I spoke a depressing amount of English today. Like, it was one of those days where I felt especially retarded because all the people who live here seem to speak my mother tongue better than I do. What's kind of demoralising is that its not even for lack of trying; there are rarely occasions where I have to describe something vastly complicated, which may warrant specific vocab or complex sentence structures. Its the everyday stuff, the really simple things, which are thwarting me.
It gets pretty annoying, not particularly because I worry what people will think, but its stuff I should just know by now. Today I forgot the German for "with me" in the middle of a conversation with my mentor, " .. Ja, heute kommt die Elfte Klasse mit .. mit .. ich .. mit mich .. mir .. avec mich .. jesus, fuck! Ich .. bei .. mit .. arghfgh"
My frustration must have showed because she patted my shoulder and kind of tentatively asked " .. in English?"
This would be less of an issue if I could at least convey what I wanted in English, but I'm also finding more and more that when kids ask me questions, perfectly fluently in English, for a word explanation or help with an English text, I have a genuine mental block, which means I kind of flounder, spewing all the vaguely associated bullshit that comes into my head, to which they usually look deep into my eyes and nod very slowly.
Its also difficult to gauge just how much you've actually got across, or to what degree they understood because nobody wants to point it out if they didn't get it. Luckily I can tell when this is the case, meaning I can then launch into another short monologue about the meaning of the word "peas" on page 37, line 12.
I have the satisfaction at the end of the day knowing that I can confuse the bejesus out of anyone, simply by talking.
It gets pretty annoying, not particularly because I worry what people will think, but its stuff I should just know by now. Today I forgot the German for "with me" in the middle of a conversation with my mentor, " .. Ja, heute kommt die Elfte Klasse mit .. mit .. ich .. mit mich .. mir .. avec mich .. jesus, fuck! Ich .. bei .. mit .. arghfgh"
My frustration must have showed because she patted my shoulder and kind of tentatively asked " .. in English?"
This would be less of an issue if I could at least convey what I wanted in English, but I'm also finding more and more that when kids ask me questions, perfectly fluently in English, for a word explanation or help with an English text, I have a genuine mental block, which means I kind of flounder, spewing all the vaguely associated bullshit that comes into my head, to which they usually look deep into my eyes and nod very slowly.
Its also difficult to gauge just how much you've actually got across, or to what degree they understood because nobody wants to point it out if they didn't get it. Luckily I can tell when this is the case, meaning I can then launch into another short monologue about the meaning of the word "peas" on page 37, line 12.
I have the satisfaction at the end of the day knowing that I can confuse the bejesus out of anyone, simply by talking.
