"title"=>"I stopped apologising for my poor German, and something wonderful happened | Ying Reinhardt",
"summary"=>"
After a decade in Germany, I was still anxious talking to native speakers – then I realised my language skills weren’t the problem
I have prefaced every conversation with, “Entschuldigung, mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut” (“I’m sorry, my German is still not very good”) since I moved to Hermsdorf, a little village in east Germany in 2015. Its purpose was to act as a disclaimer upfront so that the German person I was talking to wouldn’t expect me to articulate complicated ideas or respond promptly and accurately to everything that was said. But mostly, my opening line was a plea for mercy, a signal that I was still learning the language and would greatly appreciate it if they spoke more slowly and clearly. They would always graciously reply: “Ja, Deutsch ist eine schwere Sprache.” German is a difficult language, they all agreed. And for the longest time, that was true.
Growing up in Kuala Lumpur as Malaysian Chinese, I speak English almost natively, given that Malaysia was once a British colony. I also speak Malay, Malaysia’s official language, and Mandarin and Cantonese because I needed to communicate with my grandparents. Before moving to Germany, I already spoke Italian after working on board cruise ships for years alongside Italian officers, and conversational French after dating a Frenchman. Then, I met the man who would later become my husband in a bar on the 63rd floor of a building in Singapore and a thought occurred to me: “Wouldn’t it be funny if I have to learn German this time?”
Continue reading...","content"=>nil,
"author"=>"Ying Reinhardt",
"link"=>"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/01/language-skills-germany-native-speakers",
"published_date"=>Mon, 01 Apr 2024 07:00:04.000000000 UTC +00:00,
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"created_at"=>Wed, 03 Apr 2024 14:35:28.225391000 UTC +00:00,
"updated_at"=>Tue, 14 May 2024 04:58:40.357493000 UTC +00:00,
"newspaper"=>"US general21",
"macro_region"=>"USA"}