Columnist Liz Gaiser (“The Swabian Housewife”) on the joys of trying to learn a foreign language with Oma.

I don’t speak German, nor do I speak English. What I speak is Schwäblish. This is a cross between a southern German dialect – Swabian – and English. It has all the appeal of fingernails on a chalkboard. Although I have had people tell me it’s “cute,” I think that’s a polite way of saying I sound like an idiot when I speak.

I took a German course for a few months. The first few weeks seemed quite promising. I could understand everything the teacher said. However, she was the only person I could understand. She was speaking Hochdeutsch – high German. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time with my husband’s grandma, and she didn’t speak that kind of German.

‘Oma’ constantly talked about Canada and Hanoi. I always thought she was very worldly to speak of different countries. Until I realized that Canada was Swabian for Kann ich dahin? (Can I go there?) Or, on other occasions, it meant gar nicht da (not here at all.) While Hanoi meant nein.

Another thing she would always say was, “Hasch ebbes?” For a while I thought sweet, innocent Oma was looking for her hashish. Turns out it’s Swabian for “Anything wrong?” I suppose it’s like a German hearing someone say: “No gall darn way ya’ll er gonna be a loafin’ round a playin that tha gizmo till the sun is a settin!” Which means: “You are not sitting around playing Game Boy all day!”

I can’t help my children with their German homework. Der, die, das, dem, den, dessen, wessen. My God, just put a D’ in front of the word. It’s perfect Schwäbisch and much easier to remember. On the other hand, Germans just assume my knowledge of the English language is up to university standard. They call me up to ask a “simple question” about their child’s English homework. Could I just quickly tell them the past perfect participle of the complementing verb to the third power ... and so on. Yeah right!

The longer I live here, the worse my English gets. And sadly, I am not making up for it by improving my German. I am slowly developing a whole new language because of the way we speak at home. Just this morning my daughter said to me: “We planted a Kartoffel in the Schule and it’s wachsing.”

When people ask me if I ever learned anything in German language school I simply answer “Hanoi!”

Picture: flickr.com/reggaedori