Even at a point where I understand German fairly well, and can keep up (for the most part) in conversation, it still manages to catch me out.
This has happened multiple times… I’ll be sitting, for example, with a group of people at a friend’s place, in a conversation that’s been going on a while, predominantly in German. Perhaps my brain is full of German and I’ve started to tune out. Perhaps it’s late and I’m tired…
And suddenly everyone stands up.
And I’m left sitting, looking from right to left. Wondering… what on earth is happening?
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Since the world is a bit tender and down at the moment, I thought why not write something a bit lighter this week.
In the aftermath of passing my 
A few weeks ago I undertook the German B1 test. When we originally looked into taking the test, hubby and I decided it made sense to do it together with the Austrian Integration component, which is what you need if you want to live here indefinitely. Since I have no intention of giving up my passport (and Austria doesn’t allow 
The start to my 
One of the great irritations of German, apart from having genders and weird pluralising and everything else that goes on… is formal speech. You could say it is a little similar to English… but only in a very subtle way. In English, it’s normal to refer to someone older than you as Mrs or Mr so-and-so… until there comes a time where they tell you it’s fine to call them by their first name. But come on, that’s simple!
an aussie in austria 