[ENGLISH] My first day being German – A memoir
It began with a small discussion with my parents about my future. They were concerned that my life would take a twist. They fear that I will become something useless like a waiter at McDonalds or something like that in Indonesia.
“Germany” my father said.
“Why don’t you go to Germany? They have VERY GOOD schools you know. It’s good for your future career if you want to work for AIRBUS or something like that. They cater for non Germans too. You just need to learn German that’s all.”
He keeps blabbering about the benefits of studying in the EU (specifically in Germany) and how a lot of Indonesians go there and stay there forever. All of that nonsense came out of my left ear. I don’t mind studying in Germany but there is one thing that worries me the most. LANGUAGE.
“But…” I replied.
“What do you want? I’m giving you the BEST option. Don’t reject”. He responded to my but.
“But isn’t German a very hard language to master? I study English, Arabic and French at school and you want me to learn another language because you want ME to learn German?”
I went on and on but then he came back “No. It is easy. If you want to be as successful as me you have to follow my advice. YOU ARE GOING TO GERMAN CLASSES FROM NOW ON.”
My heart stopped. It’s a struggle learning a 7th language. Coming from a person who learns conversational *cough* broken *cough* English, I would expect that. Well I don’t have a choice. If I want to keep living under this household, I would have to listen to him.
The first day of class came and I felt discouraged and said to myself “You are going to die” and “German is not for you. It’s hard” and so on. I entered class for the first time and I see people in their early 20s or even 30s. I really disliked the idea of learning a new language. It’s too much hassle. I am already struggling with English comprehension questions so being in this class felt like I’m sitting in hell. We started Class went on with learning basic conversations. Later on the teacher asked me to say a couple of stuff in German such as “My name is Azim” “I live in Shatti al-Qurm in Muscat” “I am 14 years old”.
#SUCCESS
After class, my parents asked, “What happened in class”.
“I got complemented in class for having the best German” I responded to their very expected question.
“Oh that’s cool.”
After that class, I felt more desired to learn a new language. I began to love language.
The first exam came and it was a written exam. I wrote the best German I thought I could do but failed to do so (from what I thought it would be bad). But the results came out and I had the BEST score in my class. My 20 to 30 year old classmates were quite surprised and was congratulated me because I got a full mark. This really boosted my self esteem even more. I felt prepared.
Today, I am currently interested in learning more languages because they are so unique and not bland like that tea I made this morning. Thank you classmates. You made my day.
This was enjoyable to read and demonstrated the conventions of a memoir. Before submitting, carefully reread your posts paying attention to your verb tenses. Though tempting, please avoid integrating gifs and images with these types of assignments.
ReplyDeleteAn inspiring story, congratulations for learning German, it can be an interesting language to say the least. I think that this post showed a good understanding of the memoir as a medium, and I can see the resemblance in style and/or structure to Sedaris' and Tan's memoirs. You've matched the topic well: you picked your experience of learning German, a language new to you, to write about, which is similar in topic to the memoirs of the two authors mentioned above. I think that the structure for your memoir is fine, but you should probably avoid using GIFs and memes (like Mr. Michael said), in the future (they were quite funny though).
ReplyDelete