“Buenos dias” was how the participants from the Dominican Republic greeted me, “Sawadee khap” were the first words of our guest from Thailand, “Mahabar” was what the participants from Syria called out to me and “Jó napot” was how Hungarian participants entered the room. Also heard were “ruuz bakheyr”, “Miredita”, “dzien dobry”, “Kalimera”, “Buon Giorno” and “dobar dan”.
The integration course number 55 started in mid-2016 with 25 participants. Many lived directly in Amberg and only had to walk to school for a few minutes. Others came by bus and train from the entire district, even from Auerbach, which is relatively far away.
Once again I was able to welcome the whole world into the small room on the first floor of the Josefshaus. But no matter whether Thailand or Syria, DomRep or Hungary, everyone was united by the goal of learning German. And soon you could no longer hear “mahabar” and “dobar dan”, but “good day”. And so the exciting journey through the thicket of the German language began. The American could often be heard cursing when the wrong article was used. In his language everything is “the”, so why do you need three grammatical genders in German, as well as separate articles for accusative, dative and so on. The sentence
“The German language should be placed gently and reverently among the dead languages, because only the dead have enough time to learn them.”
seemed firmly anchored in the back of the participants' minds.
But as a fearless fighter for the German language, I was soon able to make this quote from Mark Twain no longer valid. I harassed the participants with exercises in all areas of language acquisition; I made them write, listen, speak and sweat, so that in the end they too felt confident enough to play the keyboard of the German articles. There were ups and downs, we experienced a heat wave (Ahh, it's so hot!) and a record cold (Please please turn up the heat!). In the end, 25 hopefuls tried the infamous “German test for immigrants”. Most of them have achieved their goal and now speak the German language at B1 level. This lays the foundation for a future here in Germany beyond war, poverty and lack of opportunity. All participants will certainly go their own way. At the end, with a lump in my throat, I said goodbye to the participants one last time. Automatically, the “goodbye” from my lips in my head turned into “hasta luego”, “bái láew ná kráb”, “maʿa s-salamah”, …
Instructor
Alessandro Musetti