Twenty-four-year-old Vanessa De Carvalho was more than a little nervous when she decided to take a job teaching schoolchildren at a bilingual elementary school in Berlin about two years ago. Though the native of Montreal, Canada, learned several languages growing up – including English, Portuguese, Italian and French – she didn’t know a word of German. So, she remembers, her first few weeks in Berlin were filled with confusion and concern. “At the grocery store, I couldn’t ask for basic things. I had to make hand signals or show pictures in a book.”
Vanessa felt alone at first, but nothing could be further from the truth. She is just one of thousands of young North Americans who come to Germany each year to study, have fun or seek out a better life. For many, life in Germany can be shocking and overwhelming – there are new smells, sounds and food to get used to, as well as a sometimes confusing German bureaucracy. But the biggest challenge for new arrivals is often the language. In most of Germany, you can get by speaking English. But even in Berlin, where many locals happily speak English to foreigners, it pays to be able to speak some German. Luckily, language problems are also among the easiest challenges for new arrivals to work to fix. And, Vanessa decided to do just that – she’s an example that foreign young people can not just survive, but thrive in the modern Germany. Vanessa began to work on learning German on her own, while taking language classes with fellow teachers from her school. Before long, she was able to get by speaking in German, and even to ask for fruits and vegetables at the store. She made friends and had fun going out in the city. But soon she had an even bigger success. She decided to enter a story contest about language learning put on by the European Commission. The competition Tongue Stories invited people living in 31 European countries “to share their stories on the advantages of knowing languages”.
In her story, Vanessa wrote about her most frustrating time struggling with German: Not being able to understand what her pupils said. “The hardest part of the first day of school wasn’t that the students looked at me with pure confusion, it was realizing that I couldn’t understand my class clown when everyone but me would laugh every time she spoke!” Vanessa succeeded: Along with 27 other entrants from around the continent she won a trip to the Belgian capital Brussels, seat of the European Commission. In Belgium this spring, Vanessa wasn’t one of the grand prize winners of an iPad, but, she said, just winning the trip was a recognition of sorts that she had accomplished something – that even as a foreigner in a different country, she could fit in. “It makes me feel proud to be here,” she said.
Back in Berlin a few months later, Vanessa reflects over the challenging past two years while sipping a drink with some acquaintances. She is moving to Italy in a few days to pursue a new teaching opportunity. But, she says, she would continue to learn German in her free time – she can speak pretty well, but it’s still not perfect – and she would never forget the experiences she had. What would she tell other young people mulling a move to Germany? “I’d encourage them to come as soon as they can,” she says. “Germany has been a fun experience.”///
