Can't Say Strawberry

I bet you all thought Insert Title Here was actually the real title eh??

So this blog will be called Can’t Say Strawberry from now on, not that the URL or anything changes as a consequence, but if any of you (three) readers have me bookmarked, then the title needs to be changed!

As for the reason… well.

Being thrust into a world run by a completely different language has many different challenges, from grammar and vocabulary to just not being able to understand what the hell everyone around you is on about. Lots of ‘pardons?’ (or ‘bitte?’ in my case, but I seem to just utter a dumbfounded ‘’schuldigung?’ every time) and patience are required.

But then there’s that accent problem, you know, that thing that completely gives away your un-nativeness, your status as foreigner trying desperately to master the lingo, bumbling through your ‘ich bins’, ‘ich wills’ and ‘darf ich auf der Toilette gehen bittes’ to get to some sort of conclusion. Pronunciation gives a lot away! I’ve never had a problem with the ‘ch’ sound, being fluent in Welsh, but that’s only half of it. I find that speaking German often makes me thirsty from the effort of trying to sound as German as possible. So far I have been mistaken as Dutch, so I’ll take that one as a compliment!

Despite this effort, I still can’t bloody say Erdbeere – or strawberry to us English native speakers. See the problem becomes apparent every time I order a crepe from the crepe stand at Dortmund Hauptbahnhof – ‘einmal Crepe mit Erdbeere bitte’ I say, but try as I might, I can never escape the look of confusion and the ‘bitte?’ or ‘mit was?’ that follows. People have suggested that maybe I go for the easier to pronounce Nutella Crepe, but NO, I want my Erdbeere Crepe bitte!!

I thought it would make a good title anyway because this blog was begun in order to document my year abroad, and it’s a fairly interesting title if I ever wanted to open a shop or something like that!

For those who want to know, this is how Erdbeere is meant to sound – but when I say it, it sort of comes out more as ‘ARDDBAAAAAAAR’ (why I’ve been cutting off the –eh bit at the end I don’t know) So, any readers out there with pronunciation troubles like me? Perhaps you’re on a year abroad too and are all too familiar with the confused look from locals? I’d love to hear your stories!