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
Collection
Fall
Dead leaves, the first cold of the season and an umbrella flipped inside out: fall, the season of grace.
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, 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
Today, I found out that I was moving to Germany. I'm going to be put back a year in school because of the system change. I also don't speak a word of German. Why? Because my mother wants to brag about this experience to her friends. 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 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
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 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, my daughter told me she is pregnant. The father is the foreign exchange student who just moved back to Germany. FML
Today, after waiting well over a month for a work visa in Germany that should only have taken 3 weeks to come through, I finally received my long-awaited answer. Unfortunately, that answer was "We lost your paperwork." FML
Today, my mom booked a family trip to Sweden. This would be great, if she hadn't asked me to tell our former German exchange student that we were coming to visit her in Germany. She was thrilled. Now I have to be the one to let her down. FML
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Top comments
BingleBop 18
Well at least you should be pretty good at German by the end if your stay. You always learn faster when you're forced to!
CammyGal 26
Why would you choose to go to Germany if you didn't know the language? You couldn't have expected the family to do everything for you. If you were forced to go, you still should have known beforehand and made an effort to learn.
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Comments (135)
anony1237 0
Why does everyone have to be a dick about america. Not every american is an idiot asshole.
perdix 31
#46, yeah, but the OP appears to be one of them. I'm not sure what motivates the foreigners, but I'm being a dick to tell the OP to "quit embarrassing us."
Deathhound 27
Well, that's indeed awkward. Trotzdem wünsche ich Dir viel Spaß in Deutschland. :P (I still wish you fun in germany)
brittyboo123 35
Just make the best of it OP.
gregnc_fml 18
Sounds to me like a huge opportunity for both you and the family to learn English and German.
Devorak2686 9
You could, oh I don't know, learn some German while you are there.
onorexveritas 24
learn German, they are your hosts
Amranih 20
Best way to learn German ;)
rose11334 10
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH I'm in the exact same situation!! But my relatives don't speak it well.
yadanax 14
I can help you :D just tell me what u need
GoArmy6624 7
I hope your father is Liam Neeson