English conversation

I don´t need to speek English in the archive, but it can be very useful, for example when we get inquiries from the UK or the USA. Besides from that, it´s fun to use English...
I sometimes watch films in English. When I went to the USA, there were only English films (without subtitles!) shown in the airplane. So I watched two films I already knew in German- "Ice Age 2" and "Oceans twelve".
amalia: You were in Sweden? Did you see any moose?? When I was a child, I went on holiday to Sweden and unfortunately, we didn´t see any moose at all.
But in the USA (Yellowstone) I had an eye-to-eye encounter with a big bull moose. This caused me goose bumps!

Aww, this is a very good idea! But I'm not so good in writing/speaking English either... That's because I bought an advanced language course for English (this product). It's great and I recommend everyone who likes to improve his English! Although it's a bit expensive. I love English, but during my time at the hearing-impaired school my English get worse even though I was one of the top pupil in my former class and my parents are speaking English with each other (because they got to know each other in England and this was the only common language).
In my library we have no English-speaking customers at all because it's a scientific library of a regional department.
By the way, my parents had a visit from their friends who are living in Newcastle. They claimed that I speak English very well. Incredible! xD
Please correct me if I do some mistakes. =(

@ Pluna:
Don't be afraid. I guess that everyone has got more or less problems with other languages. And often it's okay if you make mistakes. Real life is not school where you get bad feedback if something was wrong!

Today at the archive I had some very old letters which were written in French. In this situation I was very grateful for having had French lessons at school...
But I had to remember the things I´ve learned, for it is long long ago since I spoke/read French the last time!

On tuesday I had an english user. wow, that's always an adventure! He asked if we have a movie on english, too. Of course you can make it on english, it's a DVD!

We've got a lots of "reader" from all over the world. Because we have the FH for Clothes-Technics in Reutlingen.
I've seen passports of Venezuela, Mexico, Maroc, USA, Brazil and many more.
Some of them like to speak spanish. I can only count in spanish and can talk a few words including: Tiene algo de declarar? und Que hora es?

Nice story: a arabic man came to our library one day and said: why don't you spreak arabic??? And me: why don't you speak german???
He smiled... but surely he thought "shut up german bit..." These are cultural differences.... hehe

We had also a little workshop for English in librarys. This was a inhouse-workshop.
And sometimes I need French to talk to the customers. Yeah I'm multilingual

It's always nice to see people from all over the world

Of course it is nice, if we can use our english in the library. but I think people from other countries must understand, that we can't speak in every language with them. if they can't speak german, they have to speak english because otherwis they have a big problem. years before I was able to speak spain and french, but I forgot most of it and i never had the special vocabulary for a job in a library...

But sometimes they speak no german and their english is very bad... i.g. most of the chinese and indian people. I had a lot of these people in my trainee library, whaaaa! You can't do anything, we had to communicate with our hands and feets. Now it is better, because in this library there are lots of spanish and french speakers, so I also can use my other language skills if we don't understand us with the english language.

I learned the english terminology for the library in the vocational school. But I make the experience, that the users don't know them, so it is very useless for daily conversation.

Zitat von Susi87

I need also to speak with hands and feet

hey Susi, I guess that isn't an english phrase. But its really so that the special vocabulary you learned in school not allways helps. Than we have the same problems. English users sometimes understand us but user from other countries which have to speak english cannot.

... I thougt in these time it is standard to teach english in schools, vacational schools and sometimes in firms (for older employees or for refreshing). So I think everybody could speak and understand a few things in english (at least the easiest phrases).

don't forget, english is th language of the world and not german. so why should guest from other countries have to speak german when they can speak english? often they aren't for such a long time in germany that there is the need to lear it...

... and those, who stay in Germany for a few weeks or month (if they are scientists, business people or even sportsmen/women) learn the most important phrases in german language or the language essentially. Or is there anyone, who learn arabic for a 1-week-holiday in Egypt? I was there and visit Alexandria and, of course, the library there. Nobody expect that I speak arabic, but there all employees have to speak english.

oh my godness! when i think about leanring such a difficult language just for holidays... that`s cruel. i guess i wouldn`t go there.

and it`s right. whoever stays in germany a bit longer, learns som phrases. that`s normal.