Hiii everyone!
I’m 22f and I came to Germany from another country (very, very far away — both geographically and culturally).
I speak German and can express some of my thoughts, but sometimes (especially when I’m nervous) I say some stupid sh*t or just speak with a bunch of mistakes…
I got accepted to the university I really wanted to go to, but I thought it would be 50/50 foreigners and locals — turns out it’s more like 20/80.
Today everyone is planning to go somewhere together, mostly locals, and I guess just to chill at the bar street, with beer in hand and talk…
We had some events to get to know each other before, but I missed them because I wasn’t in town. Because of that, I have some sort of FOMO.
That’s why I feel it’s essential to come today too — but I’m nervous af.
They’re already kind of split into “groups,” and I know it won’t be their first time meeting, while I’ll be completely new — speaking German not as well as a native speaker, not understanding jokes in German, etc…
Also, I’ve been living in Germany for almost two years now, and honestly, I’ve never really managed to make any close German friends. It always felt like they talked to me just to answer my question — and that’s it.
P.S. In my native language I’m pretty chill and never have problems with social skills, but in Germany I feel like I’m not myself anymore — like I don’t even know who I am lol.
How do you guys deal with this? How do you overcome the language barrier and actually connect with locals?
Would really love to hear how people who also moved abroad without a perfect language managed to handle this.