Six Years, Zero B1
Atelier ManganelThere’s a certain point in every expat’s life where someone—usually at a party, possibly holding a Club-Mate—asks: “So how’s your German?” And I always laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s easier than saying, “Look, I’ve lived here for six years and I still don’t speak it.” Not properly, anyway.
It’s not that I didn’t try. I downloaded Duolingo. I did a VHS course that smelled like dry markers and disappointment. I even bought a grammar book once, which now lives permanently under a coffee cup. But the truth is: I live in Berlin. The city that politely shrugs at your linguistic aspirations and says, “You’ll be fine in English.”
And you are. Most of the time.
The barista speaks English. The job is in English. The landlord, weirdly, also speaks English (as long as the rent’s on time). You can go months here without needing a full sentence in German, unless you’re brave enough to call Bürgeramt—which, let’s be honest, nobody is.
So you float. You get by. You learn survival phrases like kein Bon, danke and mit Karte bitte and maybe, if you’re bold, you throw in a schönen Tag noch. But anything beyond that? Feels optional. Like flossing or voting in your hometown elections.
And then there’s the other thing: Berlin is distracting. It’s loud and strange and full of things that are way more interesting than adjective endings. There’s a DJ playing ambient techno in a laundromat. A pop-up vintage sale in an old post office. A park hang that turns into a midnight existential debate about gentrification and late capitalism. Who has time for dative case when you’re busy chasing the next weird, beautiful moment?
I tell myself I’ll get serious about learning German “next month.” Next month turns into next year, and now here we are, six years deep, and my vocabulary still maxes out somewhere between kindergarten-level and small dog.
But weirdly, I don’t feel bad about it. There’s guilt, sure, a soft background hum of “you should really…” that kicks in every time I misread a sign or miss a joke. But there’s also a quiet understanding: the language I’ve learned here isn’t just German. It’s the rhythm of this city—the code-switching, the sarcasm, the shared eye-rolls on the U8. It’s knowing when to nod, when to back off, when to push. It’s not in a textbook, but it’s real.
Maybe one day I’ll get around to proper fluency. Maybe not. But I’ve got a Berlin vocabulary that works: Späti, S-Bahn, Sorry-I-don’t-speak-German-but-I-live-here-I-swear. And for now, that feels enough.
