How do you say "confused" in German?

30 October 2026

The German lessons begin Photo by 2y.kang on Unsplash [Note: the names in this essay have been changed to protect the innocent students learning German.] I’ve always been a good student. Whether it’s street names, social etiquette, or types of cheese, I’m always learning. My brain is constantly absorbing new information and working to remember it. Learning comes with the territory of a move across an ocean for love, so I’m not surprised by all the work my brain is doing. More unexpected would be realizing just how English-language-centric I am. So here’s another story of an American learning how to de-center herself, English-language supremacy edition. A few weeks back I started German lessons. I wrote a post about the angst and trepidation of learning a new language. If you haven’t read that, pause, click on the post. We’ll wait. OK, glad you’re back. As I was saying, I recently started German lessons, and it’s been eye-opening. Am I wrong to expect to understand my teacher when I’m learning a new language? Yes? No? How did that even come up, you ask? I’ll start at the beginning. Sprechnsie English? Nein. On a quiet weekday evening, I walked into the classroom exactly on time, which by Swiss standards meant being late. I sat down, mentally repeating my mantras of “You can do this,” “You are smart,” “You wanted to learn a new language,” and “This new experience will be good for you.” Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. And then class started and all that positive talk went right out of the window. You see, German Teacher (hence forth referred to as GT) started class… in German. “Hallo, Flugen flagen, sprechen flagen schatd mindmeld flagen Deutsch sprechen.” Erm… say what now? And she kept going, “Sprechen sprechen sprechen sprachen sprechen.” I glanced around, confused and overwhelmed. How could this be the first class? Did I miss an hour? Did I miss a class? I looked around and saw a mix of calm faces and quizzical glances. My mind raced — should I quietly exit? Should I raise my hand? All the meanwhile, “flugen flagen sprechen flagen mindmeld flagen Deutsch sprechen.” And she kept going. As she spoke, I felt like someone had turned me upside down and swirled me about. Luckily, someone raised their hand. “Excuse me, is this the first level of German class? Is there another class before this one?” another student asked. “My English is not so good,” GT responded. “No,” someone else responded. “This is the first class.” The first student looked confused, but took the point. I felt my whole body relax only slightly. I thought to myself, “OK, so it wasn’t just me, phew. But also, what the fork?! There had to be some sort of mistake. Where was the general level setting? What was she saying?!?! Why wasn’t she sprinkling in some English??!” I kept stealing glances around the room, expecting someone to yell out, “this doesn’t make any sense!!!” And yet, no one did. Hallo, Ich bin Noma. Soon after, GT wrote a prompt on the board, and I gathered that we were about to do introductions. Having arrived last to the class, I sat first in the row. I used context clues to read aloud and fill in the prompt, “Hallo. Ich bin… Noma.” I said. “Meine muttersprache ist English. Ich komme aus den U.S.A.” As everyone completed the prompt I realized my class was comprised of people from Serbia, Finland, the Gambia, Turkey and Greece. When we continued on with another prompt, I turned around to ask the person closest to me, Tarek from Turkey, what the teacher had just said. My addled mind waited patiently for an answer. None came. Blink. Blink. He slowly shook his head. I looked steadily at him as I realized, he didn’t speak English. Ah. Damn. This is why the class isn’t in English. As my English supremacy reared its ugly head, saying things like, “Is this how languages are learned? How do people learn??? Also, what the fork is GT saying?!” I tuned back into class and I gathered that of the three English speakers, only one considered English their first language, or muttersprache, — me. I also confirmed that we actually were at the beginning of the language course. At this point, GT continued speaking and through context clues, her writing the times 18:50 and 18:40 on the board, I pieced together that we were voting on whether to take a ten minute break during class. By the time I put that together though, the others were saying “ja” for yes, and “nein” for no. But I couldn’t tell what the question was — did GT ask “do you want a break?” or did she ask “do you want to push through?” and as I thought to raise my hand, the teacher said “gut,” and it was done. Next, we moved into a partner conversation prompts. We opened our books to the appropriate page and followed the text. German Teacher gestured for us to pair up, listen, speak, then repeat the exercise in opposite roles so we speak all the text. I did my first exchange with Tarek. Eager and helpful with my German pronunciation, it almost felt easy. I then turned to my second partner, Freida from Finland. We completed the first round, with me prompting her and her responding. After I indicated we switch, and Freida simply shook her head. “No.” “No??” “No, I don’t like to talk.” With that, she turned back to her materials and that was that. Cool. I could feel my disbelief fueling my anger. Inhale, exhale. Only 50 more minutes to go. German for German’s sake? Eventually class ended. At 18:40 in case you’re wondering how the vote went. Confused and … yeah, mostly just confused I walked up to the two other English speakers and ask them their thoughts. “It seems to be an immersion method. I’ll stick with it and see what happens,” Gregi from Greece said. What? I’m definitely not sticking with this, I thought. How does that even make sense? There’s no way I can learn a language without understanding the teacher. I’ll spend half the lesson trying to figure out the words she’s using to give the instruction and explain the grammar. At which point, I thought, should I learn the German words for verb, subject and rule? For forks’ sake. I walk out of the room silent and stunned. Being slightly influenced by Gregi’s rational thinking, I rushed home to share the stories from class with my husband, convinced he would laugh at Greek Gregi’s advice. Boy was I wrong. Have you had adventures learning a new language? If so, share your story. Originally published on Substack on November 4, 2025.