Back to School after 30 Years for learning German

I wanted to tell all of you about a change in my life which will, I believe, have quite a big impact on the long run: I am now actively learning German. Yes, after nearly 30 years, I am now going back to school.

You probably know that I have been living in Germany for a big part of the past thirteen years. Nevertheless, in the course of these many years, I was not able to pick up the language. It was really also never very necessary. Most of the people whom I got in touch with spoke English. I always had a translator with me for my work, should it be necessary, and in private there was also always someone who could help out with a translation from English to German. Since 2007, Ramona has always been by my side and I could rely on her for translating anything that I needed to understand.

My German wife actually tried many times in the past years to get me to learn German properly. She did an effort to teach me – and she is a very good teacher – but there was always so much going on that I thought was more important and so I told her that I was too busy for learning German.

That’s how I have not learned German in the past 13 years while my wife could already communicate in Hindi with my family, in town and with the children after only two years with us. I have a lot of German vocabulary, many single words that make it possible for me to understand some conversations and the general direction of what is being talked about. For speaking myself however, I am missing the grammar! I thought I would learn it with my daughter, that I would learn along when she would learn German – but she learns so quickly that she has surpassed me by far already now!

When we were in Germany this time, we also paid a visit to the Foreign Office to get my residence permission renewed and while we were in that process, I was somehow tricked by the officers into signing that I will take a German course and finally learn the language. In such a situation you can hardly protest – they put the residence permission in front of me without much further questions, as I now have a German wife and daughter, but along with it there was a paper which I should sign: it committed me to doing a German course. Well, I guess their opinion that I should be able to speak German if living with my wife and daughter in Germany, is not fully wrong and so I can forgive them for being a bit tricky. 🙂

They even gave me a discount for doing the course in a German School. Due to our circumstances we chose to come back to India though and on 14th July 2013 I enrolled and started my first German course at the Goethe Institute in Delhi, in the Max Müller Bhawan.

I chose their ‘Blended Learning’ course, which is partly at the institute in Delhi and partly online, so that you can do your work from home. Ramona took up teaching my daily German class and I think I am slowly progressing.

At the institute, we have a nice, small group of eleven people and I tell you, going to school now is very different from going to school as a young boy. I really like our teacher and told at home already why: she does not shout, is not always annoyed and doesn't scream around. She is very patient, talks with respect and manners and never tried to beat any of us up! 😀