun before shoot at targets 50 meters away (yes, with a pistol). At this length, you have to look through a scope to see if you hit the target. It was interesting to see people squirm as they heard the guns go off. All-in-all, it was great talking with these guys about life, why I was in Germany, and of course guns. As for my shooting, I shot two bulleyes and was able to walk away with “ein Taler” (small medal) for my shooting.
Later that day, I got another opportunity. I was invited to a Texas Hold’em tournament (no money involved) at a friend’s house. This was a blast as we played the game and talked. At one point, I had folded and so I sat listening to the conversation as four guys were just talking away. At one point, they were talking so fast that I wasn’t understanding them anymore. Matter of fact, I wasn’t even catching any of the words. Finally, one of the guys stops and looks at me and says “You don’t speak Allegmanish, do you?” I said, “No”. To which he replied, “Ooopps, sorry.” Then they began speaking again and I was able to miraculously understand them again. (Allegmanish is the local German dialect that only those within about 100 km around us know). One of the funny things was all of these guys had learned Poker from watching American poker so none of them knew the German terms for poker like folding, raising or checking. So the whole game was a mixture of German and English. Personally, I was able to hold my own in the game and win the tournament. Hope they invite me back.
Today was another opportunity as we were outside doing some things when a neighbor girl came to watch us (she’s 4 1/2 years old). She began to speak to us (our German is just about her level so it was great talking with her). Her family are some neighbors who we’ve seen and waved to but never talked to. Turns out that this little girl is an American citizen. Her parents (who speak wonderful English as we found out) lived in the US for 3 1/2 years in which time the little girl was born. The little girl actually speaks some English as well. It was pretty nice as we now know some of our neighbors just a bit better.
Just wanted to share some of our recent opportunities to expand our German speaking abilities. Hope ya’ll can continue to pray that more of these opportunities come our way.
