Mr Grumpy

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By Mr Grumpy - Wed 5th Dec 2012

 

I had an Epiphany moment today.

After 8 years plus struggling with the language I finally realised that I actually know more Spanish than I think I do.

I'm writing this Blog on the aeroplane returning from a business trip to Germany. Nothing special there except for the fact that I studied German at School for 7 years. I also read countless works of German Literature and watched endless films in the German language to help me scrape through my A-Level. At the age of 18 I considered myself to passably good at conversing in German.

And then, 12 years later I moved to Spain, and finding that there simply wasn't enough space in my already cramped mind to learn another language, I deleted my hard-drives to make space for some new grammar and vocab.

So when I found out that I would have undertake a technical visit and presentation to a client in Germany I was less than enthused.

To make matters far worse, the only vocabulary and phrases that readily came to mind were totally inappropriate and a bit random at best. Phrases explaining to a Pharmacist that I had a particularly vicious case of diarrhoea, or telling a colleague that I prefer to walk to school when it is sunny, but catch the bus when it is raining were not likely to win me any friends. Or orders for that matter.

However, for most of the visit all I could think about was how much more professionally and succinctly I would be able to make such a presentation in Spanish.

Maybe there's a lesson there for me ? : concentrate on what you can do and to hell with what you can't.