Today, I returned to Germany for a break from my studies abroad. I got lost while out for groceries, so I tried asking a guy for directions. I went totally blank and strained to think of the right words, prompting him to mutter about rude foreigners not bothering to learn the local language. FML
Collection
Halloween
A failed costume, stolen candy and a very real scare: Halloween, the one night when fear is allowed.
Today, I found out that my German wasn't as great as I thought it was. Trying to give directions to some German tourists, I tried to say, "I hope I don't get you lost." Turns out I actually said something closer to, "I hope I don't seduce you." FML
Today, I got lost in a foreign city while on vacation and couldn't communicate with anyone, because I didn't speak the language and no one seemed to be able, or even wanted, to speak to me in mine. FML
Today, I arrived in Germany for a summer-long stay. The family I'm supposed to stay with had said they spoke fluent English. They don't. I don't speak German. It's going to be a quiet two months. FML
Today, my husband and I went on vacation. We got lost and had to ask the locals for directions to our hotel. Neither of us could understand their accents, and we ended up wandering around blindly for hours until we made it back on our own. FML
Today, out of desperation, I had to fight my social anxiety in order ask a stranger for directions in a new city. She gave me a detailed answer, and I thanked her, then walked the wrong way for 15 minutes because I was too embarrassed to admit I’d understood none of it past the first sentence. FML
Today, a German guy came into the place where I work. Eager to use the German that I'd learned from my immigrant mother and her family, I started a conversation. Things were going well until the term I grew up thinking meant "Africa" turned out to be racist, translating as "Ape Land." FML
Today, I found out the German I've been learning for nearly a month is a dialect only spoken by people in a small area of the country. This means I'll need to re-learn most of what I thought I knew. FML
Today, I arrived in Austria. Within about an hour, I realized that I couldn't understand any "German". Turns out they have a totally different dialect here to anything I was taught in school. I'm here till May. FML
Today, while on a vacation, I tried to step out of myself and flirt with this boy who I thought was cute. He was going along with it and nodding so I thought it was working. Then he opened his mouth and I realized he didn't speak English. FML
Today, I found out that while on foreign exchange for over six months now, I have been pronouncing the word for "night" in German wrong. Apparently, this whole time, the way that I have been pronouncing it in German means "naked". This explains a lot. FML
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Top comments
pheebs314 17
I'm friends with a girl who was an exchange student from Germany in high school and after a few months of being surrounded by English all the time, she even had a hard time talking to her parents on the phone.
DocBastard 40
I often fumble over my words when I've been studying broads.
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Comments (81)
fury1031 10
How did that even happen?
lilhellian 27
Because when she went away she didn't use german as much thus the brain began to repress it.. Once she gets speaking german again it'll be ok...
fury1031 10
Ugh, I know that. I was just surprised that going back to using what I assumed to be OP's native tongue was a difficult task.
muzy 23
That's usually the case when you stop using a certain language for an extended period of time. You just start forgetting words.
Bekll 31
OP experienced reverse cultural shock.
bugmenotmofo 34
You see, fluent people think in language they speak, so it is possible to "forget" portion of your native language if you only use another language all the time. Still, I'd expect it would take more time than a few months.
fleur_de_fevrier_fml 23
#22 I speak by experience here and I can tell it does happen. I am French and I have been living abroad for 9 years now (6 years in Ireland now) and I do struggle often to find words in my mother tongue, although I left France when I was 24, so not exactly as a child. My fiancé is Irish and does not speak French and I work in a multinational company where English is the common language. It has come to the point that I sometimes check online words from English to French because English seems more natural to me now and I am not sure if what I am writing is correct French or an Anglicism. :) Happens to all of us expats :) It’s a little drawback to a fantastic experience.
l23VIVE 17
das ist nicht gut, OP ist sehr doof
pheebs314 17
I'm friends with a girl who was an exchange student from Germany in high school and after a few months of being surrounded by English all the time, she even had a hard time talking to her parents on the phone.
silvercamaro 22
Das ist sehr interresant
anedderm 4
Nein, es ist nicht!
Mattpig 15
Ahahahaha du sprechst keine deutsch!
izazbouletz 12
Sprichst* ;)
izazbouletz 12
Kein*
silbot 11
NEIN
howdeedoo 22
Well, did you find the grocery store?
ohSNAPyall 27
A riveting query.
happle 21
I get flustered when I try to speak another language too. :/ That guy is a buttmunch.
Feklfekl2222 32
I think German is her native language and she was just unused to speaking it thanks to her studying abroad
Trisha_aus 15
Buttmunch or cockmunch?
happle 21
Regardless, at least she was trying. That guy didn't have to be so rude.
Daiyuki 5
Didn't have to be polite either.
BigMatt803 18
hopefully the next person you asked wasn't as rude
DocBastard 40
I often fumble over my words when I've been studying broads.
poccocurantes 7
No he said abroad. singular.
howdeedoo 22
36-Seriously?
Sinamoi 18
36- ZOOM! Hear that? That's the sound of a joke piloting an F-18 Super Hornet going right over your head.
poccocurantes 7
No my friends. That was a train and you both missed it. Look at the post again.
bishoujo 5
Love it!
howdeedoo 22
46-Do you just not understand the joke? Or are you trying to make a joke of your own?
outoftown 27
The eternal question: how many broads does it take to make you forget? For some, just one. For others... they're still trying to count.
pheebs314 17
I'm wondering if maybe they were making the joke that its not broads, its a broad...? Either way, it fell flat.
terrykayez 6
It's ironic that all of you are criticizing him for missing the joke when you all missed his.
keverdeen 14
As long as you know you're in the right its okay. don't take it too hard, OP!
Tali147 16
After spending a year in America I got teased relentlessly by my Israeli friends when I returned home for a visit. I starting saying "Um." And "Okay" all the time.
PrincessPesa 20
Ha! I'm a Hebrew tutor and most of my students go to secular schools and are native English speakers. It's so easy for me to tell if they've practiced; if they haven't, it sounds like they're trying to gargle hieroglyphics. German and Hebrew can both be considered "guttural" languages, which English certainly isn't. It's not easy to switch between them!
Tali147 16
I do not know what is worse, getting teased for sounding too "American" by my Israeli friends or being teased for my accent and "freakish throaty sounds" by my American friends. Some English sounds come out a little more guttural as you say.
Pyapi 20
That's why it's very important to constantly practice the language, even if it is your native tongue! Hey, we forget. Don't worry though, OP, I've been through that and in a couple of weeks or months you should be speaking your native tongue just as you always did :)
Obey_StudBoii 23
Rude foreigners huh? So it's ok for them to treat us like crap but yet when they come to the states to visit we have to be nice. The hell with that. Mutual respect.
Shrike 24
Sounds like someone's heavily xenophobic. I mean, that's quite the stereotyping you're doing there, nice straw man you've set up.
Pyapi 20
Generalizations are never good. I've had a couple of bad experiences in the US and in other countries a couple of times but that doesn't mean I go around saying they ALL treat tourists badly...
emeraldisle 30
I visited the states on holiday a few months ago and I was met with nothing but kind, respectful people who were eager to help a lost Irish girl. Any Americans I encounter in my town I treat the same way.
Dracoboxer357 36
12- Even mutual respect has to start somewhere. Try, Lead By Example, aka, act like a calm adult and not an overly defensive hothead when dealing with others, especially the rude ones. It's amazing the amount of respect you'll earn for yourself, from yourself, as well as from others, IMHO.
BookWorm13 3
I've been to the united states a few times and I have only been spoken to kindly and asked about my canadian accent. I do have many friends that hate americans for being rude and I agree generalizations are not good and that's what I tell them