I've complained in the past about my German. I've complained about how hard it is for me to pick it up because I work in an office where everyone also speaks English, willingly. I learned last week what it would be like to not have this luxury.
A colleague invited me to a meeting where external hardware sales vendors were involved. Somewhere along the way he did not receive my acceptance to attend. Everyone else who was to attend spoke Swiss German as their native language, so the meeting was announced it would be in German. I showed up prior to the meeting, and many apologies were given, but the meeting would continue in German. The first question to me was, in German, "Do you prefer High German or Swiss German?" Recognizing 50% of the question being asked, I responded in English "You can use whatever you wish because I don't know either." A chuckle or two, and the meeting continued in Swiss German, with my plea to continue. I followed along at a surprising pace of about 20% in the language, and augmenting my knowledge with the mixed English and German slides.
But my minimal grasp of the language was not the only thing I noticed about this meeting. What I noticed was that people with whom I have worked face to face for the past 7 months all interacted quite different with subtleties and nuance when using their native language than when using English. This was so amazing to me that after the meeting I googled speech perception and cross language behaviors. I found quite a bit of published material claiming different pathways through the brain for speaking and hearing in another language. It was a pretty incredible revelation for me. Not sure if non-native English speakers realize this but their personalities change to something far more comfortable and relaxed when they aren't forced to speak my language with me.
Maybe I should learn German, and present a whole new personality.
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