Ferienkurs

Being in Germany has made me realize that my German is really good. It has also made me realize that my German is terrible.

I can definitely communicate in German when I have to, which is awesome! But as I increasingly speak to people my age, I need to express more complex ideas, and I have neither the vocabulary nor the grammar skills for that right now. It can be frustrating, but I'm lucky I came with intermediate skills. In a country that speaks the language is the best place to refine and polish a language. Fluency in 10 months. That is my goal.

I'm taking a Ferienkurs (vacation course), a 4-week intensive German course. It's surprisingly exhausting. When I listen to someone speaking English, it's easy to take it all in passively. In German, I need to be actively focusing on what the teacher is saying and matching the German words to the meaning for 3 hours and 45 minutes a day. It's really tiring. I feel bad for the others in the class, because they need to use English as well as German to communicate, even thought it's not their native language.