Since learning to speak German, one of my most hated interactions are with those people who think that their inherent knowledge of their mother tongue gives them license to act in snide or haughty ways when they hear it spoken incorrectly. Language learners crave correction, but do not expect anyone to be full of praise if it is done in an impatient or exacerbated way. Language learning can be a lifelong process, so getting angry at a different dialect or mispronunciation is unnecessary. This is not confined to Germans, of course, British people can be incredibly spiky when it comes to what they might consider misspoken English. For many of my countrymen and women, American English is a language entirely made up of mistakes and misuses. If you want to see a British person lose their cool, use the word soccer more than once in a conversation and watch the corresponding meltdown.

Language and phrasing can be difficult to master in any language and throughout the process there will be some serious missteps, but these mistakes are where we learn. Nothing helps improve a persons' language more than by making a calamitous and very public mistake. The resulting fist biting embarrassment will guarantee that the mistake is never repeated. Moreover mistakes, especially in English, are hardly surprising. As English has grown into the dominant global language, it has also created hybrid languages, of which the German version of Denglisch is only one example. The mixing of English and German, to create a terrifying Frankenstein’s monster language, has given us new words and strange new phrases. Words like handy (mobile phone), shitstorm or the bizarre upgedated are famous examples. At its worst, it misappropriates and misuses words, at its best it creates language that can be unintentionally hilarious. There are many different types of English to German mistakes, but in my time here I have come across other, less well known errors of language

Sci-Fi

After only a few months of living in Germany, I found myself in a large meeting room, preparing to teach a group of office workers English. I’d always wanted to teach and now that my opportunity had arrived, I was terrified. My first major concern in those panic filled moments was whether I’d be able to hold the textbook without it slipping from my sweat drenched hands. My second major concern was the horrible realisation that I couldn’t hold the white board marker without my arms involuntarily shaking. I did have a plan though, one that relied heavily on role plays. What better way to teach effective English communication than by getting my group to act out a textbook writer’s fantasy of a real-life situation? As it turns out, anything is better than forcing people to take part in a role play. In those instances, role-play is better left to people who enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, not those who need to write a simple email or hold a two-minute conversation on the phone. However, in that moment, standing before 12 strangers and having a minor nervous breakdown, it was all I had. As I explained the activity and began pairing off the group, an older woman fixed me with an unforgiving glare. Up to that point she had been occupied by a wicker basket containing two types of bottled water and a bottle of cloudy apple juice that looked suspiciously like a doctor’s sample. I had naively assumed it was something she was going to share with the group ; I was of course totally wrong.

“I will not take part in this Sci-fi” she declared with hand gesture she could only have learned from watching documentaries about despotic monarchs.

“erm, sorry...I don’t think I know what you mean” I stammered as sweat began to pore from my brow.

“This Sci-fi, I will not do”. She replied.

“Yea, OK. It isn’t really sci-fi...” I began, but quickly realised that giving this woman an account of my comprehensive understanding of science fiction might not be the best strategy.

What this office worker was attempting to say was that in her personal and professional opinion, pretending to be someone else and acting out a specific role within a dialogue was not exactly conducive to her learning process and she would much prefer to try free language construction within a structured scenario. I agree with her, now. At the time, all I could think was if role playing a business trip dialogue was her idea of sci-fi, the mere mention of intergalactic epics like Star Wars might blow her tiny mind. God knows what might have happened if I’d told her about Dune.

 Almost

One of the frequent mistakes between German and English is word order. My biggest failing is the placement of verbs in German, but for many Germans it’s the placement of adjectives and adverbs in English. I won’t go into great depth but suffice it to say that German adverbs are not always found directly next to the verb. This can create some confusion in understanding for native English speakers, since a lot of information is supplied through the active words in a sentence. English speakers in Germany are often left hunting for the verb when people are speaking German, in the hope of finding out what action a person is discussing. On top of that we have some misuse of language or simply a mistake in placing contextual words into a sentence, which is why a recent interaction with my wife left me temporarily wondering if I had accidentally married a sociopath.

My wife and I were chatting to each other while going for a long walk. We were discussing our days and moaning about various stupid things we both had experienced or, in my case, had done.

“and then some twat in an Audi cut me off and I almost crashed” I said with the righteous indignation of someone who really wishes they drove an Audi.

“That reminds me, I saw a woman get run over…” my wife began, as if describing a slightly disappointing flea market or the purchase of a cake that was not as delicious as it had looked in the window.

I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape. My wife had seen a terrible accident and she appeared to not even care. Perhaps she was still in shock, maybe we should go back to the house and discuss it, talk it though, maybe find a way for her to fully express what she was feeling. I would have to be a rock. I needed to be strong, for her.

“...almost” she finished.

“You saw a woman get run over...almost”?” I repeated back to her in disbelief. “So…you didn’t actually see anyone get run over?”.

“No, no, but she could have been” she responded airily.

I started walking again, making a mental note to wait a couple of beats in future before mentally planning to have my spouse sectioned. My wife speaks fluent English and teaches at a local school, so I was a little confused as to why she had structured the sentence with such an obvious mistake.

"I thought it would be more exciting" she divulged "You have to keep things interesting". 

Join us for part 2 tomorrow.