22 May 18: The struggle with language barriers

This entire trip has been a series of faking it until we make it. So far, a smile and nod or just simply pointing to things has worked out, and we've survived the week. Today, however, faking it was not going to get us much of anywhere. The morning started off like every other class room day in Berlin with a small group based activity. We broke for lunch then returned to prepare for our interviews with Berliners. The exercise had a warm-up of just small talk, like saying hello and asking for directions. Then it moved into a more in depth portion of asking about a daily routine with a focus on key parts of the day in the life of a Berliner (i.e. hygiene, meals, transportation, work). This would have been no big deal for a social butterfly who knew a few phrases in German. Unfortunately, I am not a social butterfly and only know how to say I don't speak German in German, so asking about a daily routine was not as simple of a task as one would think.

The first step was just saying hello to people passing by on the street. This started out strong and one person responded with a smile. It quickly turned into people ignoring us or giving us odd looks like we had a third eye or something.

Here we are, lost in the sauce while looking for people to talk to.

Having been rejected a few times, the group decided to try a park and find a friendly looking individual, who would hopefully speak some English, and help us with this activity. We walked through a beautiful park with a playground and a bunch of people enjoying the nice weather. We managed to walk through the whole park and not stop to talk to a single person. Not all hope was lost, there was an ice cream shop just across the street so we tried our luck with that conversation. Turns out, the nice ice cream man was from Italy and only lived in Berlin in the Summer time to sell ice cream. Returning to the park for a second time with high hopes we scouted out for possible interviewees. The goal was to find someone with a dog and approach the dog and then start a conversation with the owner of the dog. That was shot down first when no dogs were found in the park and second when no one knew how to say "May I pet your dog?" in German.

The hunt was not over! We tried our luck at the grocery store by asking small questions to people also shopping. A few were able to tell us how long they lived in Berlin and told us what they were buying to make but very few would give us the time of day. In the end we ended up asking what beer someone recommended and they pointed to a mini keg, so we made our purchase and carried on.

5 liters for 4 people... Ally only looks a little concerned about this purchase.

At the end of the day it was actually very difficult to get the information that was listed. Personally speaking if some random foreigner asked what I do for my hygiene routine I would be a little weirded out. We were able to have small talk and less personal conversations with a few people that spoke a bit of English. For the most part, this was an experience in reading people's facial expressions and body language. A lot of people were walking fast, had headphones in, were on the phone, or just simple had an expression on their face that said "Don't bother me." Not to mention, we spoke little to no German, but like I said fake it till you make it.

About the Author:
Kaylynn Butchko is a soon to be Senior Mechanical Engineering major from Viva Las Vegas. She loves traveling, coffee, and is an expert dog spotter.