This past week was an interesting one. Though I am slowly acquiring the German language my lack of speaking skills is frustrating me to say the least. Often I can understand enough of a conversation to follow it vaguely but am unable to take part in it. Due to this I finally decided to start with some German lessons. Hoping that it will finally help me to speak the language in a way that doesn’t just involve me throwing out random words in the hope that my poor target can decipher what I’m trying to get across. After a bit of searching I found a language school and they even had an online test I could take to determine at which level I should start. Having used Duolingo for quite a bit I really didn’t want to start from the absolute beginner so this seemed like a great idea.
For those that don’t know you have various levels of fluency and actual reference framework for it. A0 meaning you know nothing and C2 being the highest level. Courses are normally split up into sub levels with A1 being split up into A1.1 and A1.2, the same for A2, B1, etc. When I was doing research concerning the different language schools in Berlin I came across a few that allowed you to do one of these sub levels (A1.1 for example) in a month, but it was class five evenings per week for four hours every evening. Needless to say that sounded way too intense for me, but it acts as a good reference when judging how long one of these sub levels should take.
Some street art in Berlin
So back to the test. The test is meant to help determine your level, so from A1 all the way through to C1. This means that if you can score full marks on the test then you don’t need a course. In essence, you’re going to get stuff wrong. A lot of stuff. The one snag though is that it is multiple choice. This means that though I knew a few answers, could figure a few more, and also do a few calculated guesses on a few others. In hindsight it was a bad idea because it’s not a test you want to over achieve in… At all. Needless to say that I found myself in a class where I could vaguely follow what they were saying but the expected skills were way above my head. When you ask the tutor what a word means and she continues to explain the word to you in higher German that the word could possibly justify then you know. This isn’t the class for you.
After my second class I spoke to the tutor and she agreed that I should move down a level just to get a better grasp of some of the basics. I could understand more or less what was being said but not because I understood the sentence as a whole but due to some random words and the context. Speaking though is another matter. That was what gave me away… Well, that and going to the tutor and saying that I should move down. That might have helped as well
Moral of the story, sometimes it is better to not over achieve on a test…
I am sure no one wants to see photos of text books so I’ve included some random photos of street art in Berlin. Just because
The graffiti wall at Mauer Park
