Well, last night was the German Language Meetup Group. I went with my friend, coworker and German speaker Gerald. I was nervous beyond belief and it took me almost a full pint of beer tp stop shaking. So how did the big test go? Read on...
So, my first real interaction (outside of Gerald) was with a nurse who used to work in Switzerland many years ago. She had only recently re-engaged in the language and was reasonably fluent in her speech and although she had some holes in her vocabulary, she could easily talk around her shortcomings. Surprisingly, my speech was what I found to be slightly lagging behind my comprehension which is opposite of what I was expecting. I found myself easily understanding everything she was saying and I did reasonably well in speaking back to her. All in all we had an excellent conversation.
From there I hopped groups a couple times and found a fantastic group of younger (maybe 22-26 y/o) German speakers that I really clicked with. I was able to understand everything they were talking about and I was even able to engage the group several times (once with my only German joke) with no issues. Afterwards, everyone congratulated me and told me that they were very impressed with my German after only one year and that my vocabulary was "amazing".
I plan on making this group a permanent part of my Monthly schedule and am really looking forward to attending another group on the 19th of this Month.
I'd say if this were pass/fail, I'd pass. On a letter grade, I earned a solid C+/B-. My comprehension is so much better than I thought it would be but my speech (mostly due to nerves) was a little slower than I'd like.
I appreciate everyone who has been following me through this journey and I intend on continuing to post but I imagine it will be less frequent moving forward.
Tschüss!
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