For a few years now, I’ve been attending German class at the Glasgow Goethe Institute. I had sat the B1 exam (and passed it too) in June 2012, and I sat the B2 exam a few weeks ago. I found it difficult. I’m much more used to being on the other side of the table, to setting and marking exams, rather than sitting them. Yesterday I found out that I had passers with a “Satisfactory” (Befriedigend) pass grade. I know that I’m not a linguist, but this matters to me: my good wife is German, but speaks effortlessly in perfect English, but her relatives and friends in Germany are happier to speak in German. And I was always embarrassed at being monoglot: I learned Latin at school, but rarely get the chance to speak that language. So I’ve been working at the German, which I find challenging, particularly the grammar (they have six words for “the”, and three genders for nouns, for example). Of course I realise that English presents its own difficulties, particularly in spelling, but also in word order. But the work is paying off – I can spend an evening chatting in German (not effortlessly, but I do understand more or less all that’s being said), and can read reasonably straightforward German novels, without too much difficulty.
I didn’t need the exam for anything. But I’m more motivated by having something to strive for, like most people. And now? I think I’ll not try for the C1 exam, at least in the immediate future. But i will keep reading the novels, and talking to German colleagues in German whenever they’ll let me. Keep a blog in German? Vielleicht wäre das eine gute Idee!
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