What It's Like: The Awkward and Awesome of Being Bilingual.

Hallo! Hello! 

So... if you follow me on twitter, you would know that inspiration has not reared its pretty little head in a while, so I decided to do awkward and awesome with a little bit of a twist. 

You all know that I live in Germany. I also speak German. I like to consider myself fluent, but then I always wonder what fluent is. Obviously I don't speak German as well as I speak English. Duh. It's not my native language. I figure, though, that if I can read 600 page novels and watch movies and carry on conversations without any difficulty, then I must be fluent. 

Anyway. 

Awkward: 

1. Reading books like The Hunger Games in German, and then discussing them in English. I don't know how to translate those made-up words. 

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2. Writing blog posts half in English, half in German. This happens quite a bit, people. I then have to go through and replace all the random German words that are dispersed throughout the post. 

3. Sleep-talking in German. Apparently this happens. 

4. Speaking Germenglish. This also happens. Quite a bit. 

5. Going to other countries where they don't speak German or English, and automatically speaking German and expecting people to understand me. I guess since they're speaking a foreign language, my brain just automatically goes to the only foreign language I know. This happened in Italy - I'd ask, "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" People would say, "English, yes. German, no." 

Awesome: 

1. Reading books and understanding them. Ummm, how cool is this? I can look at a book in a totally different language, and understand it all! 

2. Watching movies and understanding them. Again... how freaking cool, right!?

3. Thinking in 2 languages. My brain is kind of confused, apparently, but it's so cool to see how my brain thinks. 

4. Dreaming in 2 languages. Sometimes I dream in German, sometimes in English. It's weird, but cool at the same time. 

5. Being able to translate for people. I like that I can help other people to understand what's going on around them.

Happy Thursday, and if anyone finds Inspiration, send that sneaky little dude my way - I'm having "blogger's block!" 


PS: You can still enter the giveaway here.