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
Fall
Dead leaves, the first cold of the season and an umbrella flipped inside out: fall, the season of grace.
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)
jmacfan1 16
Well he is an asshole. My grandma is from Germany and she has been here for a very long time so when she speaks to her sisters on the phone that still live there she struggles to remember how to say things. It comes back after awhile
LavenderLunacy14 7
My best friend grew up in Berlin, English is his fourth language, and he often asks his brother how to say this word or that in his native tongue.
chris_a7x 11
Easy fix- call your parents at least once a week while abroad. Maintain contact and remember your language!
onorexveritas 24
I hate it when people make assumptions
owo_fml 9
After an hour of speaking German I find it difficult to immediately switch back to English, even though that's the language I think in
la_puta_madre 4
Classic German attitude :)
kathryn14 19
After spending a couple weeks in Ukraine and trying my best to learn the language, I come back to the States and find myself answering questions in my Spanish class in Ukrainian. It was hard to readjust.
xNephilim 19
I feel your pain. I moved to the US from Germany almost 3 years ago and have started to forget some of my German. I speak to my mom and sister every once in a while and it takes me a few minutes to warm up. Or sometimes, I'll try to explain something and I just simply don't know the German word for what I'm trying to say. It's quite irritating.
DonULFonso 22
So why didn't you simply speak English? That's the first foreign language EVERYBODY in Germany learns, starting in kindergarten!
fleur_de_fevrier_fml 23
#63 I don't think that you got the point. The guy got pissed off because of his prejudice against foreigners who wouldn't try to learn German. I doubt in that case that speaking in English to him would have produced the hoped for result...
miura_fml 17
Sure, everyone learns it, but that doesn't mean everyone uses it.
GhostChickens 17
I always feel like shit when I go abroad because I have an accent and I'm not that good at learning languages. I always mess up the language I'm trying to learn. I feel really guilty about it because the people I talk to must think I haven't tried at all. Luckily, most people I've talked to in other countries are really nice about it and happy to help. I guess OP just had bad luck and ended up asking a mean twat for directions. He could have been nicer about it, whether you were a foreigner or not.