Hallo aus Dresden! Herzlich Willkommen auf meinem Blog!
Hello from Dresden! Welcome to my blog!
It is hard to believe that I have now been in Germany for a little over two weeks! Since I left Ohio I have already visited three different countries, several amazing museums, and, of course, many delicious restaurants. After our first week of class, we already had our first – and last– long weekend. On June 10, we had no class as Germany observed Pfingstmontag, or Whit Monday, a holiday celebrating the day after Pentecost. Hoping to make the most of this time off, I hopped on a bus with a group of other Goethe Institut students and traveled about six hours south to Vienna, Austria. Between classes, travelling, and exploring Dresden, I have kept myself very busy!
This weekend, I decided to stay in Dresden, to have more time to get to know the city – and of course to give myself a little bit of a break! As a result, I have finally been able to reflect on the experiences I have had throughout my first couple of weeks in Germany.
When my sister and I were babies, my mom had the help of an Au pair from Germany – Dresden, to be more specific – for a few years to help take care of and raise us. Twenty years later, we are still in contact with her and her family, and consider them to be our own “German family.” After sharing with them that I would be studying in Dresden this summer, her parents so kindly offered to pick me up from the airport and to bring me to the room where I would be staying at the Goethe Institut. Though Michi, as we fondly call her, speaks fluent English, her parents do not. So, though the stress of having to figure out how to get from Berlin Tegel Airport to Dresden had thankfully been taken off of my shoulders, my somewhat lacking German-language skills made me a little bit nervous.
For me, my first week in Dresden was a lot like my first week of college – a little bit nerve-wracking and very overwhelming. No matter how much preparation and research you do, you can never be fully prepared for such a new experience.
As I had only studied German for a few years before this summer, I expected to face a little bit of a language barrier. However, there were at least to words I expected to understand: “ja” (yes), and “nein” (no). I was wrong. Throughout Saxony – a Bundesland of which Dresden is the capital – many people speak using an Upper Saxon, or Sächsisch, dialect. Though there may be many different regional accents in the United States, for the most part, the whole country speaks only one dialect. However, within the German language, there are about seven different dialects, one of which is Sächsisch. In this dialect there are different words for “yes” and “no” – “nu” and “nee” respectively.
Having lived in Saxony their whole lives, Michi’s parents use the Sächsisch dialect in regular conversation, and often say “nee” and “nu.” To a non-native speaker, not only do these words sound very similar to each other, but they also both sound a lot like “nein.” I’m sure you can imagine my initial confusion. These words, which I had initially expected to heavily rely upon, had betrayed me. But, of course, after a few clumsy interactions, her parents clarified to me what these words actually meant. After only one hour in Germany I had already learned my first Sächsich German word!
Since landing in Berlin, I have learned so much about Dresden and East German culture – though my Sächsisch vocabulary hasn’t really expanded beyond nee and nu. I look forward to learning even more in my time remaining!
Tschüssi! Bis dann!