Intensive German Course, Stuttgart: Part 3

After only one week, the class dynamics of my Intensive German Course have changed yet again.  I didn't think it was possible for our class to become more international.  We already have students from Russia, The Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Cuba and myself from Canada, still the lone English speaker.  But that's exactly what happened this week.  Our class grew from 10 students to 16, then back to 15 (we lost the Chinese guy after just one day).  In addition to the original crew, none of which have dropped out yet, we are now joined by students from Thailand, Mongolia, Japan and Togo ( a small country beside Ghana in Africa).  

Our teacher speaks very little English with us so translations are flying all over the place chaotically in Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, English, French and German. For the one day the Chinese guy was there, I was translating in English for the Thai girl who had no prior German knowledge, and she translated for the Chinese guy in Mandarin who spoke little English, then translated what he said in Mandarin back to English, then I translated back to German for our teacher.  Whew!  Can you blame the guy for dropping out?  Me neither, but strangely it all works somehow.

We are also starting to gel as a group.  For starters, one of the serious Russian guys even cracked a joke!  Perhaps he isn't so serious after all, just inhibited by his elementary German skills as we all.  I have become fast friends with the Guatemalan grandmother.  We have even planned a dinner date to an authentic Latino restaurant (hard to find in Stuttgart) with our partners which I'm looking forward to!  My first real friend in Germany!  On our break today a Brazilian lady  was giving impromptu samba lessons to the 50ish+ seemingly conservative Japanese lady.  Next week, music was promised along with salsa lessons to boot.  I signed up for this Intensive German Course to learn German of course, but I'm learning things I never dreamed of and  my salsa is rather rusty and could definitely use a tune up!

See:
Intensive German Course, Stuttgart:  Part 5 Intensive German Course, Stuttgart:  Part 4
Intensive German Course, Stuttgart:  Part 2
Intensive German Course, Stuttgart:  Part 1
German Vocab That Makes My Life Easier