Sunday, October 31
Speaking Some German
Well, I suppose I'd better do it at some point, right?A friend of mine told me on Tuesday that there was some kind of social gathering for all of the Erasmus law students on Wednesday evening, and that I should come along. I still don't know a whole lot of people from my course, so it seemed like a clever thing to do. It would be good to meet with another group of people too, even if I would get criticised (again) by my friends for not being with them. Meh.
We met at one of the university coffee shops, where the Erasmus co-ordinator gave us a little talk about what was available to us if we ever needed help or advice. She said something about forms that we had to get sorted out, but I'd stopped paying attention by that point. I have the attention span of a not-very-attentive thing at times.
After she'd finished, she disappeared pretty sharpish and left us to our own devices. I got chatting to a few people, including a French girl, a couple of Polish people, my Belgian friend, a Lithuanian and others from all across Europe. We're very multi-cultural, you see?
I was blatantly one of the worst German speakers there, but at least I was trying. I found myself constantly changing the form of the verb as I was speaking, just to get it right. This made my speech a little jerky and stopped any semblance of flow, but at least I was grammatically correct by the end of it all. Hopefully it'll become second-nature to me soon, and I won't have to correct myself.
Everyone was picking up on my accent, which is quite strong when I speak German. Everyone can understand me (except for the inept people in the petrol station whenever I ask for some bread rolls), but I know that my English accent comes across quite clearly. There's just certain sounds that my accent emphasises differently from a normal German accent.
For instance, the letter 'r' in German requires a sort of throaty sound as you say it. It is in fact impossible to represent it in written form, but take my word that I simply cannot say it. I can't get my throat to make that sound when I say and 'r', no matter how I try. It thus sounds flat and English, which is a little embarrassing and annoying.
I don't know why I can't make that sound, because I have no problems doing a similar one when the letters 'ch' appear. I can make that sound convincingly German and throaty. It must be one of those things, I guess. I can make do without an accent, at any rate. I'd rather be correct with what I say than sound German but make no sense.
After chatting in this little cafe for a while, we decided to go grab some dinner at the Mensa (student union) and head to a pub for a drink. Incidentally, the Mensa is absolutely amazing. It's not like an English student union, which is just a bar. It's a massive hall, with loads of tables and a huge buffet-style food area. The range of food is fantastic, as is the quality of the produce. It's very cheap too, since everything is paid for according to the weight of your plate. You could have a plateful of meat, and it would cost the same as a plate of rice. Fucking brilliant, it is!
You also can't be in there without bumping into 74 people that you know. And that's right at the start of term, when you barely know anyone. I can't imagine what it'll be like by the end of the year, when I know more people. Although will I remember their names? I'm crap with names, and always forget them. It's thoroughly embarrassing when they know your's and you haven't got a fucking clue what their's is. I can get away with it in English, because I use "darling" or "mate" all the time, but it's a bit more difficult in German.
We then went to a new pub, a great little one which I hadn't been to before (no, I don't remember the name. I know where it is though), and chatted some more. Sometimes I got a bit lost, since a few of them speak perfect German and very quickly too, but mostly I understood what was going on. They were still intrigued by my accent, and also by the Anglo-American law system.
Continental systems are very, very different from the English model. For a start, they barely have any case-law. It's all books of laws, whereas we have a Common Law system of precedent. Here, you need to be able to reference a certain paragraph number of a law book, whereas in England you need to know a case, its name, the arguments in the case, and the ratio decidendi of the case (its deciding factor, and hence its impact on the law in that area). I'm not sure which is easier, but it could be that I naturally find the English system more intuitive, if only because I've studied it for a couple of years.
We didn't make it into a late night, which was a Godsend, since I had a 9am lecture the next day. It was a good time, however, and I'm so glad I've found a few more friends in my lectures. Till now, I've been making do with a girl from my home uni, my Belgian friend Erik and a Swiss girl who I can't remember the name of but is really good fun. She's probably told me her name, but such is my lack of memory, I've once more gone and forgot.
I should stop killing all of those brain cells with alcohol.
Stay tuned for the tale of a couple of night's drinking. Dammit.
