Wordplay

While learning German certainly has its ups and downs, lately I have discovered how entertaining language exchange can be. My terrible pronunciation and lack of vocabulary have, believe it or not, served as an icebreaker in many situations. The most prominent example of this is my constant battle with the German "r". This is a running joke with my host family, as they find my inability to pronounce this letter (which, ironically, occurs three times in their last name) quite humorous. At the same time, however, the enjoyment is not completely one-sided--last weekend, my host mother accidentally translated the song title "Der Mann im Mond" (The Man in the Moon) into "The Man in the Moose"--a translation from which her daughters and I derived much entertainment. 

It is these experiences, however, that make learning a language (and a culture) so much fun. It is always a give-and-take; I introduce an aspect of American culture, and they introduce an aspect of Austrian culture. I teach them pig latin; they teach me B-Sprache (the German equivalent). I offer to teach them how to make chocolate chip cookies; they offer to teach me how to make traditional Austrian dishes. It is truly a neat experience to be a novelty somewhere, and to see what associations different people have with the U.S. One elderly man here was under the impression that Americans regularly drive to towns two hours away simply to go out to dinner. During a visit to my host family, my host dad started talking about the danger of bears breaking into houses in certain areas of the U.S., followed by a story of a survival skills course one of his friends had completed in Canada. Such incidents remind me of a saying that my math tutor used to have posted on his wall: "Everybody is ignorant, just in different subjects." But then again, who would've thought that enlightenment could be so entertaining?