Comfort Speaking German (Part 2)
After five days in French-speaking Europe, we found ourselves in Luxembourg, where the official national language is Luxembourgish, and French and German are both 'administrative' languages.
Our first stop was a bakery with a French name, so we opened the conversation in French, "bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?" The person behind the counter told us to wait for her English-speaking colleague, which was fine, but... wait a minute, didn't people also speak German here? "Parlez-vous allemand?" we asked, but she just reiterated that we should wait for her English-speaking colleague. Again, this was fine, we were in no rush and ordered our breakfast in English, but it was interesting to have arrived in a place where we spoke one of the primary languages... and not get to use it.
When we crossed the border into Germany later that day and stopped for gas, I went inside to pay (paying at the pump isn't really a thing in Germany) and found it surprisingly satisfying to speak to the cashier in German and understand the entire interaction. Usually my anxious, introverted self hates these kinds of service interactions because what if my card doesn't work or the cashier deviates from the usual script or something else happens to fluster and embarrass me? But none of those things happened. Instead, I walked away from that brief interaction feeling good about my German skills and comforted by being back in a place where I spoke the language.
A few hours later, we arrived at our airbnb and were greeted by our super friendly host. We had messaged with her online in English, but, when we met her in person, she asked (in German) if we spoke German. "Ja, wir sprechen etwas Deutsch," I answered automatically, and so we proceeded to do the whole key handover process in German. This wasn't an especially complicated conversation, but it was much more in-depth than talking to a cashier, and it went super smoothly!
After our airbnb host left, E and I agreed that it was nice to be back in Germany. E doesn't know as much German as I do but, after living here for four years, we both speak and understand a lot. When it comes to Germany, we have a pretty high level of linguistic and cultural competency and wow, what a nice realization that was!
In yesterday's newsletter, I described how I feel empowered by the lack of language barrier when I return to English-speaking places. But this was my first time returning to Germany and feeling like, oh yeah, I got this. I tend to focus on all the German that I still don't know and get discouraged or frustrated, so it was a really pleasant surprise to feel good about all the German that I do know.
Context is key to that empowered feeling - it's the shift from feeling a language barrier to not feeling one that allows me to be comfortable talking to strangers. Now that we've been back in Germany for over two weeks, the empowered feeling has faded and the nerves have crept back in, but... maybe not as much as before? And even if I still get nervous, discouraged, or frustrated about speaking German sometimes, I'm really grateful to have had this experience of comfort speaking German and of coming home to Germany. Knowing it happened once makes it easier to believe it will happen again.