English or German?

2nd Blog: by Edurne Garcia Donoso - Saturday, 14 January 2023, 9:29 PM
Ever since I was little I started with English as my first foreign language in school. Even though I used to have good grades, my parents decided to take me to extra lessons. There, I met a lot of good friends of mine but not only that. I also met my English favourite teacher who made me want to learn more and more. He came from Germany and that was also an important fact.

As I grew up I decided to take German lessons in High School and then the same teacher became both my English and German teacher. Almost finishing High School I made an exchange in Germany and I really liked it.

After my positive experience with my teacher I became more and more curious and interested in languages, especially English and German.

After that, I decided to sign up at the Official Languages School in my hometown to get the certificates progressively for both. I remember struggling myself in my last year of Gymnasium (which is the most important one) having 4 hours of English and other 4 for German per week while studying the subjects for school.

Once in university, I decided to go on exchange as an Erasmus student. I wanted somewhere where I would be able to practice my German but having all the subjects in English. My first options were in Germany, but then I changed my opinion in the last minute and chose Liechtenstein. At the point of arriving to Liechtenstein, I panicked because to my surprisethey have a strong dialect , but I decided to also continue my German and took German classes in the university.

Having also the subjects in English wasn’t easy at first, as it is not the same knowing English that fully studying subjects in it. But I managed somehow.

Also living in the dormitory makes living and being in a constant English bubble, since we have an international atmosphere and all of us speak English, even almost the half of the people are German-speakers. 

I noticed that my foreign language skills were slowly improving and I don’t even need to think what I want to say before actually saying it. I also practiced my self-patience when others don’t understand me and viceversa. 

Body language plays a huge role in communication and now it is hard for me to not to communicate with others without using it.