Eventually, though, I got to know my students. This really helped me integrate into the community, because most of the people I come into contact with here are either friends, relatives or neighbors of my students.
After mastering my students' names, I now wanted to meet more people outside of work. I love reading books, so I decided to volunteer at the local library on Thursdays. This was a little difficult at first.
Do you remember how I told you about dialects? Bavaria is famous for its dialect, which is very hard to understand if you didn’t grow up there. “Standard German” is the language used in school and in newspapers, but the Bavarian dialect is what most people speak with their friends. When people come in to the library, they speak Bavarian instead of the German I learned in college!
In the beginning, I didn’t understand a word. This made it really hard to talk to people. I was really frustrated. I had spent four years learning German, but I still couldn’t talk to anyone. The only thing that helped was practicing the dialect every day. I’ve been working at the library for four months, now, and I can finally understand a little bit of Bavarian! And I really like this dialect. It’s so cool that there are different types of German. It makes the language more diverse and interesting. People also start speaking standard German when they realize I’m a foreigner, which really helps!
Volunteering at the library has been a lot of fun. I see people from the community all the time, including my students. I like meeting my students’ families and learning about what books my students like to read. The library also hosts events for the community.
