My first visitor in Berlin was Marie-Lotti Challier.
Marie is a translator and interpreter for leichte and einfache Sprache, easy English and plain English. We have known each other for 2 years and it was lovely to finally have the chance to meet in person!
We talked about our lives and jobs, explored the area of Charlottenberg where I was staying, and made the most of the good weather! Marie described the architecture that we passed, pointed out every cute dog (I love them!), and introduced me to Germany’s huge cake portions 😂
With all of my guests we had to figure out which language to speak. I’m an English trainer, but coming to Germany and speaking English the whole time would have made me feel like I’d missed out massively on an opportunity to practice my own language skills. Mostly we figured out some kind of compromise and some of my friends were happy to speak German. With Marie I tried different variations – we spoke English, we spoke German, and we had conversations in which I spoke German and Marie answered in English. I’ve done it the other way with Romanian, where both people spoke their first language, but this way, where both people speak their second language, also works and is quite funny!
It was lovely to meet you Marie and I hope we can do it again soon!!
h2> More from English with Kirsty
If you’d like more articles like this and other news from English with Kirsty to be delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up for my monthly newsletter.
