Ok I'm only being kind of sarcastic. But I think my biggest accomplishment while being here is being able to convince the locals that I speak Swiss-German. And by the locals, I mean the cashiers at stores or in the school cafeteria. Fake it 'til you make it, right?
I went to Migros (the local Swiss grocery store) on Thursday to pick up a few things with Sim. The cashiers always ask the same thing, so it's gotten pretty easy to pretend to understand what they're saying. (On the other hand, I had to get garbage bags last week, which are behind the register, meaning I had to go back to English and try to get the cashier to understand me.) Here's my typical conversation with a cashier:
Cashier: Grüezi (hello)
Me: Grüezi (hello)
Cashier: (finishes scanning my items) Cumulus? (this is some sort of rewards program)
Me: Nein (no)
Cashier: (says the total in Swiss German which I totally don't understand so I just read the number off the screen next to her)
Me: (hand over the money and quickly do the math in my head while she counts out my change-again, in Swiss German) Danke!
Cashier: Tschüss! (bye)
Me: Tschüss! (bye)
Look at me go! If I'm at a store, they'll also ask me if I need a bag. Which I couldn't tell you how to say. I typically respond "nein" (no) whenever anyone asks me something. Which could be bad, but it's always worked out.
Today, I went to City Hall to deregister as a resident of St Gallen (so sad). Typically in these sorts of instances (also when I buy train tickets at the train station), I'll say hello in Swiss-German and then automatically go to English, since they all understand it there (not so much in the grocery store or shops). So I go to City Hall, say grüezi to the woman helping me, and pass her my form to deregister, saying "I have this...?" Apparently she doesn't hear my mumbled English because she takes my form, looks up my name in the system, and says my local address to me in Swiss-German (to confirm that she found the right Kristi Sutherland in the system). Luckily I understood her saying my street name (Ruhsitzstrasse-try saying that five times fast), and have picked up enough numbers to realize she said 22 (our house number) as well. So I respond "ja," she stamps the form, and passes it back to me with a bright "alvederzein!" To which I say "alvederzein" right back and continue on my way, with her none the wiser that I understand hardly any German.
In other adventures, Marina, Giovanna, Sim, and I have been going to Pilates classes at the school gym since they're free to students. The classes are in German though so that's fun...this is how I really started learning my numbers. As you're holding a stretch, sweating, praying it to be over quickly, you quickly learn to realize when the instructor is counting down "five...four...three...two...one..."
My friend Salim, who is from New Zealand, actually speaks Swiss-German. We joke that the only reason we're friends with him is so he can be our translator. I told him at the beginning of the semester that I tried learning a little Swiss-German before coming to St Gallen. He seems to think I understand more than I actually do (not quite sure why). A bunch of us were walking around town Wednesday when Salim made a comment about how I could speak a bit of Swiss-German. So of course I whip out one of the few phrases I know: "A bit, but I don't understand Swiss-German well." It was pretty funny to watch some of my other friends' jaws drop as they heard me easily say the phrase.
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