My Tango with Language

As I get farther into my time here in Germany, I find myself wanting to speak with the locals more and more. Yet, I do not speak enough of the German language to even understand what they are saying or even to read the menus at lunch. At first, I was fine with just knowing, "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" and then continuing our conversation in my native tongue. But as pride starts to take over, I find myself being embarrassed about asking them to speak English to me. It isn't even that they even mind speaking English to me. A lot of the Germans even enjoy getting the chance to work on their English skills as my host mother informed me. And they may even be just as nervous to speak English as I am to speak German. But it is me who is in their country so it is up to me to speak their language.

So as I slowly learn to speak Deutsche, I have the unique opportunity to try new things. When I go to stores or restaurants, and I don't know what the menu says or what kind of cheese or meat I am looking at, I just pick something and try it. This way I learn to associate words with tastes instead of trying to memorize a hundred different nouns for different kinds of food. This also lets me try and taste new and interesting things. So far I have tried multiple pastas, currywurst, hanchan curry, and a doner. I expect to try many more things as I force myself to keep going to new places with new people to try and communicate with.