Why You Should Say 'Siezen' and 'duzen'

Just tried to explain the German Höflichkeitsformen as: "Okay, Mom, so, there are two ways of saying 'you' in German: du and Sie. You would use 'Sie' with people who are older than you, who have a higher rank than you, or who are strangers. You usually use 'du' with people who are the same rank as you, who are younger than you, or who are your friends. What's awkward at my school is that there is only one male English teacher at My Gymnasium, and he is the only one I Sie'd. When I met all of the other (female) teachers on my first day, I Sie'd them, but they told me to du them. Well, there was one teacher whom I didn't du, but she retired in January, so I would've felt weird du-ing her anyway."

Peinlich. The problem is that I didn't learn from that mistake: about 15 minutes later, I told my mom that I du one of my dad's German coworkers, too, since he has been a family friend for years.

And that is one reason why you should use 'duzen' and 'siezen' when referring to Höflichkeitsformen, even with non-speakers.

Abistreich

Ich gebe zu, I've encountered many new words this year, but I seem to have a serious mental block on Abistreich. (I always write and pronounce it as Abistreik.) Personally, I think teachers would have preferred a Streik to this year's Streich.

Basically, Abistreich is a long, drawn-out senior prank that the Abiturienten put on either immediately before taking the Abitur or close to the end of the school year. At my school, the tradition is to start during the first Hofpause, but at other schools, an Abistreich starts at the very beginning of the school day.

I haven't had especially good experiences with senior pranks in the past; in high school, some of the senior pranks at my school were pretty destructive. (The worst one was when the seniors released mice, rats, and birds in the commons, which was kind of like an indoor courtyard in the middle of the school. Runner-up: the year that the seniors dumped a lot of sticky stuff and goop in the commons.) My class didn't organize a formal senior prank because the administration had cracked down hard the previous three years, but one student decided it would be a great idea to hide a rude message in his last column for the student newspaper. (He didn't get to walk at graduation.)

In other words, I was looking forward to a good Abistreich, especially after hearing that other Fulbrighters had enjoyed their students' Abistreiche.

Most of the teachers were pretty sure that today was going to be Abistreich-Day, and we figured it would start after 2nd period. Towards the end of a Leistungskurs, the Abiturienten started blowing horns. I'll be honest: I was excited to see what they had planned!

Yeah, well, I was really disappointed. They had water balloons and stink bombs, plus some overly-excited Mittelstufe students with buckets filled with water. Come on, that's, like, a Grundschulestreich. Some of the Abiturienten parked a car sideways on the street to block traffic and had a dance party while still throwing water balloons, which (obviously) is, oh, just a little bit illegal. The neighbors ended up calling the police, who gave the sideways car a ticket and kicked out the non-students who were on the school grounds.

I knew that water tends to show up a lot in Abistreiche, so I was prepared for water guns or water balloons, but stink bombs? Blech. That's not even funny.

Abistreich Note: 5- (I still think the mice and rats at my school were worse).

At lunch, the teachers were joking about Germanizing the Abistreich by requiring the students to submit multiple drafts with introductions, a timed schedule, and a firm conclusion. After the Streich, they decided that the students should write an evaluation of how the day went and how the Streich could have been better, as well as a reflection of what they had learned by planning the Abistreich. I bet that would result in higher quality Abistreiche!

In the Beginning...

I've been trying to write this post for awhile now, so I hope it ended up being semi-organized. Skip to the bottom if you just want tips on improving your German before getting to Germany.

Getting around in the first few weeks isn't an easy task. Being immersed in your second language is exhausting, even for German majors who studied abroad. I do think that I would have had an easier time during the first few weeks if I hadn't taken a year off German and taken French, but either way, hearing and speaking German 24/7 is challenging and often headache inducing.

So, how did my first few weeks go? First, there's one thing that I want to clarify: I whine and moan about my speaking skills not being at the same level as my reading and writing skills, but I am in no way a poor speaker. (Die Leiden der former gymnast: I focus on my weaknesses and the things that aren't quite perfect and lose sight of the general picture. Bonus points if you caught the literary reference.) During the first few weeks, my biggest problem was that my brain was on overdrive from all of the German and wasn't focusing very well.

When I say that I'm a weaker speaker than reader or writer, I'm being honest but overly modest. To put my German level in perspective, I had four years of German in high school, and I scored a 5 on the AP exam. As 11th graders, we had conjugation questions on every vocab quiz, and we were responsible for every possible Zeitform in the German language, including those with modals. (Yes, that includes all of the weird passive modal conjugations.) We also read "Die Verwandlung" in 11th grade. I tested into the 300-level in college, but I really could have tested into the 400-level if that had been allowed. Research paper this, presentation that, blah, blah, blah. Basically, my conversation skills are "weak" for a German major who graduated with a 4.0, a senior award for German, and a Fulbright -- and they're "weak" primarily because I took French instead of German during my last year in college and ended up thinking in some weird version of Freutsch at first.

So, did I have problems at the beginning of the school year?

Mentally, yes. In other people's eyes, eh.

When I opened a bank account, registered, and got my residency permit, I had absolutely no problems with my German. I, um, may have whipped out my own Berliner Schnauze when the person at the Ausländerbehörde told me that they couldn't find my paperwork. Since the person at the desk spoke really poor English, I also translated for a few other English native speakers.

Interviewing for a WG was a little more difficult, but I'm not sure I would have been offered an apartment earlier in the search if my German had been better. When you compete against 30+ people for one room, the chances of you getting the room are really low even if you're German! I ended up in my WG because I was the first person who called, not because I amazed the interviewer with my winning personality. So... yeah. Small talk is obviously more difficult in German, but it's not the biggest barrier to finding a room.

At school, I speak almost exclusively German to teachers. I only use English for comedic purposes (American humor is better untranslated), when an English teacher strikes up a conversation in English, when an English teacher has a grammar question, or when the French teachers want to practice their English. I also hold mock conversations in French with one of the French teachers, but my French is horrible. 99.8% of the time, I can get my point across on the first try (in German, that is). I only remember one time when a teacher looked blankly at me and told me to try again, and there was another time when I cut myself off because I knew I was babbling nonsense. (In the remaining .1% of the time, I'm talking to the Schulleiter, who has a really hard time understanding me, dank meines Akzents.)

For me, the difference between the beginning of the year and the end of the year is that I now have a personality in German. I can get my point across more fluently-- and not just more fluently, but in more stylistically interesting ways. During the first few months, I had to concentrate on every sentence, but by now, I can do some serious plauder-ing in the Lehrerzimmer. I sacrificed a bit of precision in favor of idioms, more complex sentences, and a lot more speed. Unfortunately for everyone else, I now have an American sense of humor in German. (Other Americans and young teachers who have spent a lot of time abroad generally find me amusing. The older teachers, not so much. I guess you have to account for generational differences, too, especially since even the youngest teachers and Referendare are 8-10 years older than I am. It's common to be a certified teacher at 22-23 in the US. In Germany, the average age seems to be closer to 30.)

***

So, how can new ETAs can prepare for the upcoming school year? Here's a question for all of you: when was the last time you listened to children speaking German?

Yeah, most of you have only heard adults' voices lately. Figure out how to listen to kids speaking German. You could be a creeper on Youtube, listen to Rulf Zuckowski songs, buy some cartoons, or come up with your own way to get used to children's voices.

Even after 9 months of living with a 7-year-old and working at a Gymnasium, I have trouble understanding the younger students. The kids who enunciate are always easy to understand, but an excited 6th grader with braces? Now that is how you know if you've mastered German.