By Nasir Serrikashkawij
Translator and journalist Nasir Serrikashkawij recently joined the editorial team at tuenews INTERNATIONAL. In this article, he describes his impressions of his language course in Germany: the people, their stories, and his arrival in a new language.
“One day, Nasir, you’ll find yourself in Germany.” These were the actual words of my school principal back when I was 13. Eighteen years later, I sit in a classroom in south Germany’s Tübingen city, learning German with a dozen other classmates from different corners of the globe.
Perhaps the principal saw something I couldn’t. At thirty, I arrived in Germany with a visa in hand and a heart heavier than my suitcase. This suitcase carried the weight of experiences I had during two revolutions in my lifetime: one during the dark years of terrorist attacks in the Middle East, and the second, in the aftermath of meeting a German friend in a café in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Erbil while reporting on the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ uprising in Iran in September 2022.
Originally coming from Iran’s northwest, this chapter of my life is marked by a search for meaning of self. The past five months of my life, however, have been shaped by one community. A language school where foreigners, to include refugees and immigrants, are taught the German language.
Variants of a morning greeting
Waking in the early hours of the day, I wear my backpack to walk 30 minutes from my home to school. As I enter the class, three of my fellow Ukrainian classmates are already there. Various pronunciations of ‘Guten Morgen’ start the day. We are a group of eighteen people. Each has their own stories. Some have found a home in Germany after their country was under attack, others like me have escaped political persecution, and a few are here for work opportunities or to reunite with their families.
A routine of five days per week, four hours per day, has yielded results. I have kept mental records of the progress that is made in our speaking journey. Our class, can I confidently say, has been lucky to be gifted talented and skilled teachers.
Fernanda Möbius, our lead lecturer, brings the sun to the class, both literally and figuratively. Her cultural fluency is at play as she approaches each student with unique conduct. She tells me: “My many years abroad have made it easier for me to connect with people, free of prejudice. During my two-year stay in Iran, for example, I came to see that women are often more self-assured than I had assumed. Despite political and, at times, social oppression, many Iranian women face their fate with dignity and do not sink into self-pity. That left a strong impression on me.”
Her stories about Iran, about different learning patterns between nationalities, aren’t just reflections. They shape how we learn. And how we are seen. For many of us, being recognized as complex human beings, not just language learners, is already a form of healing. Carefully transferring her knowledge of German to us, she also tells us that learning by intuition goes hand in hand with learning words and grammar: “If you don’t have the feelings by intuition yet, no worries, give it more time.”
Flour, family, and fluency
The rhythm of the class reflects the realities of our lives. Some of us work full-time while studying, some have families to care for, and others are rebuilding from exile. Irene Grimaldi, a 33-year-old Italian who juggles work and language learning, describes it as a relentless push forward: “Managing work and learning German at the same time isn’t easy, but I’ve always thrived under pressure. For me, working isn’t just about financial stability; it’s also about expressing who I am. My goal is to communicate fluently, to build a career, and to improve my quality of life.” Irene bakes bread for the city and still makes time to remain engaged in her class, adding that: “A good language learner, in my opinion, immerses themselves completely, not just in grammar, but in the culture, the habits, the way people speak. At work, I have no choice but to push myself to communicate, and that constant effort makes all the difference.”
For some, the struggle isn’t just time management but a clash of thought patterns. 28-year-old Hana, a Ukrainian who left her country due to Russian invasion, experiences the linguistic chaos of transition: “I think people struggle for different reasons. Some find it hard to discipline themselves, others struggle to find time between household responsibilities and children, and for some, languages have always been difficult.”
And for Mohammad, 37, a fellow Afghan man who has recently joined his family in Germany, learning German isn’t just about survival; it’s about connection. He has seen how language defines interactions in his new home: “In Afghanistan, you get to know someone just by greeting them on the street. In Germany, people rarely engage unless they are part of a community or club. If you want to integrate, you need to speak the language. There’s no other way.”
More than grammar lessons
Mehmet, 45, also a family man and history teacher from Turkey, sees language learning not just as a necessity but as a doorway to understanding the culture: “In my profession, history has always been about narratives, about how language shapes perception. Learning German isn’t just about grammar; it’s about seeing how a culture thinks, how it defines itself through its words.” But learning a new language isn’t just an academic pursuit. It’s a test of endurance. Mehmet continues: “You reach a point where you understand almost everything but still struggle to respond quickly. Your thoughts are ahead of your words, trapped behind the barrier of fluency. That’s the hardest part, knowing what you want to say but not yet having the tools to say it.”
Mark Twain famously wrote that learning German was like assembling a four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box. He wasn’t wrong. In the first days of the class, my breaks turned into a linguistic tornado; switching languages left me with real headaches. The space that German required in my head pushed me to listen more and speak less.
Germany has not only been teaching us the language. It has offered us the time to learn how to be in it. The classes for the immigrants and refugees are paid for; financial support is organized through state authorities to ensure that shelter and daily expenses are met. Social workers are available to guide foreigners in their integration process. Above all, you have a seat in a room where your voice matters, even if your words in that language aren’t perfect yet. Even the way Fernanda Möbius describes her own relationship to teaching reveals something essential about learning: not everything fits at once, and that’s okay. In her words: “It felt like I was trying to squeeze too many delicious chocolates into a box that was far too small. In the end, my enthusiasm overshot the mark.” Maybe that’s what we’re doing too; trying to fit a life of memories, trauma, and hope into new sentences. Some days, the grammar won’t hold it all. Nonetheless, we try again.
The language of new self
In my life, ‘freedom’ was the courage to detach from an Islamist regime who has poisoned families in Iran with false ideas and enriched their suffering with a poverty that dries the roots of life. Today, freedom is as simple as speaking to a Deutsche Bahn staffer or guiding a lost stranger to their destination. Trust once felt like a risk too great to take; its echoes still surface at times. Now trust is asking the teacher to correct my mistakes without shame. ‘Friendship and love’—well, I am now learning to personally redefine these, for myself, based on context, just like a German word. And that, in the end, is the essence of language: we learn, we forget, we try again.
Integrating into my new society, Germany, I realize it’s like placing your character under a microscope and rediscovering who you are and who you are becoming. It will be a long road, but until then, everywhere in Germany, including all the breathtaking stairs, somehow, all these German words will find their way out.
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