German Language Exploration During My First Week!
Authored By:
Moin!
To start, I found out that the word ‘Moin’ is primarily used in Northern Germany. I had never heard it in my German classes before arriving so it was really interesting to hear this greeting when I first got here.
Traveling here took a long time and definitley tired me out. Luckily, this meant that I was tired enough to go to bed when it was that time in Germany, so I avoided most of my jetlag.
I arrived in Hamburg at 19.00 and went to school the next day! I decided to jump right in to get on a schedule.
My older host sister accompanied me to school, along with my younger host brother, to help me navigate the bus/train situation and find my classes.
Using public transportation to get to school is the coolest thing for me since where I live, we don’t have many buses, even. Here there are buses and subways and ICE trains!
After school on my first day, I got to leave early since my sport class was canceled. My host sister and her friend picked me up and we took the subway to a park in central Hamburg. We had the best food and talked all about English words that Germans use.
Some of the popular ones currently are…
“Weird flex but okay”
“Cringe”
“That’s random”
“They are lost” (when someone is confused)
And many more :)
My host sister told me how Germans will usually change the ending of the English word to fit German grammar so Germans aren’t necessarily assimilating to the English language, but making it their own.
The evolution of language has been a topic my host family and I have talked about a lot. The subject is very interesting to think about.
Today, I spent some time researching what “doch” means since there’s no exact English translation. I found this article interesting and helpful.
I’m very glad to finally be in Germany so I can experience the German language in a real-life context, instead of simply learning in the classroom.
Back to studying, I suppose!
Bis später!
Sarah