Language Barriers

Since this wasn’t my first time in Berlin, it wasn’t my first time encountering language barriers. Still, overcoming them is challenging even if you’re prepared with some basic German phrases.

I feel that the language barrier’s presence is most felt when ordering food, especially when you first get there. It’s funny, I was trying to order garlic sauce on my doner, and the woman wasn’t sure if my “garlic” was her “knoblauch,” so she asked me “you mean what vampires don’t like?"

Other times, the language barrier was disheartening. You miss out on a lot of the humor and wit of people that simply can’t communicate in English. Even with some of the German students from IMK, it felt like it was often times hard to get to know them completely because of these language barriers.

However, I didn’t feel the language barrier ever made it any harder to live in Berlin. I always got the food that I wanted to order, never got scammed (that I know of), or got lost because of it. Also, I was never discriminated against or thought less of, as a Spanish speaker probably would be in the United States. Even though the subway system wasn’t all that English-friendly, it was easy to navigate and easy to ask for help.

So yeah most of the time the language barrier wasn’t much of a barrier at all. The German students were usually considerate and spoke in English while the rest of the city was English-friendly enough for me to get by. And when it wasn’t, these two phrases were always enough: “entschuldigen” and “Ein Warsteiner bitten.”