Happy Accidents

The journey that I am on is one big happy accident filled with lots of little happy accidents. This is my 22nd article, so I thought it would be fun to write about the absurdity that my life has turned into!

Firstly, in high school, I wanted to be a theoretical neuroscientist so that I could do some research into conditions such as Cerebral Palsy and find a cure! This is obviously 27 thousand miles from what I’m actually doing. This is because I was much less academic than I thought and wasn’t very good at science and maths! I studied science until halfway through 5th year before I admitted defeat and stopped!

In 6th year, I decided to study only foreign languages. Initially, I did this to have a fun and exciting last school year. I also expected French to be my strongest language because I had studied it since P6. However, my motivation for this choice changed the evening after I had first made this decision when I learned that I was going to get a German PA. I still thought that it would be fun and exciting, but  I now felt as though I had a practical reason why I was studying at least one of the languages, which made me take German more seriously than I had taken anything before.

Due to this commitment to german, I ended up disproving my own hypothesis about French! To the surprise of everyone, including myself, I turned out to be very good at German! My German teacher was my French teacher in S4 or S5, and even she was shocked at how good I was! This success led to the happiest accident of my German career…

…I was 18 and about to leave school. However, I didn’t really think that I was suitable for formal further education. So, I looked at studying at the Goethe Institut. Unfortunately, it became apparent that I wasn’t the kind of person that the Goethe Institut was looking for! I was running out of time and needed to find something to do with my life! Luckily, the head of pupil support at my school found a higher German course that I could do while I figure out what to do with my life…or at least that was the plan!

When I was studying my Higher German, I did start to look at different dance courses that I could do the following year. However, the more I thought about having dance as my primary career, the more I thought about my friends who were full-time artists and how stressed they constantly were! It occurred to me that I didn’t want that kind of life. I was no further forward with a plan, so I decided to just stay at college and do the Advanced Higher in German because I loved the language and I had gotten to know Isobel, so that was in my comfort zone!

I was halfway through my Advanced Higher when I really started to think about my future. By this time, I had fallen head over heels for the German language and saw myself studying it further. After a while, I kind of forgot that I didn’t have any desirable (AKA. English) qualifications and applied to study German at Edinburgh University! When I was inevitably knocked back from the university, I used the same “college is my comfort zone” logic and planned to stay at EC and finish my Advanced Higher French, which I had started that year but had to drop due to overwhelm. However, there was one night during the easter holidays of that year that changed my mind totally! I couldn’t sleep, and so I was lying in my bed at about two o’clock in the morning, my mind wandering, and that was when I realised three things:

  1. German is my forte
  2. I could probably be a German teacher for children with additional support needs if I really put my mind to it
  3. I could study at The Open University because you don’t need qualifications to get in and also I wouldn’t even have to worry about living somewhere else!

 The morning after these epiphanies, I shared the final one with my mum and Auntie. They were pretty keen on the idea, especially my mum because it meant that I would be busy for the next six years! Although I was pleased with the plan, I wanted to run it past my French teacher for two reasons. Firstly, she would probably have been the one I would have been working with the following year if I had stayed to finish my French. Secondly, she was the head of languages at the college, so she felt like a good person to ask.  When term had started again, I sent her an email detailing the idea and she was so keen on the idea that she practically told me to get out of the college! Once I had this rather enthusiastic advice, I applied for the OU!

I thought that the happy accidents had stopped when I got to uni. My first 6 months went according to plan…well apart from me managing to do a whole academic year’s worth of German in 4 months! Things were seemingly calm and quiet and I was getting ready to do the French module that I thought I had to do in October. I have realised over the last four years that the French conditional tense has a lot of silent letters which always confuses me. For this reason, I was feeling rather anxious, although Aoife and Isobel had promised to help. I was not only anxious about having to write in French; I was also very worried that I was going to forget all of my beloved German because this was going to be my first German-free year since I started learning it.

This is when yet another happy accident happened…

My mum is lovely but she really likes to talk! I had taken her to the German day school because I didn’t have support that day. I was being my usual unicorn-of-a-german-student self and all the staff were amazed! I had told the staff that I was independent so they should raise anything with me. Similarly, I had instructed my mum not to get involved in my uni affairs…

…but how many mothers can resist butting into their daughter’s life?…

Before I knew what was going on, Mum and the head of German at the university were talking about me! The head of German was complimenting my German mastery and my mum was explaining how I couldn’t do the next level of German even though I really wanted to because I hadn’t done this French module yet and how Aoife had explained that I needed to do all of level 1 before you are allowed to do a level 2 module. The head of German said that she thought that languages might be a little different and you might be able to do the next level of one language before you do the other languages! After a week or so, she sent me an email saying that I could in fact study German! My day was made!

In conclusion,  even though I didn’t plan any of this journey, I am pleased with how it unfolded. I’m not necessarily religious but there is a saying “When God closes a door, he opens a window” and I feel like that sums up my journey very well. I think that too much pressure is put on young people to have a career plan by 16. My journey has been organic and amazing and I think that more people should embrace the unknown, embrace failure and embrace new ideas.  

Eemmcg04💜 

English vs German

One of the most confusing things about me is that I suck at English (writing this article with Grammarly), but I am excellent at German. People say it is because English is taught differently than modern foreign languages in schools. Still, I have noticed a few other discrepancies between the two languages that may explain this weirdness!

First of all, German is much more phonetic than English. In other words, German words sound exactly like how they are written, whereas English has silent letters and homophones. The German term for the art of taking photos is Fotografie, which sounds exactly how it looks, unlike the English term photography, which has not one but two silent ph’s! Similarly, hearing the question “Which witch is which?” in English can be very confusing since the words “which” and “witch” sound identical. However, the German equalivent “welche Hexe ist welche?” clearly distinguishes the question word from the noun, limiting the need for the hearer to visualise the sentence in their head.

Although German spelling is reasonably straightforward, one has to be aware of umlauts, which are two dots which can appear on the top of the vowel in a German word, which not only alter the pronunciation of the word but also the meaning. An example of this, which always makes me stop and think for a second, is hatten and hätten. Although they are technically spelt the same, hatten means “had”, and it is pronounced how it looks. However, hätten with an umlaut means “would have”, and it is pronounced “hehtten”…all because of 2 dots!

One of my favourite things in German is that you can express almost an entire English sentence in one or two words. For example, Katzenpfotenballenhimbeermarmeladenglastunker means “cat’s paw pads dipped into a pot of raspberry jam”! The long words can put learners off the language, but it comes in handy for two main reasons. Firstly, beginners can express complex ideas without worrying too much about sentence structure. Additionally, students can express complex ideas in an essay while keeping the word count down!

Another interesting point to note is that English has two present tenses, meaning that the sentences “I dance” and “I am dancing” carry separate meanings. However, the German sentence “ich tanze” can mean both of these things and if you want to be extra precise, you can add a time phrase, for example, “ich tanze jetzt” means “I’m dancing now” and “ich tanze montags” means “I dance on Mondays”. So, it could be argued that there is one less tense to learn in German than in English.

However, there is one more letter in the German alphabet! ß, not to be confused with B, is called a “scharfes S” and makes a ss sound. About 20 years ago, there was a spelling reform in Germany, and most of the ß’s were removed and replaced with a double s, except a few words like heißen (to be called) and a certain German swear word! I find that one benefit of having such a unique letter is that the ß makes words memorable. In other words, because ß is not in the English alphabet, you tend to remember how to spell words that contain the letter.

 The final issue that I’m going to discuss is cases. In German, cases allow the word order in a sentence to be much more flexible than in English. For example, there is only one way to say  “The dog bites the man” in English because changing the word order would change the sentence’s meaning: “The man bites the dog”. However, thanks to the cases of the German language, both the sentences “der Hund beißt den Mann” and “den Mann beißt der Hund” convey the same message of a man being bitten by a dog because “der” is the word for “the” in the nominative case which is used for the subject of the sentence, whereas “den” is the word for “the” in the accusative case which deals with the (direct) object of the sentence, so, although this sounds a bit technical, it means that when German words jump around the page, I still know what is happening to what!

In conclusion, although English is traditionally taught differently from modern languages in educational institutions, it could be argued that German, despite being quite notorious for having complicated grammar, is a generally more user-friendly language. It indeed takes a bit of work to memorise all the grammar rules in the German language, but it has fewer exceptions to its rules than English. Currently, in Scotland, there is a lot of stigma surrounding learning German, and because of this, German teachers are dramatically rare. This means that not every school offers the language. I think that if we break the stigma, then there will be more demand for German classes, and eventually, the number of German teachers will equal the number of French and Spanish teachers in Scotland. This will, in turn, decrease the pressure on the existing German teachers in the country!

If a non-verbal kid who sucks at English can fall in love with the German language and succeed this highly in it, then indeed, anyone can.

eemmcg04💜

Day School

Have you ever felt like people know you better than you know yourself?

I was talked into one of the best experiences of my life recently!

My uni does something called cross-level day schools. Students and staff from all levels of a particular subject (in this case, German) gather to discuss the subject for a day.

At first, I was not going to attend this event due to a few factors, the most prominent of which was shyness. However, over time, and with some encouragement from the two influential women in my life, I eventually realised that this would be an excellent way to immerse myself in the German language while I can’t go to Germany yet. So, after a month of considering it, I applied.

On Monday, the staff reached out to me to discuss my needs. I thought it would be great to attach the link to the article on the Edinburgh College website about me to my reply so that they could understand how unique and skilled I was. About 5 minutes after I had sent that email, I had another brilliant idea! I realised that these people were German speakers, and I had the bilingual leaflet about my needs from my encounter with SZENE 2WEI last week, so  I also sent them that!

They were very impressed with both the leaflet and my backstory! I could tell that they were excited to meet me and work with me!

Yesterday came. My mum suggested that I wear my favourite T-shirt, which says EAT SLEEP DEUTSCH REPEAT. At first, I thought it was a bit cheesy to wear that to a German event, but I soon came around to it, and it turned out to be my first point of popularity!

Uni has a weird system. Even though the language courses have two entry levels, beginners and intermediate, both are classed as level 1. Because of this, when I began to speak German, there was a ripple of shocked remarks about how good my grammar and vocabulary were! These comments came from the staff as well as the other students! I couldn’t stop smiling because I had never been a talking point in a classroom for a good reason before! One of the tutors who was teaching level 2, a lovely young woman from Inverness, even leaned over to me at one point and said, “ok, you have to do Level 2 next year!” which I found bittersweet because I am not allowed to do level 2 German next year because of complicated rules!

After lunch, I did my second 1-1 speaking session (my first was about a certain cat) with the same woman on the German book Der Vorleser, which you might remember I studied for my Advanced Higher German. Here, I earned the nickname Wörterbuch (dictionary) because the woman forgot the word for judge, and I typed out “Richter” for her!

The last exercise of the day made me a bit self-conscious. I was paired with a beginner gentleman who was a little behind on the course, and we had to write about our best or worst holiday. I think that seeing someone so young write a detailed paragraph about getting sunburned in the south of France because her suncream was not waterproof and then get asked to read it out to the class possibly made him feel bad because I definitely got a look.

In conclusion, I’m exceedingly grateful that I didn’t miss this opportunity. I want to thank my mum and Isobel for getting on my case about it. My mum was talking to one of the staff at the event, and supposedly, there is another German school over the summer, but this time abroad! If I had a passport and if I didn’t have to spend the summer learning French, then I would totally sign up for it because, quite frankly, if it was this fun in Scotland, it would be amazing abroad!

SZENE 2WEI

At the start of the year, I was explaining to my agent that I had finished one of my uni modules and therefore had more time to do dance work when as if our conversation had been overheard, she got a notification from Creative Scotland that the German inclusive dance group Szene 2wei were holding a workshop in Glasgow! We instantly agreed that this was my dream opportunity and I booked myself onto it!

Due to my disability, there are a few things that people should know before dancing with me and I found the idea of communicating them all on the morning of the workshop very daunting, so I decided to write a bilingual leaflet in English and German detailing the important points that people needed to know and sent it to the tutors. 

The class was on Thursday in Govan which is literally on the other side of the country as my village so I was a bit nervous about getting there! However, me and my assistant made it on time and in one piece.

When I arrived at the workshop, I met the admin lady who I sent my leaflet through. After a few minutes of general chitchat, she made some comment about how nice it was that I was fluent in German! I had never been called fluent before, so I quickly denied it and explained that I was just a German uni student! Little did I know that the next six hours would prove to me just how proficient I was in the language!

Although two of the tutors were trilingual (Spanish, German and English), the third, a teenage boy called Jürg, was not able to speak much English at all so he relied on the other tutors to translate what he said into English and what other people said into German. At first, I noticed that I could picture how each German word that was said would look written down… however, after I had caught myself doing the instructions before they were translated on three separate occasions, I realized that I could actually understand everything that Jürg was saying perfectly!!

I used to think that people were just being nice when they complimented my German but this experience made me realize that my listening and writing skills have dramatically improved!

In conclusion, I’m really pleased that this opportunity didn’t pass me by as it truly highlighted to me how proficient I actually am in German. Isobel mentioned something a few weeks ago about me being able to practice “in the wild”. She was talking about pedagogy. However, this workshop gave me an excellent opportunity to practice German in the wild!

Eemmcg04💜

Award Ceremony 2

 In December, I got a rather unexpected response to the Christmas card I had sent Isobel. As well as commenting on how well I had drawn the cat, she also informed me that a man had contacted her about me, she didn’t know very much about them, but she said that he was from something called the British Education Awards and I should contact him because he was interested in my previous German achievements at Edinburgh college! I got this email first thing in the morning so my ability to explain things was limited so I forwarded the email to my mum. She was very sceptical about the legitimacy of this but I knew in my heart that Isobel was too intelligent to fall for a scam like this so I sent the guy an email. 

One of the event organisers replied with a form for me to fill out with my personal details and my contact details.  I did consider what my mum had said when I was asked to provide my social media profiles but again, my heart and gut were telling me that it was fine as I completed and sent the form.

The first Monday after New Year I received my invite. It called for formal eveningwear I had never been to such a formal event! I also noticed that it was in Manchester which is a very long way from my home in North Queensferry. Immediately I told my mum and Isobel the news! 

Even though I was excited about the ceremony, I was a little nervous that Isobel wasn’t going to be there. However, as I was leaving the house for Manchester on Thursday evening,  my PA came across a handwritten envelope addressed to me. I looked at it in confusion and then told her to open it. When I saw that it contained a small unicat pin, I thought “No, surely not!” but the accompanying card confirmed my theory… it was a good luck present from Isobel! Grinning like some kind of deranged Cheshire cat, I had my PA put it in my bag! I now didn’t feel so bad, excited about the ceremony and I felt like I was going to have a piece of Isobel with me. Yes, maybe not the physical person but a snippet of her spirit and that was better than nothing!

Friday night came. I decided to wear the unicat for emotional support. Weirdly I am normally quite a socially nervous person, but Isobel’s gift made me dramatically more confident. I even made friends with one of my fellow finalists and friended her on Facebook which is unheard of for me in a room full of strangers! 

The time for the Special Achievement category came, behind my pin, my heart was racing like one of my dad’s ACDC tracks! Suddenly all 4 finalists were declared winners, I couldn’t believe it! In a minute, two men in suits were lifting me in my wheelchair onto the stage and I was being presented with a framed certificate and a glass trophy!  

At the end of the night, the finalists were asked to applaud the people who helped them get where they are today; I looked down at my chest, not because I was shy but because I had one of the most influential people who helped me get to where I am pinned to my dress, when I came to Edinburgh College, I was a shy teenager who loved the German language for some reason, but I left the college as a passionate young woman who knows how talented she is in German. This wouldn’t have been possible without such a caring, supportive tutor.

In conclusion, I am not even 21 but I have two awards for my German education! It’s funny to think that all this started with one single person. 4 years on, I still don’t understand what Lisa has done to me but I love it!

My 2023 In Language

The year 2023 has been eventful in terms of my language adventures. I started the year studying French and German at Edinburgh College with no particular plan for my future, and I have ended it as an award-winning German speaker who is studying language at university! So, let’s see what my year has been like!

In early January, I got another Polish PA, so I started to learn Polish again. Unlike the last Polish girl whom I had before, Milena has been speaking English for a short time. She, therefore, Is less confident, so I have not only been learning her language but have also been helping her to communicate when we’re out via translating things into Polish and paraphrasing other things from colloquial English to simple, direct English. My Polish is still not that good, so when we get stuck, we either use Google Translate or mime at each other! I am now using Busuu to improve my Polish, but because of my university studies, my progress is slower than expected.

In February, I decided to drop out of my French college course and focus on my German because doing two Advanced Highers and various dance assignments was becoming impossibly overwhelming! Around the same time, I applied to do a degree in German Studies at Edinburgh University, so my original plan was to come back to my Advanced Higher French if I didn’t get into uni. This actually remained the plan for a while after my application to Edinburgh was rejected.

March and April were a turning point for me. I started thinking of becoming a foreign language teacher for people like me so that more non-verbal linguists could arise from society. These thoughts strengthened, and eventually, I asked my French teacher what she thought of me studying language at the Open University. She was very encouraging of the idea, and the morning after this conversation, I decided to take her advice and apply! I remember the excitement of emailing Isobel to tell her I was going to university after all! I was so excited that I wrote the entire message in fluent German!!

I can only describe the month of May as a German emotional rollercoaster! Firstly, I had my final exam for my advanced higher German, which (should have) marked the end of my time at Edinburgh College. I was proud of everything I had achieved in my two years there but also sad because (I thought) it was the last time I would ever see Katzenkönigin. Two weeks later, however, I was proven wrong on both of these assumptions as I was invited to accept the German Student Of The Year award at the college’s end-of-year prize-giving ceremony in June!

After an emotional award ceremony and saying à proper goodbye to Isobel, I wanted a German-language partner; I looked in the open uni’s student community pages, hoping to find someone there. Despite making friends with Aoife along the way, my search was inconclusive…until I stopped looking and literally went on holiday! 

In July, I was on a week-long musical theatre course where I met Celine, a young dance student from (wait for it) Germany! Precisely what I was looking for the previous month!! We didn’t take too long to start talking, and by the end of the week, we were (much to the amazement and jealousy of the other people on the course) switching freely between English and German in our conversations! After the course, we decided to keep in touch.

I started university in September. I took to the German side of things like a duck to water, and by the official start date on October 7th, I was already a couple of months ahead in my German studies. In October, I also met my German lecturer for the first time, which shocked the system after spending the last two years with Isobel! I have also been supporting Aoife with her studies, which has felt good because she has been supporting me with general student life.

Finally, on Christmas day, I met my cousin’s Ukrainian friend, Ten. I was not given enough notice to learn Ukrainian independently, but as fate would have it, Aoife speaks Ukrainian, so I got her to help me!

In conclusion, I was expecting none of this year’s events, but I have enjoyed the spontaneity of it. Next year is the year of my 21st, so I can’t wait to see what surprises it holds!

Eemmcg04💜

UNI


This year, I hit quite a milestone. I became a university student in October when I started my degree in Language Studies with German and French at the Open University. This week is the last week of the first semester, so I decided to write an article about my uni experience so far.

This year, I am studying German and a module called Exploring Languages and Cultures, which, as the title suggests, is about the science of language and culture. The two classes are interesting in their separate fashions. 

Firstly, the German module deals with the vocabulary and the grammar of the German language (yes, weird for a German class, I know 😂) as well as the traditions, culture and history of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. People who have been reading The Non-Verbal Linguist for a while will know that German is my favourite foreign language, so you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I’m three months ahead with my work on this module!  Although some of the work is just revision from my days at Edinburgh College, the module has helped consolidate my grasp on the more complex German grammatical concepts that I was a little shaky on in college. I’m still adjusting to the absence of Isobel, and even though I kinda miss her, not having her has caused me to become more independent in my studies, especially in finding out information!  I’m finding problems I would have asked Isobel for help with last year; I can now figure out independently with some creative thinking. I have never scored below 88% in the three assignments that I have gotten back so far, so I must be doing something right!

Exploring Languages and Cultures deals with the syntax (construction) of different languages, how people learn language, different types of communication, etc. It is a lot of reading and writing, but I find it interesting. One of my most notable eureka moments happened two weeks ago when I found out that the thing I had been calling Dinglish for three years was actually a genuine concept called code-mixing that me and Lisa dīdn’t, in fact, make up! The assessment method for this module is solely through essays, which get marked down if the grammar is wrong! Having failed N5 English not once but three times, I was very nervous about this. However, my mum recommended a program called Grammarly, which is actually helping me write this article! I have to say, thanks to this piece of software, I have produced two high-quality academic texts, which I never thought was possible!

Finally, I have to discuss Aoife. Pretty much since I applied to the OU, this young woman has stopped me from freakīng out, made me laugh and been there for me. My cousin started uni at the same time as me (different universities), and I remember my aunt saying that uni friends are important in your life, and I can now see what she meant. Aoife has been a big part of my university experience, and I couldn’t imagine this chapter without her.

 In conclusion, the transition from college to uni has undoubtedly been an interesting period, and personal issues have made it more interesting. Still, I can see how much I’m academically and personally developing. I can’t wait to see what next semester holds. 

eemmcg💜

Which App?


Now that the schools are starting back, you might be wondering how to support your child with their modern language studies or maybe you have always wanted to learn another language yourself for fun, travel or social reasons? Whatever your motivation is for language learning, one very useful resource is language learning apps. I have used 4 apps for learning various languages in my life so in this article I shall discuss the pros and cons of each of the apps Busuu, Duolinguo, Mondly and Rosetta Stone.

Busuu

A member of my staff told me about this app during the summer holidays and I have been using it to get my German tip top before I start uni. First of all you can pick your level of fluency from beginners, intermediate 1, intermediate 2 and native. I am currently working on the intermediate 2 course which is at B1 level and I feel like I’m going beyond Advanced Higher level! You learn by following a course just like any other language learning app but what makes it unique is the fact that learners have access to a community of native speakers of the language that they are learning. The community can see some of the learner’s written and spoken exercises and can correct them. You earn stars for completing lessons as well as for correcting other people’s work. Your number of stars determines your place in your league and the top ten people in every league graduate to the next league at the end of every week.

Although Busuu is free , you can pay for premium . I have done a week free trial of the premium and although you get some advantages such as no adverts and every lesson being unlocked so you can study in whatever order you want. I don’t think it’s worth paying for.


Duolinguo

I started to learn Dutch with Duolinguo about 10 years ago and this is not really the best language learning app in my opinion. You only get to unlock one lesson per day and the language is not really realistic, my friend from uni recently gave me some good evidence to back this up. Like me, Aoife is trying to get her German sharp for the start of class in October and among various other methods, she is using Duolinguo and one day she came across a question involving a woman and her dog running 200km every day which I’m sure you agree is a ridiculous scenario!

Despite this, the game feel of Duolinguo can be good for you if you have a young child who you have decided to raise bilingual. The bright colour scheme and the adorable owl mascot can be appealing to kids and completion of lessons is rewarded with badges so it’s possible that your 4 year old will not realise that they are learning and think it’s a game. The best thing is that it’s free so anyone can get it for their children without having to worry about spending money.

Mondly

I used Mondly to learn Italian ages ago but from what I can remember, it was quite good. Unlike Duolinguo, you actually learn more useful things such as how to call an ambulance in your target language as well as the grammar of the language. Your daily usage is tracked using a line graph which is so satisfying to look at . This can act as a motivator as I personally found myself wanting to use the app so my graph didn’t go flat.

I believe that there is an option to pay for premium but I have never tried it myself and therefore I don’t know what advantages you get with it.

Rosetta Stone 

When I was first starting to learn German I used this app and although it is quite expensive, it’s quite good . Learners pick from beginners , intermediate and advanced levels and I was able to cohesively transition from one level to the other without trouble. Beginners level takes you all the way from learning to introduce yourself to the beginning of Scottish N5 level! Although it doesn’t explain issues as explicitly as Busuu, you get to learn all of the important tenses of your target language. Lessons are split into different skill sets so on any given day you can choose wether you want to study vocabulary before grammar but after listening or in any other order you please. The other good thing about the app is rather than pairing words in the target language with words in the learners’ native language, it pairs words in the target language with pictures only. This encourages learners to start thinking in the target language which is a very useful skill to learn no matter if you are preparing for an exam or going travelling.

In conclusion, there are many different language learning apps out there for many different types of learner. Whether you just want to use one app religiously or pick and mix lots of different ones is up to you. They can help you at whatever stage of your language learning journey you’re at and they make your screen time positive. Why not download one today?

eemmcg💜

Talk Sheet

My first language is English and so I mostly use it to  communicate with people. However, being a non verbal communicator means that you have to actually learn how to communicate with me. I’m starting to see a few parallels between this learning process and the process of learning a foreign language. Therefore in this article I am going to discuss one of my favourite communication methods and how it works along with some of the feedback that I have gotten from multiple conversation partners over the years.

In my previous articles, I have discussed how I use my nose to type on my iPad. Although it is a very effective way to communicate detailed and accurate information, it is not always the most convenient way to communicate because I require a table to have it on so I can have a strong, stable writing surface. Because of this quite specific criteria, I often prefer to communicate using something that I call my Talk Sheet.

The Talk Sheet is a laminated A4 sheet with the letters of the alphabet grouped into 5 colour coded boxes, plus an extra yellow box to give me enough colours. In each box is 6 different coloured letters, each one is the same colour as a specific box. Picking a letter from the sheet consists of a seemingly simple 2 step process. First I look at a box to indicate the colour of the letter I want and then I look at another box to indicate which letter of that colour it is. For example, if I wanted the letter Z, I would first look at the bottom left box which has a red outline and then I would look at the bottom middle box because Z happens to be the red letter in that particular box.

A, I, P and X are particularly confusing letters because they are the same colour as the  box that they are in. This means that when I pick any of these letters, my eyes don’t actually move! A very common mistake here, especially for beginners, is forgetting that some letters are the same colour as the box and wondering why I’m just staring at a box intently! To help with this, I nod when my conversation partner states the colour that I’m looking at to confirm that it is the correct colour and also to indicate that I’m now telling you the letter.

I have to repeat this process for every single letter so remembering everything that I have said can sometimes be a challenge. Most beginners prefer to write each letter down on paper or their phone. This is particularly useful for people with dyslexia because according to at least 4 people who have the condition, “trying to remember multiple letters at once is difficult because they get muddled up and you also start to forget the start of the word”. Experienced people can mostly do it in their head but most of them have been working on it for years.

I rarely just say one word, so to indicate a space, I stick both my arms out either side. This aspect is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t always remember to do it, sometimes I get so caught up in the conversation that I totally forget to do the sign! Secondly my conversation partner forgets that this sign actually exists because they are so busy remembering how to do it along with what I have said. Both of these incidences result in a long string of letters which nobody can understand.

I think that the worst mistake that people make is avoiding using the Talk Sheet because they are not good at it! Just like learning German, you can only learn the Talk Sheet if you practice it! You wouldn’t go to your first ever German class and then travel to Germany the next day and expect to be fluent, nor would you give up your German once you realise that you weren’t, would you? Just as you would keep practicing and practicing your German until you were fluent, so too do you need to adopt the same attitude when you are learning the Talk Sheet.  

I do let people predict the word that I’m going to say, for example , if I have already said the letters D and O, you might say dog and I would either nod to confirm that I am indeed saying dog, or shake my head to indicate that I am in fact saying a different word that happens to begin with D O, for example Doc Martens. You can also guess the word from the context of the conversation. If you have just asked me about my favourite animal, I am more likely to be saying dog rather than Doc Martens which would be an appropriate guess if you had just asked me what shoes I wanted to wear. Whilst predicting single words is acceptable and actually quite a good way to save time, one of my greatest bugbears is when people attempt to guess the entire sentence that I am trying to say! These people are hardly ever right and it also kind of takes away my own voice because I tend to have quite an unique turn of phrase!

In conclusion the Talk Sheet can be quite easy for the keen, committed and patient person to learn. As with all foreign languages, it does take a bit of time to get the hang of but once you learn how to do it, it’s an indispensable tool to communicate with me!

Eemmcg💜

Award Ceremony

I have been dying to write this article for weeks now but I have had to keep quiet about this very exciting news until now!

I had thought that my magical college journey had ended on May 5th when I finished my Advanced Higher German exam…but about 10 days after the exam I got a very unexpected email from the college with the perfect epilogue to this wonderful 2 year story….

…I had won an award for my studies in German!

I couldn’t believe my eyes! I fully interrupted the conversation that my mum and PA were having and then almost had a panic attack because of my sudden overexcitement! While I got my breath back, my mum read the email for herself. Sure enough, I had just won an Achievement Award and was invited to the Edinburgh College Prize Giving at the Granton campus on June 9th!

In all my excitement, my brain didn’t make the connection that Isobel maŷ have had something to do with this, so, because of this, when I had calmed down a bit, I emailed Isobel to tell her this awesome news. She said that it was well deserved and called me “the most German Germanist ever”, I was still ignorant to the fact that she already knew what I had just told her and I remained that way until after the ceremony when she blatantly told me!

The week before the ceremony, I was emailed by someone at the college who was asking to write a story about me for the college social media channels! I said yes on the condition that she also talked to Isobel as my success was the result of teamwork. She agreed to this and sent me a list of questions to answer. I got the job done within the evening and sent the document back to her.

Little did I know that insisting on her talking to Isobel would come back to bite me…in the nicest way possible!

When I received the draft on Thursday, I saw that Isobel had said some extremely lovely things about me . So lovely in fact, that I got tears in my eyes reading them! I did feel really loved in that moment, if ever so slightly annoyed because I was crying!

Friday evening had finally arrived ! Earlier that day Isobel had sent me a little message just saying that she was really excited about the evening, so I was already in the spirit of the night!

I arrived looking my usual glamorous with my mum and my auntie Alice in tow, I also met my friend Joe, who I had also invited to the event. It was very fancy. I was shown the portable wheelchair lift that would carry me onto the stage, it worked fine . Then the official photographer took a couple of photos of me and my family. The event co-ordinator then prompted my family to choose their seats then we went to the foyer which had plenty of drinks and snacks although I was way too nervous to eat or drink anything! After a while, Isobel found her way to me which temporarily settled some of the butterflies. She introduced me to her boss, who, she explained, I would be photographed with when I was presented with my certificate. After a few minutes talking, we went our separate ways and I gave Joe a little squeeze because the nerves came back with a vengeance!

We were then shown to our seats. Joe and I were sat to the left hand side of the stage which were actually the best seats in the house! The wait felt like years and I was so nervous that I had to borrow Joe’s fidget toy! Eventually, my name was called and in my haste to get where I had to go , I actually forgot to put down the fidget!

Fidget toy still in hand, I was wheeled to the portable wheelchair lift. The audience had applauded every award winner so far, but the applause always stopped when the person had been presented with the certificate. Mine however, I felt lasted forever. It started when my name was called, kept going when I was being cranked up in the lift, didn’t subside when I arrived on stage, was still going when I was presented with my award and didn’t stop until I started to get wheeled off the stage! Wow!

As I returned to Joe, overwhelmed, he sarcastically asked for his fidget toy back. I wanted to return it, but with all the nerves of being up on stage, my hand had locked around it! It took Joe a few minutes to realise what was going on and kept trying to bargain with me! Eventually, he noticed that I couldn’t actually move my hand and, ever so gently, guided it out of the tight hand, careful not to hurt me!

The award winners were piped out! I was not expecting it but I was asked to take part in the procession! When I got to the end I noticed Isobel in the very back row, with her camera out! I gave her my biggest cheesy grin, for the camera , but more so to say thank you for helping me to get there. I know I have a talent for the German language, but I believe that, I would never have discovered my full potential if I didn’t have such a nice, supportive tutor with whom I really clicked with!

When I started learning German back in Lockdown, I never imagined that I would get this far! Not only have I just won an award for my German studies, but in October, I am going to start my degrees in language studies with German and French at the Open University! I still can’t believe that this all started because of one singular person! Saying that’, before I met her, I was not really on any particular path ,so it raises the question of whether people come into your life to set you up on a journey.

eemmcg