How the IFC messes with your ability to speak German
Being in the IFC means talking a lot of English. You talk English in class, with the internationals and even with German students you sometimes still talk English out of class. Then, when you’re just so into English speaking German again when you get home becomes a little difficult from time to time. In my case for example, I forget what some words are in German when I talk to my mom and that’s really scary because German is still the mother tongue of most of us. When you talk English most of the day it sometimes feels like you’re switching to German rather than switching to English. It gets really tricky when an international student asks you for help or for translation with German, because it seems like you could find 10 other good words for something in English but no good German translation. Another problem is when you are asked for an explanation of German grammar, because only now you realize how little sense the structure of the German language makes and you simply can’t explain why someone would invent grammatical structures like this. When you’ve spoken German all your life, you’ve learned this at some point and all you can say is: It is like this because it is like this and that’s just how it is.