“She likes you”, says the father, the mother confirming his words with a warm smile.
I watch the little girl’s ponytail flying around her light head; her shining face following everything between the sun and the clouds, the trees and the grass, the river and the boats … all the people.
Then our boat is loaded, and we leave, moving past beautiful waterscapes by the strength of our arms.
Which is when I realize what felt so strange during this short, kind conversation back on the river shore.
It makes me laugh.
“Have you noticed they spoke English to me?”
“Yes. So?”
“Didn’t they sound like Germans to you?”
“Hm. Now that you say it … yes.”
On this nice summer day in Southern Germany I realized some German people might feel the need to speak to me in English even though they had heard me speak German just before.
My guess is this is what a foreign accent might do to native language speakers’ brains: convince them we must be in different language brackets altogether.
The other thing adding to the confusion could be my looks: they might point towards rather faraway parts of the world where people probably speak English.
This is not to say that anything about this conversation was inappropriate or unpleasant. On the contrary: the little girl’s parents seemed convinced they had chosen the right language for our happy conversation and since I went along with their choice, we created perfect summer moments among ourselves.
These days, most of us tend to speak a kind of International English. It does require more effort to engage in conversations using this well-known auxiliary language, but it also offers the comfort of all the participants having to deal with the same issue:
How to express oneself convincingly while having to resort to reduced foreign language resources.
Meaning the little girl’s parents had offered me a common language ground, slippery for all of us to a similar degree but also encouraging and cozy if done well.
We did well and we liked it.
So here’s to my telling you about all the foreign language worlds encountered along the way.
Stay tuned!