What is this blog all about?

The main purpose of this blog is to give an overview of the things I do, in my everyday life, in order to improve my English. Since I am a very lazy person, I mostly read, and watch movies, and do things which make it possible for me to improve my vocabulary, my grammar and my accent without getting bored... So this blog is going to be about the books I read, the movies I watch, and some other things which I find relevant (or not)...

I hope you'll like it! Don't hesitate to leave comments if you have any suggestions concerning what I should write about!!

mardi 22 mai 2007

I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

Beuh, reader, I'm in a very very bad mood.
I read Tina's post about language learning this morning, and realized there was something seriously wrong with my German. I don't have a pattern. I don't have a plan. I thought, with German, it would go just as it went with English, I would read books, speak with people, try never to be shy, watch movies, and try to speak german to myself, think in German, and then, little by little, I would start being able to have interesting conversations, and write interesting stuff, and have good results. Obviously, it's a failure.
My French to German translation teacher handed our works in this morning, and I got a "nicht Genügend". OK, I guess I could live with that, no big deal. But I read the text over and over again, I thought very hard, tried to have a little bit of style, even though it was in German, tried not to translate stuff literally, I really tried to be a good translator. I thought I had actually made it! But no! Nicht Genügend!

I've been in Graz for what... about three months now, and still: Nicht bloody Genügend!! I'm so angry at myself!! I really do think that my German is getting better day by day, but obviouly it's not true!!! It's just so disappointing!! I mean, she told me "if your grammar was bad, I would try to give you a good mark because of your syntax and your style. If that was bad, I'd try to give you a good mark because of your grammar. But both your grammar and your style are hopeless, so what can I do?"... Imagine my face, reader!! I was not alone, which was good, she said that to all of us poor French Erasmus students taking this course, but still...

It would be pretty easy to blame it on the teacher I guess, saying she's mean, and stuff, but she isn't, she is only telling me the dreadful truth: My German sucks, after 3 months abroad and about 10 years of dreary studies.


There we go. I thought I'd open up to my beloved reader, because I'm feeling bad, and also write that down, so that I can't pretend it did not happen tomorrow. Anybody have an idea concerning what I can do? Appart from giving up on being a translator and just start casting for American Idol?


Well, reader, I guess I'll just leave it at that for today, and go fetch something very sweet to eat. And then I'll keep on learning my vocabulary for tonight's test, instead of feeling sorry for myself!

4 commentaires:

Fran a dit…

Mêêêêêê ça va veniiiiiiiir, voyons... l'anglais c'est la langue la plus facile au monde, on peut pas la prendre comme template pour les autres !! Pis si jamais t'es vraiment trop découragée, mets-toi donc au japonais, tu verras : l'allemand, à côté, c'est de l'anglais.

Allez, te décourage pas -- il faut fréquenter plus d'Autrichiens !! (aha... du coup, ton récent choix était-il vraiment stratégique, du point de vue linguistique ??) ;-)

Allez, bizzzz
Françoise

Claire a dit…

Merci de ton soutien!!

C'est la cata, franchement, elle a vraiment été dure avec nous!! Mais bon, tu as raison, il ne faut pas perdre espoir, ça va finir par s'arranger! Et oui, tu as raison, ma récente décision ne va sans doutes pas faire de bien à mon allemand... mais tout de même, tout de même, je préfère quelques fautes de grammaires... :D

Bonne soirée! Plein de bisoux!

Birgit a dit…

Well Claire my dear, there's something I need to tell you: Your German is pretty good!
And don't say no, we did some German chatting today ;)

I wouldn't give you a Nicht Genügend!

Claire a dit…

Danke Birgit!! I hope my teacher will listen to you when she's making me do my mündliche Prüfung next week... *fear*... :)

Thanks for commenting!! Thanks for being so nice to me!! :)