Did I Manage to Complete Them?Hello all! Or shall I say hallo! I wanted to post this before getting into more Spain related content! So, if you read my last blog post you'll know that I spent the last month of my life living in Munich, as an au pair. Although this experience wasn't a very positive one in my role as an au pair, living in Germany was very much an exciting and great time for me. A little info on Munich! Munich is the third largest city in Germany and located in the south of Germany in the federal state of Bavaria! Living in Munich was excellent opportunity for me to try out my Duolingo fueled German! Before I made it to Germany I had been learning German via the Duolingo app for about two months and needless to say I was stoked to finally get to Germany so I could put my skills to the test and learn more! I truly do believe immersion is the best way to truly learn a new language and culture, so being the teacher I am I made some goals for myself. I wanted to be able to challenge myself to a few goals while abroad in Germany. I made my list simple and short Down below were my goals:
I tried keeping my goals simple and not too difficult to attain because I wanted to be realistic and not make this too frustrating for me. I continued with Duolingo while in Germany and found it extremely neat to be able to use new things I was learning while I was out and about. At first it was extremely nerve-wrecking trying to muster up enough courage to actually speak to people in my poor German and so the first thing I had to do was to be nice to myself. I had to remind myself constantly that I was a still a beginner and it was okay to make mistakes. I was lucky enough to grow up speaking a second language (Spanish) and I've never really had to learn a new language from scratch and for me to be learning German this was my first time feeling so vulnerable and to be honest sometimes I felt so much like a kid. This is all to be expected though when learning a new language, so I tried to cut myself some slack and I was patient with myself as I was getting over the emotions of vulnerability that I was experiencing. It was so neat to be able to go out into the streets of Munich and to be able to understand very basic expressions, billboards, advertisements and people passing by on the sidewalk. It would make me light up whenever I was able to understand what a poster said or if I overheard a conversation and could pick up on just a word that would make my day. My au pair family was bilingual, so they spoke both English and German, but they spoke primarily German at home. This allowed me to pick up on some key expressions and words that I would later use on my own. Since I was only to be in Munich for a month this list of goals was extremely important to me and I made sure to go out there and really make the most of my time abroad, and I have to say I'm happy with what I was able to accomplish! Down below I will go into my list of goals and share with you all if I was able to successfully accomplish what I set out to do!
I'm proud to say I was able to fulfill my list of goals for myself and I can't wait to get back to Germany and learn more someday! This experience taught me a lot, and it reminded me of how difficult learning a new language can be, which is vital as I'm a language teacher and can sometimes forget what it's like to be a student learning a new language.
Con amor, Nelli <3
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