I often get questions from my friends like, “What is it like to live abroad?” or “Wow, it is cool how good is your German! Where did you learn to speak German so well? ”
And my answer?: Yes, it may all sound super cool, but the whole process behind, you have to go through at the beginning, is honestly extremely challenging.
Respectively, how do you learn to understand everyone and to understand almost everything you have never even dreamed of? You simply come to Austria with a German certificate at the C1 level. 😀
(For those who do not know these levels. Languages are being tough at six levels, from A1 – complete beginner, through A2 – advanced beginner, B1 – intermediate, B2 – upper intermediate, to C1 – advanced and C2 – professional. At the same time, many native speakers would not pass the C2 level language tests, as there is required the usage of technical and legal terms.)
But back to the topic. So you come to Austria with a German certificate at the C1 level and you find out that you do not even understand a lady at the counter in a grocery shop, not to mention native Viennese and not at all the Tyroleans, and in fact all Austrian dialects are slowly bringing you to the edge of a mental collapse. However, since I live in Vienna, I will focus my next articles on the Viennese dialect.
Quite honestly, when you speak German and suddenly upon your arrival to Austria, you find out that you do not understand people here, do not be afraid, my beginning was also extremely difficult. I often came out from some shop crying, because I did not understand a saleswoman there, where my boyfriend (native Viennese) told me, no worries, because he did not understand her either. 😀 Those countless times, when I end up crying and extremely frustrated after a visit to our Austrian friends and family, because I understood only 50% of the conversation. It is all a process you just have to go through, until you get to the point where an internal e-mail passes through the company, you are sitting in an office with 3 Austrian colleagues and you are the only one to understand the e-mail correctly, because life in Austria taught you to understand, conceive and explain really everything. Welcome to my world… 😀
