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Words I can’t Pronounce in German

debbiekaye1980Leave a comment

squirrelThey say that after a certain age, a person loses the ability to pronounce certain parts of a foreign language. That means, unless you start learning a second language from when you’re a kid, you’re always going to sound like a foreigner and there will always be some words you just can’t get right. Here are ten of mine:

  1. Eichhörchen

The German word for ‘squirrel’ is basically impossible to pronounce. I could repeat it all day and it still wouldn’t come out right. However, it makes me feel a bit better that Austrians can’t pronounce the English ‘squirrel’ either.

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How lucky am I? I can practice German with my husband – well there’s a double-edged sword!

debbiekaye1980Leave a comment

Living in Austria with an Austrian husband leads to people often asking me: “So do you speak German at home?” And if I said no, they say: “You should, it’s the best way to learn.”

And they would be right. We should. And speaking the language to a native is the best way to learn. But it is also a double-edged sword, especially when it involves a loved-one.

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Freaking out over the most basic of all laugage tests – German A1

debbiekaye19802 Comments

If you want to stay in Austria for any length of time there is a basic German language test that inevitably, you have to take.

I started preparing for this as soon as I arrived, studying doggedly for two hours a day, painfully learning pronunciation with my Ukranian teacher. It helped not having a job – I had such a lot of time and a high desire to use my brain.

Time to learn German

They say that the A1 test can be passed in three months, with two hours of study a day. I can tell you for a fact that I was nowhere near ready after three months. I still felt like a drunk fruitcake whenever I tried to speak German.

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The awful German language – Mark Twain was right

debbiekaye19802 Comments

I have never been a ‘foreign language’ kind of person. In high school I took the requisite half year of French, half year of Indonesian and picked Indonesian because the teacher was a bludge. I then sat next to the smartest girl in class for the next two years and copied her work. Read: I had ZERO interest.

Learning a second language - German
Why on earth would I ever need a second language?

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