Learning German is hard. We all know that. But back when I was in my first German class in 2012, I remember learning a few basics about grammar and verb conjugation, and thinking to myself, “Hey, maybe I’m making some progress! Maybe I’ll actually learn this ugly bastard!”
Oh silly little American nerd — I had no idea what I was in for. German keeps getting more and more complex the deeper you go, and unless you’ve been doing a perfect job of memorizing those godforsaken gender-based articles along the way, you will make mistakes every single time you open your yap and try to speak it.
But my wife, God bless her, has been 110% supportive the entire time. Never a discouraging word. Always telling me how great I’m doing, how I’m learning so much, and how I will become fluent someday. She’s fantastic like that. She still has to correct me when I make big mistakes, however, which is why our conversation back in May of 2012 went like this: We had just come home from a trip to the beach and were unpacking our bags, when suddenly I had to go poop really bad. Like, Red Alert bad. So I dropped the bags, pointed my finger to the sky and proudly announced:
ME: “Ich gehe zu scheißen!” (“I’m going to shit!”)
…to which my wife replied…
THE WIFE: “Good job. That is right, but it is very rude.”
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
As my colon ages I have sought an appropriate, yet forceful, code to communicate the urgent, frightening claim it makes upon me (from time to time). From now on: “Ich gehe zu scheißen!” (Do I need to ‘feminize’ this?!) No one will know what the hell is happening- except my partner, my colon, and I. Vielen Dank!
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Haw haw! Just remember, that sentence is not really correct. It’s just absolutely clear in its message. :)
Have a great day West!
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Oh my god, I laugh so hard! It’s my fourth year here in Germany and right now going to university and I still haven’t mastered it yet :( I feel like an Idiot when I speak with my german friends because they constantly laugh at me when i open my mouth, but they are really helpful to correct my grammar tho. As german-learner, wir müssen zusammenhalten :D
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Hey, congratulations on sticking with it for 4 years! That’s awesome, Danatidewi. Which part of Germany are you living in?
Thank you for commenting and checking out our blog. Have a fantastic evening!
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I was in Ulm and right now I moving in to Aachen, NRW :) Thank you, you guys too :)
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I am pretty sure your german friends do not laugh AT you – maybe at your mistakes, but not at YOU as a person. You have to work hard to get to a level at which we can just understand you, let alone speak it fluently.
But hey, I am making the most embarrassing mistakes in English and even more so in speaking – so what? I suck at French and cannot say anything in Mandarin. No need to feel like a failure, though.
Comfort yourself with the thought you speak far better German than they will ever be able to speak your language – so YOU are taking the whole of the load just to make conversation possible.
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Yes Mate, thank you for your advice :)
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