Tonight while avoiding working on my paper, I turned on the TV and spent about 30 minutes watching some made-for-TV movie about a family moving into this huge house somewhere in a really pretty town in Bayern. I was watching and watching and not really thinking much of it and then it struck me that I was just chilling out, just watching, didn't have to think, didn't have to concentrate. I understood everything natively.
This is something that has only happened since coming to Germany. When I used to listen/watch the German news back in the States, I wouldn't understand every word and I really had to concentrate to stay with them. Now, 11 months later, I find that I can switch on the radio or the TV and it's so effortless And I found myself thinking, "geez, when did THAT happen?"
That, my friends, is a pretty cool feelilng. I don't know how it happened, because it's not like I've had any special training or a lot of intense German classes, but I guess it's just been a side benefit that has grown out of living here for a year. Just goes to show that immersion really IS the best way to learn a language. You don't even notice you're learning, but somehow your brain is absorbing new words. In fact I've even found myself using words I've never actually LEARNED before - I can infer complex words on my own, the same way that I can in English. Pretty sweet. I guess this year really has improved my German, even though it doesn't seem like it most of the time.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
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2 comments:
that does sound really cool. i totally agree with you on the immersion part. Hopefully my German will improve too after a year in Vienna. Enjoy the rest of your time in Germany. Einen guten Rückflug wünsch ich dir.
Oh how lovely. What a great moment that musta been.
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