I once was a writer...

When learning a new language, we all make mistakes. That's normal. Native speakers are generally patient and kind. Generally. The thing is... there is only so much I (as a foreign national, trying my best to learn their language) can get away with. Take Thailand, for instance. Thai is a damn hard language to learn: they have 46 graphemes (symbols, so to speak) that with 10 "accent marks" represent more than 100 possible sounds. In my mother tongue, Spanish, we attach one (1) phoneme (sound) to every grapheme. It's super simple. It's easy. English is not quite as easy, what with short and long vowels and all, but it's easier than Thai. I could get away with my Thai because the people noted I was trying real hard. Also, I made it my mission to learn only a few phrases to help me survive - but to learn then perfectly . My mission was to pronounce them so well that, if with eyes covered, even the Thais couldn't tell my nationality. My plan worked. My numbe...

The Problem with the German language is not the language per se - it's us , those of us who don't speak the language fluently, who think that everything in German is over-complicated... when it actually is quite simple. Like, the food-processer that you more than likely have in your kitchen - what does that actually do? It's a machine that makes food smaller. That's exactly what it's called in German: der Verkleinerer . It's not a machine used to process food, it's a food-smaller-maker. But my issues with the German language go way beyond kitchen devices. I have made a fool of myself many times, with help from no one. While I was in the hospital last year, I kept trying to ask for a nurse who spoke English - even a little bit. The doctors kept telling me that my sick sister would come very soon. Nini (my sister) was in fact sick at that time (something with her eternal flu or something like that), but how did the doctors know that she was sick? And if ...

I had quite an adventure last week. Although, now that I find myself trying to organize my ideas to write down my awesome adventure, it seems that it was not so awesome, and also not so much of an adventure. In any case, what happened afterwards was cute. The bus on which I was riding home last week crashed. It was a little scary and very, very stupid. It was not our driver's fault: the other bus actually came into our lane and broke the window of our bus with his side-mirror. Busses here are so long that the driver did not hear the sound of the glass crushing; thus began the most funny process of communication. "Hey, tell the bus driver he had an accident", said someone at the very back; "Hey, tell the bus driver the window's broken", said someone closer; "The window's crashed, tell the bus driver", said someone else. OMG. The message was drawing closer to me. So I started thinking: Window = die Fenster . Broken = gebrochen , but a window ...

In many languages, such as Spanish and German, there is a formal and an informal way to address "you" (second person singular): tu  and usted  in Spanish, and du and Sie  in German, respectively. The problem is, the pronouns for the formal voices are very similar (if not identical) to the pronouns for other voices. Let me make the situation VERY clear with what I did yesterday. In case my teacher is reading this, es tut mir SCHRECKLICH leid, wirklich!! My classmates exasperate me. That's unfair, not all of them do. Actually, only two of my classmates (out of 12) exasperate me. Seriously. I want to hit them sometimes (but physical aggression is illegal here in Germany). They get into these absurd, pointless discussiones with false (and fake) arguments. Tuesday is my least favourite day, and at the very last class (tired, sleepy, hungry and cranky), they got into this discussion: The Police is Singular and Plural. Well, no, the teacher explained: you can't count ...

Before going into the details of the test, which is what this post really is about, I want to say a word about the test names. What's the deal with test names? Is there an International Test-Naming Committee for international tests that need names, maybe called the InTeNC? Why must we have an IELTS or a TOEFL? Those are tests for non-English speakers, so why must they be given names that even native English speakers have trouble pronouncing? The Test DaF is not difficult to say, but silly. It makes me think of an incomplete Daffy Duck. Anyway. In  a couple of weeks I will be taking the Test DaF - exactly in 14 days. The Test DaF is a test that measures the test-takers' ability in Deutsch (German language) als Fremdsprache (as a foreign language). I'm kinda glad it's named after it's German initials; were it in English, it would be the Test GLaFL. Not the G-L-a-F-L, but the /gla-fl/, all said together, as if it were a word. Like TOEFL is a word: toe, as in a fi...

I've been here for a while now, and more than trying to learn the language, I've been trying to learn how to SPEAK the language. You see, it's one thing to be able to read and listen in German, but it's another thing, a completely different thing, to be able to speak in German. There are certain hints that I've been able to catch up on, and I plan to share them with the world, so that I may be one of many who attempts to speak this verrückte language. Ready? Set? Go! First of all, in order to speak German and sound like a German, you need to lower your voice by like 3 tones. Try to pretend you're making fun of a male Opera or Mariachi singer -- yes, that's how low your voice has to sound. There are a few phrases that require an extreme lowering of your tone: (1) Ja , which means "yes", but when you really, really mean it, it sounds almost like a "yo"--not a rapper-like /yo-oo/, but more like a /yoh/ kinda thingy. (2) Es ist mir egal ...