Nicole Ziegler

There are advantages, some advantages that kids have for language learning, for sure.

But then, you know, as we're older learners, we also have advantages.

We know how to study, you know, we know how to motivate ourselves, right?

We have different opportunities for learning that kids don't have.

I started learning German in high school and in college.

It was mostly memorization, mostly drill-based.

And then when I moved to Germany after I graduated college, I had a lot of trouble.

I couldn't figure out how to order food.

And later on, I worked at a restaurant and it was in this experience working at a restaurant that I learned a lot of German.

There was one experience where a customer was trying to ask if there was ginger in the food she wanted to order.

And I'd never heard the German word for ginger.

I didn't know what it was.

And we got involved in this negotiation where she was trying to explain it to me, and she's like, it's spicy, it burns, and she's like, it's a root, it gets stuck in your teeth, and we eventually figured it out.

And it was a very memorable experience, so I never forgot the word for ginger after that.

And later on, when I went back to graduate school, I learned about the interaction approach to SLA, which is the idea that we learn languages when we communicate with people, when we interact with people.

And I recognize my experience that when we have a communication breakdown and we have to negotiate and we have to figure things out, that creates an ideal environment for learning.

I love this story so much.

And I want to know, what is the German word for ginger?

Ingwer.

I think about it a lot, actually.