German Fluent

[Julia Kozub]

Ive traveled to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and I found that in the big cities such as Berlin, Vienna, and Zurich a lot of people speak English. When I visited those cities I try to make the most of my trip and try to converse in German as much as I can, but I get the feeling that the people in restaurants, hotels, and other establishments would rather speak to me in English rather than speaking German with a thick American accent and tripping on der, die, das and what not.

Can any native Germans, Austrians, or Swiss shed a light on people who aren't fluent but can speak some basic phrases on how to proceed in these situations? I've heard a lot of people say that people appreciate when foreigners try to speak the country's language, but I get the feeling that they really don't and rather speak English.

They do appreciate, however, in practical situations one resorts to the language that's more convenient for communication purposes. Most people mean it either practical or well intended, by making it easier for you - and for you both, eventually. It is often even easier for them to communicate with you in English with the feeling of being 100% understood than starting to speak very slow and clear German, as though to a child. This all comes from the nature of language as a means of communication, like messaging apps or Internet or whatnot.What comes more is that such a switch happens automatically, even in people who are not native German speakers(sic!). I once spoke English to a German person after I saw them processing my words a little longer than 2-3 seconds.

What could help you is either patience and practice (after 2-3 years of practice you may reduce the number of people answering in English to some 30%) or explicitly saying "bitte Deutsch". Or you could try to fake a typical migratory accent (Russian, Turkish), but that's a dubious solution.

P.S. Another thing is how much do you can. If you are somewhere on the A1 level, this would be indeed pretty difficult for a person to communicate with you in German, they would have to think twice about what they say, speak slow, repeat things and keep in mind that you probably may not have understood them at all!

I wanted to practice my Spanish, but people who had a job do to had no interest in indulging my wishes - they just wanted to get their jobs done in the most efficient way possible, which meant speaking to me in English.

Wir empfinden es oft als anstrengend, wenn wir raten mssen, wie viel oder wie wenig Deutsch unser Gegenber versteht. Und wir sind schnell frustriert oder sogar genervt, wenn wir uns wiederholen mssen. (The third "Wie bitte?" triggers an internal "Bohnen in den Ohren, Du Bldmann?" reaction in us ;). It's genetic.) Deshalb schalten wir dann direkt auf Englisch um, wenn wir vermuten, dass Englisch verstanden wird.

I also heard often in DACH but rather with the meaning ofI prefer being spoken to in broken German rather than in English without even being asked if I can or want to speak English.That does NOT mean they want to speak German with you but rather that they want to be given the choice whether to reply in German or English. This boils down to showing some respect to the local people.

I also hear that a lot more in rural areas or smaller cities and, consistently with it, I have been spoken to in English almost exclusively in larger cities (Munich, Zurich) and never in the countryside. The proportion of English speakers is much smaller outside of town and people out there are also usually more proud of their native tongue or dialect.

With a poor language (A1/A2) and a thick English/American accent, be ready to be answered to in English in large cities. And as Aaron F mentions, restaurants, hotels, and other establishments aren't quite the right place to find people to have you practice your language skills. To do so, avoid large cities and younger people.

As a former American exchange student to Germany, the best advice I got back then was to repeat to anyone constantly answering you in English (after you've tried your best to speak German) that the reason you came to Germany was to learn German. Note Germans are not always being condescending when they reply in English: in many cases, they may not have spoken any English in weeks or months and are just happy at the chance to use some knowledge of what they learned in school.

Side note: during my exchange year, it hardly happened to me at all because I'd worked so much on my pronunciation beforehand- yes, people thought I was a lot better than I was (in the beginning I could hardly understand anything due to the speed of everyday talking). It certainly helps if you pay attention to your pronunciation.

I still get "Englished" in public and by colleagues - I have a noticeable accent that usually gets me pegged for English (nope) and a few times (very correctly) as a Texan. I've even had Auslnderamt (Foreigners' Office) personnel switch to English, when the purpose of the meeting was to decide if I was integrated enough to apply for permanent residence!

Part of it is just wanting to get on with their jobs, which might seem to them in the moment to go faster if they don't try to figure out if you're a beginner or fairly fluent but with a detectable accent.

With colleagues, it contains an element of wanting to work on their English - when else do they have the opportunity to talk about deep technical topics with a native speaker who has a better grasp of their specialty than the English instructors the company hires?! Additionally, IT German outside of SAP topics is very "Denglisch", especially concerning new and quickly-changing topics like cloud computing and DevOps. Very occasionally, it's because they're not sure (or "not sure") I understood exactly what they said.

It never even crossed my mind that it could be in any way negative to answer somebody in English; Maybe I'm biased, but I fundamentally believe that it would be if very high positive impact if humans would speak a common language. That would certainly not be German.

I understand that there are people who like to learn German. I am very aware that it is a good thing to learn multiple languages. Of course, if you want to live in German speaking regions, it makes sense to learn it - but I think many people here are happy that they have an opportunity to practice English. It is in no way negative if somebody answers in English. Auf die Idee komme ich gar nicht erst! And if you let the person know that you like to practice German, anybody would happily do that - if he know it. We think speaking English is a good, valuable thing.

Again, I was surprised that it is even possible that answering in English could be received in a negative way. That's certainly not intended. I would feel answering in English is being polite. Let the person know that you like answers in German, I don't have a proposal how to do that best, but use any way whatsoever!

My mum takes English lessons every week but has almost no opportunity to practise, except on her one-week-holiday once a year. So she takes every foreigner she can grab and rattles on and on. Be sure not to meet her, else youll know her whole lifes story without having spoken a single word of German.

I found the best approach was keeping a sense of humor, try your German but be prepared for blank stares or some muttering and go with the flow - eventually your German will improve to the point that you won't need to bob and weave with English and German (and sometimes Pig Latin) - I got to the point that I would "create" (hey, they do it too!) words and my friends would say "No one says that!" (auf Deutsch, naturlich) and we'd all laugh (even though I did (usually) get my point across). I used to ask them where Meerschweinfurt was since there were so many other "furts" across Germany. I was basically in Frankfurt am Main (was in Berlin once just after the wall fell and rescued some tourists because they asked the ticket person (East Berlin) for tickets to "Frankfurt" and they almost got sent to Frankfurt am Oder...), and when we went south beyond the Weisswurst Grenze even my friends were perplexed and would ask me "what did they just say?". Everyone wants to practice their non-native language skills so don't take it personally, just look at it as a World-Wide Learning Romp in the Sun! And yes, I agree with earlier posters that those with a job to do don't really want to mess around struggling, though I've also found it's usually best to at least start the conversation in the language of the place - If you're really bad they will usually interrupt and say "I speak English..." - if you think the Germans are tough try going to France (in August when everyone is on vacation (including you) but they aren't...)!

In my experience, people will not switch to English when they feel like you speak well the language. That is, your accent is good, your pace is natural, and your vocabulary is decent.The key here is that it all depends on the first impression.You just have to drop one perfect sentence, and then people will be influenced by that, and feel like you're able to speak perfectly, so they won't be bothered by any mistakes you'll make later.

Another technique I tried with people in the street who, unlike my colleagues, did not know that I could speak a decent Japanese and would immediately assume (which is normal) that I can't based upon my Caucasian looks, is to act like I just can't speak English.It seems silly, but it's actually very believable that someone can't speak English, if they don't come from an English-speaking country.So when I went to convenience stores or any other kind of store, I would as always speak in Japanese and when talked back in English, I would just say "Sorry, I can't speak English" in the best Japanese I could speak.Then people would switch back to Japanese, and be more patient with me.

But in the end, it's a matter of inter-personnal communication.People are switching to English not to make fun of you, but because they feel like it's the easiest way to be helpful to you.If you want to prevent this from happening, you must let them feel like you're totally comfortable with their language - even though it means acting as if you understood what they just said when you really didn't.

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