What a Complement!

“…but you just sound so German! And your name… what a typical German name!”

“Class- if you had to guess where she’s from, would you have said the United States?!”

“Wow… almost no accent! Maybe on some words..SOMETIMES, but no one would ever hear it unless they were trying to!”

If I got $20 for every time I heard a variation of those, I would be able to fund a really great tropical vacation in some faraway land already! I guess I need to give myself some more credit when it comes to my language skills! I often explain that I learned the most of my German, when it comes to speaking, while I was an exchange student. This sometimes gets confused as to why I have the "littlest of accents," but I follow up with the explanation that I don't come from (near) Flensburg, but that I was there for almost a year. I have even asked to show my driver's license to prove I was in fact from Michigan!

The thing is- I know there is so much that I’ve forgotten! I’m so excited to have the opportunity to deepen my knowledge (even if it’s at the expense of my English grammar/word usage!) of German, from vocabulary to grammar over the next 10 months.