Language Barrier Charades

In our program we have an option of having a "tandem partner."

A tandem partner is a native German speaker looking to improve his/her English, so they get paired up with a native English speaker hoping to improve his/her German. Basically you meet for 2 hours and speak 1 hour in English and 1 hour in German. Due to some oddities I landed myself with 2 tandem partners.

The Tale of Tandem 1:

The most awkward phase of meeting up with the tandem partner is arriving at the set location and staring down every person walking by as if to communicate telpathically:
"Are you the German I'm looking for?"
It's funny how these things just have a way of working themselves out, but I still hold fast to my belief that all Germans are telepathic. I don't know how to describe the evidence I have to support this assertion, but I believe myself to be correct.

Anyway, I meet up with Tandem 1 and we find a place to sit in the Mensa. Not an ideal location for someone not fluent in German because it is quite loud. We start in English and do the usual introductions such as, "I come from blah, this is what it's like, blah blah blah."
We got on the topic of the scale of the United States. Tandem 1 couldn't quite understand just how large Utah is. I told her, "Utah is almost as large as Germany." To which she replied with a confusing look. So I drew it for her and her eyes widened. "You tell me ffat (that) one ov your states is almost as large as my COUNTREEE?!"
Topics ranged from the size of streets in the Western United States, to the mountains, to contemporary immigration to the USA. Needless to say, both of us continued to land ourselves in conversations that were way above our vocabulary levels. Apparently she is in a class about Mexican immigration to the USA and how that parallels the Turkish immigration to Germany.

I also clarified for her the proper use of "a.m." and "p.m." when trying to communicate a specific time. When we were emailing to meet up she would write (in English), "we meet before Mensa from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.?" I found that ridiculous and assumed she meant p.m. My assumption was verified when she then asked if, "2 a.m. on Monday" would be better.


The Tale of Tandem 2:

More awkward attempts at German telepathy. I think I am getting the hang of this because I found this partner much quicker than the last. This time we sat by the Lahn where it was pretty quiet. Tandem 2's English was definitely not that great. It boiled down to us speaking in our own languages to each other with the occasional phrase in the other language. When we couldn't find an easy way of explaining things (which was often) we ended up playing charades. It must have been a sight.

We spoke mostly of holidays and the differences between the German school system and the American school system (for instance, when one semester starts and ends). The conversation didn't flow quite as easily as with Tandem 1. The reason I think is because Tandem 1 is an English major and wants to teach it so she has a lot of enthusiasm. Tandem 2 is studying Geography and is improving her English for traveling.


Thus ends this little tale.

I don't know if it shows, but right now I am having a difficult time piecing sentences together. I spent the last 2 hours reading Lord of the Rings in German and I found it a bit difficult to suddenly switch to writing full sentences in English. I'll be sure to take a breather before I do that again.

Tschuess from Marburg!