Deutsch....

Deutsch means German for those of you didn't already guess that! It has been awhile since I have updated on our language learning, or maybe I never have. German is not an easy language, for us at least, especially since the Swiss German we hear is nothing like the High German we are trying to learn!
It is definitely harder for John because he works all day around English and is understandably tired at the end of the day, and not wanting to study German. That is until he wants to talk to a few really nice people at church and simply can't... That is a very humbling experience (He didn't want me to type that so he picking up his German now :-) )
I too get frustrated often with German, but when I look back 7 months I can see the obvious improvement. I was pretty happy with my interactions which required German today, which is what prompted me to write this update. I can go days without needing to speak German besides hello, but today was exceptional! Part of me realizes I need to ask people to try and speak German with me instead of English ( that is swiss friends who are very good at English). But, then we are stuck at fairly surface level conversations because my friends/ acquaintances English is usually better than my German. Anyways, onto my German filled day....
Today I had a physio appointment my elbow which was all in German. Count that as 20 minutes of German. Then I had to return a part at the Thule dealer, where they speak no english, in which I was successful in making the return and even collecting more money than the receipt said I should. Maybe they were pity points/francs for stumbling through my explanation of why I needed to return my goods. Count that as 5 min German. I met with a physio that goes to the other evangelical church in town. A different friend introduced us through email. She has just opened her own clinic in Stans. We talked about physio things and what my goals are for working here. It was a nice conversation, slow, FULL of grammatical mistakes but nice.... Maybe in a year my German will be good enough to work and possibly for her. Count that as 45 min. Lastly I went running with a friend speaking mostly german and only a little english when clarification was needed. Count that as 70 min. That totals, 2 hours and 40 min listening and speaking German. It is tiring but I know my German would improve so much if I could have that much German interaction everyday.....oh well. It will come. And I should add that my german is full of grammatical errors! The language is structured quite a bit different than English.
So that is where we are with our german after being here for 7 months.