Learning German

We've been living here in Switzerland for almost 10 months now - how time flies! There are 3 official languages in Switzerland - German, French and Italian, each spoken in a different part of the country. Here in Zurich, German is the official language. But, it's not "Hoch Deutsch" (high German) which is spoken in German and Austria, it's "Schweizer Deutsch" (Swiss German). Yes, there is a big difference! Swiss German is not a written language, so newspapers, most signs etc. are all written in high German. Swiss people understand high German and will usually change over to speaking high German if you ask them to. At church, all of the talks are usually in high German - just the little kids classes are in Swiss German, since that's what they learn first at home. As a foreigner, it's best to learn high German first, then try to learn some phrases in Swiss German.
Well, we've all learned a lot of German - and we've also learned what a difficult language German is to learn! It's important to us that people don't always have to switch to English - and it really is fun and rewarding to learn a new language. Dave had spent a year during college in Berlin, then he took a 2-week intensive course when we first moved here. So, he's doing pretty well. I started from scratch - listening to Pimsleur CDs a few months before we moved here. I take private lessons - 4 hours per week until Meredith was born, and now 1 1/2 hours a week. Elise has about 3 hours of German class each week at school, and Nathan and Will go to a bilingual preschool, where there are 3 German speaking teachers and one who is a native English speaker. So, they understand a lot! Elise signed up with a couple of her friends from school for a German camp for a week in August, which will be great for her. And, Will will continue at the bilingual preschool one more year (while Nathan will move on to ICS with his big sister!).
Dave and I were asked to give talks in our ward at the end of November, after being here just 3 months. We each wrote out our talk in English, then someone from the ward translated it for us. Dave, of course, did very well with his talk, with people commenting on his great German accent. I went through the German version of my talk in excruciating detail with my German teacher beforehand to simplify it and make sure I could pronounce everything and sound somewhat like I wasn't reading a foreign language! It went pretty well. We've been asked to give our next talks at church in August (they plan way ahead here), so more opportunity to practice! And, I was recently called to be the Relief Society president here in our German speaking ward, so I need to speak even more German!
We knew before we moved here that this would be a great opportunity to experience and appreciate different cultures. Learning the language is certainly an important and fun part of it - being humbled all the time (when my vocabulary and grammar sound like a preschooler's), and gaining incredible respect for so many people here in Europe who are multilingual!
Bis bald!