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)
BaraSkit07 12
That's just a straight up lie, why would someone do that?
abusch 9
You'll get by ok. Just remember, the German word for hello is 'heil', and is typically accompanied by extending the right arm outwards at a slight upward angle.
theobturator 5
I came to Japan not knowing any Japanese, and my host family did not speak any English either. I disagree that it's possible to go from zero to near-fluent in a summer just through immersion, but I must say that the language barrier did not prevent my host family and I from having the time of our lives together. So just load up a good auto-translator onto your phone, and have at it. And don't underestimate the importance of body language. PS: No part of this was meant to sound laced with innuendo. Really.
Sonotsuave 37
Hey, you can always point & grunt things.
Ins0mau 20
Hey! That's how we speak Australian!
ecascio2010 9
Go to a travel store and get a translation book.
monstababe92 6
use google translator for what you want to say and let it read it out loud to them.
Raykyogrou03 12
Well good luck. I hope you at least brought a German for dummies book
MadProfessor95 11
How did they tell you they were fluent in English if they don't speak English, and you don't speak German?
FrankHotpants 31
Sounds like a new sitcom.
dermor 3
Don't worry you'll pick it up