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by aa-jv
1498 days ago
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Yes, its pretty clear after a decade and a half of living in a German-speaking land, as a native English speaker, that the intention of a German-native-speaker switching to English is really to be more accommodating of the struggles of the other person - but for some reason, categorically it just doesn't come off that way. Its very frustrating at times too, because the switch mid-statement shuts down my attempt at communicating in German, and thus .. I don't ever really get better. What I suggest to all my German-speaking/English-preferring friends and colleagues, is to CORRECT the German, in a friendly way, and speak friendlier German while I'm "getting the marbles out" .. As for learning German - its a beautiful language and there is much literature that can be enjoyed in German, which loses its feels in English translations. I have a "German/English Shakespeare" volume, which has Shakespeare in German on one side of the page, and English on the other, and this has proven to me time and again that German can be just as beautiful, befuddling, frustrating and enlightening as English. I'm really glad I raised my kids to be German/English speaking too - having an intrinsic knowledge of both languages has helped them be better speakers of them both, too. |
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I've heard something different to this and I have to say that it helps in my language learning. You shouldn't correct someone who gets the language wrong, but accept anything that you understand as correct enough. If there is some possible confusion in the meaning, however, you should ask for clarification (e.g. "do you mean you're going to the movies now, or that you went to the movies yesterday?") The language learner will follow up with a different phrasing and/or with questions about grammar that will teach them more than a quickly forgotten correction.