Breaking the Barrier

I began taking German classes a few weeks ago. I'm taking classes at the Volkshochschule, which is like an adult high school. My classes are on Tuesday and Thursday evenings after work from 5:00-6:30pm. I really like the class and I am learning a lot. Here I am with a picture of my teacher. Her name is Olga Meretz.

The class is complete immersion. Olga doesn't speak any English during class. For not knowing much German (if any at all), I have been able to somewhat understand what she is saying during class. The first few classes weren't too bad and I was able to keep up in my understanding of what was going on. However, now that we've gotten a few weeks into it, I'm having a bit more trouble. But, I'm hanging in there. I feel like a 3rd grader though.

There are about 15 other students in the class: 3 from Poland, 1 from Macedonia, 1 from Thailand, 1 from England, 1 from Portugal, 1 from Venezuala, 1 from Brazil, 1 from Japan, 1 from Australia, 2 (including me) from America, and couple others in which I'm not sure where they are from. Everyone is very nice....and we have to speak German because no one speaks the same language.

It's kind of funny. For some time now, I have wanted to break the language barrier so that I could better speak to people in German. Now that I am taking classes, I can usually figure out what people are saying to me, but trying to respond to them is a different story. I know what I want to say, but my brain can't think that fast to translate it into German.

Ahhh.......What's a girl to do!

Take care,
-Betsy =)