A very European weekend

Spent a fantastic four days visiting German friends last weekend, hopping over the border on Sunday to visit Strasburg.

More photos in the gallery on the left.

Strasburg has some beautiful buildings – the old timber framed houses near the river, for example, or the Art Nouveau ones… I would gladly move over there (added attraction of speaking French and proximity to Germany…). It felt v European to just drive over there – only 2 hours from Mannheim.

It was great to use my German and French again… if somewhat painful! I have a theory that they only go passive (ie you can still recognise and understand the other language, but it becomes more difficult to use it actively), but it felt dreadful not to remember some pretty basic words which I KNOW I know. There again I sometimes can’t think of English words (that tip of the tongue feeling) so I don’t know why I’m that worried!

So I’ve resolved to improve my German:
1) I joined the Deutsch fuer Fortgeschrittene course here this week in order to speak German regularly (even if it’s only once a week) and
2) I’ve bought Patrick Sueskind’s Parfum in German, English (it saves looking up words in the dictionary! Yes I am lazy!) and German audiobook! I’ve downloaded the audiobook onto my SwimP3 as well, so I can listen as I swim. Fantastisch!

Alison Bell : 11 May 2007 19:22 |  Tags: Languages |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem