Discussing expat life in German-speaking Europe


Posts tagged German language

Lernen, Studieren and German as a foreign language

Feb28
2011 Written by ginaC

I consider myself rather lucky. I’m an American, I speak English which is the international business language, and I moved to a country that has a relatively strong English-speaking background. The part of Germany that I live in, Bavaria, was (still kind of is) occupied by the Americans after the war. This means that along with the German requirement that students learn English in school because it’s the ‘international language’, the people of this region got to practice it because of the troops that were stationed in the area.

So I understand that just about everyone my age (I’m 29) around here knows at least a decent amount of English words, even if they are scared to use them.

I’m an English teacher here. And let’s be obvious, that’s pretty much the ONLY thing I can do as a Beruf until my German is pretty flawless, which it is not. I’m a high level 2, an intermediate, but as I said in an earlier post, I didn’t learn Yoga or Graphic Design German in my integration course. READ MORE »

Posted in Expat issues - Tagged , ,

U vs Ü

Nov08
2010 Written by HF

Driving in the car with my family the other day, I overheard my four-year old son say to his younger brother: “I am so frustrating! No! I am so frustrating! Stop doing that!”

I had difficulty suppressing my laughter, tickled at the irony of his statement. Yes, I thought, I sometimes find you frustrating too. Of course, he wanted to tell his brother that he was frustrated. I’m sure the tone of his voice communicated exactly what he meant, and his brother doesn’t really talk yet so the message most likely came across as intended.

Living in Germany and learning to speak the language as an adult has often left me feeling a bit like a four-year old at times, or even younger. My ability to articulate is painfully stunted, and my vocabulary limited, even after 10 years in the country. My frustrating (frustrated) son reminded me of one of my own blunders in learning German. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, learning German - Tagged , , ,

Levels of Language Proficiency: My Life in Germany

Aug30
2010 Written by HF

Recently I enjoyed reading Julia Child’s My Life in France (with Alex Prud’homme). It’s a great book (and the first one I ever read as a Kindle edition on my iPhone). Anyone who has lived abroad or spent only a brief time in the French capital will appreciate it even more. Julia’s husband Paul worked for the United States Information Service (USIS) in Paris from 1948 to 1954. A remark he made about language learning somehow struck me as profound:

“It’s easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don’t bring you oysters.”
- Paul Child, quoted in My Life in France*

Julia goes on to say: “At least he could communicate. The longer I was in Paris, the worse my French seemed to get. I had gotten over my initial astonishment that anyone could understand what I said at all. But I loathed my gauche accent, my impoverished phraseology, my inability to communicate in any but the most rudimentary way. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, learning German - Tagged , , , ,

The Death of the German Language

Jun07
2010 Written by HF

The reports of its death are premature

Lately, the Germans have had more important things to worry about than the death of their language. But once they have dealt with the collapse of the euro and the resignation of their flaky President Köhler, they’ll get back to worrying about the demise of German, one of their favorite things to worry about.

As I wrote in my book, The German Way, it is no accident that the term “angst” comes to us from German. Worrying is a national pastime in Germany. Next to soccer (Fußball), worrying is the number one German pastime. To be sure, there are sometimes truly serious things to worry about. I think the endangered euro falls into that category, since it also has to do with European unity, the EU and all that. (By the way, Angela, you really could be more of a cheerleader for European unity.)

When it comes to their native tongue, Germans are terribly conflicted. On the one hand, they take immense pride in what a difficult language Deutsch is, almost daring foreigners to learn it. READ MORE »

Posted in History and culture - Tagged , , ,

Raising a Native “Shpeaker”

Apr29
2009 Written by jjpark

My daughter Vera is now a few months older than two, and like many parents, my husband and I have been marvelling and taking delight over her speech development.  Like so many German Way readers, we are doing our best to raise her multilingually and have gone the route of one parent one language (OPOL).

Unsurprisingly, Vera’s first words were in English, her mother’s mother tongue, followed by a smattering of German.  Progressively though, her dominant language has become German.  She attends a German day care center every morning (Kindertagesstätte/Kita), so along with speaking with her father, she gets a lot of input auf Deutsch.  And not unusually, she mixes her languages frequently.  When she discovered infinitives, she made up her own once.  As I offer to cut her food for her on most days, she once responded, “Cutten!” READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues - Tagged , , , ,

You Can Du Me: The Du/Sie Question

Feb21
2009 Written by galitz

The question of du or Sie, informal versus formal “you,” is a perennial one for expats in a place like Germany. Many European languages make a linguistic distinction based on interpersonal relationships. These distinctions have fallen out of use in modern English.

Lucky for those learning English. But expats learning the German language and culture frequently struggle with the question of informal versus the formal. When you are in the midst of a strange culture, you are constantly out of your safety zone. Any faux pas, no matter how slight, becomes a major drama in your own mind. Getting du/Sie wrong can lead to self-doubt and undermining yourself as you try to acclimate in a land of strangers who never quite act the way you think they should. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, German vocabulary, History and culture, learning German - Tagged , , , ,

Slow German

Dec22
2008 Written by HF

I first became a fan of Annik Rubens a few years ago when I discovered her Schlaflos in München (SiM, Sleepless in Munich) podcast, which, as I write this, is now on episode 506. I wrote about her unique podcasts in German — and others — in 2005, when I was still the Guide for German at About.com (“Listening to Podcasts in German“). Since then she was on hiatus from “Schlaflos” for a while, and I lost contact with her podcast. But now she’s back — and has added a special podcast for people who may not be able to keep up with SiM (in regular German). Logically and simply titled “Slow German,” this newer podcast by Rubens is designed for people who want to improve their German skills, particularly listening. READ MORE »

Posted in German vocabulary, learning German - Tagged , , , , , , ,

Save our Deutsch! Can the German language be saved by a sentence in the Grundgesetz?

Dec09
2008 Written by HF

If you’re an American expat living in Germany, you’ve heard this debate before — in the U.S.

It’s such a simple little sentence that some people want to insert into the German constitution: “Die Sprache der Bundesrepublik ist Deutsch.” (“The language of the Federal Republic [of Germany] is German.”) Who would have thought that five German words could provoke such a debate? This quote from Berlin’s Tagesspiegel sums it up pretty well: “Die Idee der CDU, die deutsche Sprache im Grundgesetz zu verankern, hat eine heftige Diskussion ausgelöst: Läutet der Beschluss einen ‘Anti-Einwanderer-Wahlkampf’ ein oder die Rettung der deutschen Leitkultur?” (“The CDU’s idea to anchor the German language in the German constitution has set off a vigorous discussion: Does the resolution herald an ‘anti-immigrant campaign’ or the rescue of the German core culture?”)

When the German language gets mixed into German politics, the results are rarely good. READ MORE »

Posted in Expat issues - Tagged , , , , , , , ,

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