I can definitely tell that my German is improving slowly. I can pick up bits of pieces of conversations and get the general idea of what’s going on (well, usually I assume a lot, so who knows if I’m right).

This evening, coming home from the gym, I ran into my neighbor. The conversation went a little like this:
Her: “Wie geht’s?”
Me: “Gut, danke. Und dir?”
Her: “Gut.”
Me: “Pizza?” (referring to the pizza box in her hand–luckily pizza is pizza in German)
Her: something about eating it with her friends
Me: Nodding and smiling. Then, “Mir ist kalt.” (my favorite expression this time of year)
Her: something about winter coming
Me: Nodding and smiling.

I’d really love to have more intelligent conversations with people. I hope I don’t run into her again, because I’ve already exhausted my small talk vocabulary.

I’m from the “now” generation, so of course my progress isn’t fast enough for me. But I also realize I could be working harder at learning the language. I attend class one night a week, but I don’t study on my own.

My goal for the fall is to spend more time learning and speaking so I can impress my brother when he comes for Christmas.

I’m going to:
-Always speak in German when I’m at a store (I usually default to English because I get embarrassed)
-Read some German children’s books before bed (maybe I can go to the park and read to the kids! or would that be creepy…)
-Spend at least an hour on Sundays studying
-Use my friends and co-workers. I am surrounded by great people who all really want to help me learn German. I need to take advantage of that!

I’ll report back at Christmas with my progress (maybe even write a post in German!)