In the one week I spent in Germany, I tried to speak as much German as I could. It went quite well, and in the end I was able to hitch-hike asking people directly in German. But once I got to Belgium I noticed something horrible: I forgot how to French!

I had learned French as a child while living in Québec, Canada.

Well, it’s ‘not quite’ French: it’s Québécois. It’s a mixture of Classical French with a bizarre pronunciation, many loan words from English, and a bunch of church-related swear words.

They might have a hard time understanding me from time to time, or make fun of me from time to time, but in the end we get along very well.

Anyways, I think I can only learn so many languages, the same way Pokemons can only learn four moves. I got German all mixed up into French, a language I used to speak fluently.

After a few days in Belgium and France, I think I finally recovered my French. Now the question is: what has become of my German? We’ll see about that once I reach Germany again =)

“Ich spreche kein Deutsch und Ich habe kein Geld”

This was the first sentence I spoke in German while in Germany on my first visit there. After that, I spent two years doing German lessons. On my second visit there, I would try to initiate a conversation in German, and I would be greeted back in English. I guess it was easy to notice that I was still a beginner in the language, and nobody bothered trying to reply in German, they’d just switch to English. I gave up after a few tries, and hardly practiced my German since then. This time I’ll force myself to keep the conversations in German, even if that means slow and repetitive conversations.