Wie bitte??

It is highly possibly that my brain is going to explode into a pile of German-sauce/mush.  Sometimes it feels almost unfathomable how someone can master a foreign language.  When I approach someone on the street for directions, or need to talk to a sales associate in a store, I often introduce myself not with my name, but instead the disclaimer "Ich lerne Deutsch,"  which means "I'm learning German."  In my head I also add, "Please be nice to me."

The last week of German speaking, learning and living has really been quite incredible and despite what I just said, I do feel like it is going well.  However, there are frequently times when I also am totally "verwirrt" (confused).  (Small German lesson:  "V" is pronounced liked our "f" and "w" is pronounced like our "v."  So, verwirrt should sound like "fair-veert.")  Just ten minutes ago is a great example of being "verwirrt," and also why German can be so "verwirrend" (confusing).  While my host parents watched television, I sat at the table reviewing some grammar.  My host father, Jörg, came up to me and said something about me calling it a day.  What he said, though, was an expression for "closing up shop," which also, ironically, is the same word as partying (feiren).  I recently learned the word for partying and am usually quite pleased with myself when I remember to (correctly) use it, so naturally, I thought he was making a comment about my relativly unremarkable social life.  The confusion went on for a few moments until I finally asked him to spell the word and I quickly looked it up when he stepped out of the room.  Naturally, these misunderstanding ("Missverständnis" auf Deutsch) are bound to come up, especially with homonyms.  This past week has given me a much, much greater appreciation for everyone else who goes through this experience, and especially for those who try to learn English, the king/queen of homonyms.

Anyway, besides learning the language, I've noticed the act of learning a language is a very strange, yet also exciting, process.  In just a couple of hours I can fluctuate from confidence and enthusiasm to being overwhelmed and totally jumbled.  I was riding the tram home this afternoon and I was thinking about different scenarios and how I'd say them in German and I suddenly felt oddly bad for Germans who have to have complicated conversations in German!  Almost immediately I felt silly and also amused--I find that I forget that for other people German is totally no work at all.  I also think about conversations I had before I left the States and try to re-play them in mind, in German.  I don't do this because I'm trying to practice, but because I forget that those conversations were in English!  It is so strange, but it seems sometime in the last week a part of me forgot that expressing myself was once (and not so long ago) an extremely easy task.  For the first time in my memory, I feel like an inalienable ability has been taken away and it sometimes makes me feel plain dumb or even impolite because I can't think quickly enough how to respond, wish someone luck, or whatever.

In these moments I forget that speaking is not just easy for the Germans, but for me too--of course, in English, though.  I then try to reflect back on this week and see how much I've already learned and how much more confident I've already become.  I also remind myself that I will not always be afraid of someone coming up to me and asking me directions to somewhere (usually to a place I couldn't even get to myself).

Yesterday was such a good example of the language roller coaster.   In one day, I went from going on a Mercedes plant tour (Side note:  the Mercedes factory in Bremen is the second biggest in the world, behind Stuttgart.) where I understand maybe 10 percent, then at night visited (auf Deutsch: quatschen...probably one of my favorite German words) with my family and neighbors and felt almost half-way intelligent.  Despite the border-line misery of not understanding the Mercedes tour, I still went to bed feeling proud of myself because I made it through the evening, understood some stuff and even spoke some German (some of which was grammatically correct).

 I never expected learning German to be easy or simple, but I also don't think I fully understood how deep the language-ice berg can go.  Even so, I want to know this language and that is why I embarked (auf Deutsch--einsteigen...another awesome word) on this journey.  At the end of the year, Radio Bremen 4 said they want to interview me again to see how the year went, and I'm looking forward to impressing them with my German (German-mush brain or not). :)