I gave up on German conversations here and it cut my options in half
- Looking for
- somebody comfortable doing all of this in a shared second language
- Experience
- Three years, one dynamic, conducted entirely in English.
- Around
- Friedrichshain, Berlin
My German is good enough for a shop and nowhere near good enough for this. I tried for two years, and what happens is that the conversation stays polite and shallow because I cannot reach for anything precise, and precision is the whole point when you are negotiating what somebody may do to you. So I write in English now and I say so at the top.
Thirty one, Friedrichshain, submissive, three years in, one arrangement that ran fourteen months entirely in English.
It splits the board in two. There is a pool here that works in English and it is large, and there is another one I am simply not part of, and I have stopped feeling apologetic about that. It is not laziness. It is that I would rather be understood exactly than be admired for trying.
What I want is a structured arrangement with authority over ordinary decisions, a weekly rhythm, and somebody who checks.
Not looking for anybody who wants to use this as language practice. Not looking for a person who will switch languages when they are annoyed, which happened once and was extremely clarifying. And not looking for anyone who thinks my flat English means I am simple, because in my own language I am extremely difficult to argue with.