My measure of success in a foreign language is being able to get through transactions at stores – stores where you have to talk, not supermarkets – without the other person switching to English. I’m achieving this in German, so, three cheers! Example: Today I bought a SIM card for my phone. I told the guy I wanted a SIM card, I told him, no, I didn’t already have a phone number, I said, yes, my American Handy (the german word for cellphone – nice, eh?) will work here, and signed various things, all with him only saying “Thank you” once. Yessss!

It’s a good thing I’m having successes outside of the classroom, because in my intensive German class, I’m kind of a mess. My grammar’s not bad and I think my accent is pretty decent, but my vocabulary is the size of a flea. If I ask for the meaning of a word, I get a definition that uses other words I don’t know. Today we watched a half hour of one of the TV morning shows and everybody else seemed to understand what was going on in the news stories – they could discuss content – and I was the one who the teacher had other people practice their explaining skills on. (“Oriol, can you explain Formula 1 racing to Helen?”)

Oh well, it’s probably good for me to be the laggard in a language class for once in my life. The other students have been here for several weeks already, so it’s not really fair to compare myself to them. And I really do speak quite well (evidence: the SIM card transaction). I just need to expand my vocabulary, and I think two months of living here is going to be very good for that.