I'm moving to Germany--any advice?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I only recently got back from a year in Austria. There are a few differences between the two countries, but most things are pretty similar. I agree with everyone ^, don’t assume that people know English. Even if they do, they would be used to hearing English spoken with a German accent by their German teachers. So you really have to speak slowly and clearly. Be prepared that shops may close at lunch time, and will close pretty early in the evening. And may not even open on Sunday. The public transport is amazing!!! But a lot more expensive then what we have over here in Australia! If you are living with a family, they may have their main hot meal at lunch time, and only something light for dinner. Families that can’t come home for work might not do that, but most families I knew did. And although I made some amazing friends over there, it did take quite a while or them to get used to me. They are fairly reserved. You don’t wear shoes in the house, but most of the houses are really warm, so it doesn’t matter. And be prepared for people going naked in the saunas. And in the case of my first host family, going naked while doing the gardening in summer… :dubious:

I hope you have a great time. Where abouts are you going, anyway?

And it is bloody cold!

22

Maybe you should know a few things about one of Germany’s most hated authorities, the GEZ (“Gebühreneinzugszentrale”, which roughly translates to fee collection center). It’s the authority collecting TV license fees for the semi-governmental TV stations; these fees amount to about 18 euros a month, but they rise regularly.

If you have a working TV set, you’re legally obliged to pay these fees no matter if you use it or not. So if you have a set, you can either be an honest and law-abiding guy and register your set with the GEZ, meaning you start paying, or you can dodge the license and watch without paying. In the latter case, you’re breaking the law and you can theoretically be fined for license fee evasion, but the chances are slim that you get caught.

Not that I want to incite anyone to break any laws, and of course I’m sure that you’re going to pay these fees, but it’s good to know nonetheless that the GEZ can actually do very little about you if you don’t cooperate. As soon as you move to Germany, you’ll register at the local resident’s office (this is something you really have to do, and it’s even free), and the municipal administrations will forward their data to the GEZ so they will know where you live. If you don’t register your TV set for fee payment (for example, if you happen to have no such device), they will start bombarding you with letters asking you to check again whether you’re liable to pay, and they will start threatening you that nasty consequences may arise if you dodge the fee. You can ignore these letters safely. They may threaten you to send a member of their staff to your place, but they don’t have any legal power to enter your home without your consent.

23

Yeah, sure, whatever, Adolf. You’re just saying that so he won’t be expecting it when the potato-mashers come flying through his window. :smiley:

24

[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Watch out for Nazis. I’ve heard those guys are real assholes.
[/QUOTE]

The OP is moving to Germany, not Illinois.

25

Don’t mention the war.

(You guys are slow!) :smiley:

26

I hate Illinois Nazis.

27

[QUOTE=Ruffian]
I hate Illinois Nazis.
[/QUOTE]

Damn, I should have said that, given my doper name. :smack:

28

I disagree with Levdrakon re: the language. Going in half-assed like that is a despicable attitude and would also mean you’re missing out on many good things. Let’s say you and your friends are going out for a night on the Biergarten. Do you really expect them to converse in English amongst each other just because you can’t understand them? That’s not going to happen. So do yourself a favour and learn a decent portion of the language.

One other thing: because Europe is tiny, you’ll be in an excellent position to visit some of the gorgeous places outside Germany. From Berlin, Amsterdam is something like a six-seven hour train ride, Prague is reached in four hours IIRC.

29

Visit the bakeries as often as you can. They are wonderful. I miss German breads and cakes.

30

If you order pop or even a glass of water in a restaurant, specify you want it with ice. The default in many places is without ice!

31

German cops have no sense of humor. I think it’s beaten out of them during training. If a cop tells you to do/not do something, don’t give him any guff or you’ll find yourself on the wrong end of things quickly. Also, make sure you pay for your public transit ticket and keep the ticket. It’s a hefty fine if the subway cops nab you.

32

I don’t think that’s unique to German cops.

33

[QUOTE=Švejk]
I disagree with Levdrakon re: the language. Going in half-assed like that is a despicable attitude and would also mean you’re missing out on many good things.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think I meant what you think I meant.

34

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Oh, everyone in Germany understands enough English. I’ve lived there. What they don’t like, quite understandably, is someone presuming they understand English. Whip out your Berlitz, politely butcher the language a bit, and they’ll switch to their English, which is better than your German. Together, you’ll work it out.

Germans can be just as shy and embarrassed about using their English as English speakers are shy about trying out their high school German.
[/QUOTE]

Which is why I always suggest you ask one person standing alone if they speak English, instead of asking two or three or more in a group. Germans are a little shy in groups, and even if one speaks English quite well, they are intimidated to speak it in front of their friends for fear of being laughed at.

And as a long-time teacher of ESL over there, I disagree that “everyone in Germany understands enough English”…I found the opposite. Sure, most young Germans had English in school, but that “school English” is truly horrible…two days a week for an hour, and the teacher taught them English using German! They had almost no practice speaking it. Most learn almost nothing but a few nouns. At best you will occasionally find a German who has lived abroad, or traveled a lot, and can speak fairly fluently.

Thus, use this opportunity to learn German…and if you surround yourself with people who DON’T speak English, you will pick up the language fairly quickly and it will make living there a whole lot more fun.

Otherwise, there are lots of little differences you will discover, but you will find far more similarities than differences…

I bet that after a year living there, you won’t want to come back! It is a great experience and you are going to love it!

Keep us posted while you are there!

35

[QUOTE=DMark]
And as a long-time teacher of ESL over there, I disagree that “everyone in Germany understands enough English”…I found the opposite.
[/QUOTE]
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’ve lived there and traveled there a lot starting around 1990.

What I find, is if they’ve never had an English class in their life, they’ve still watched enough TV and listened to popular music enough, and generally been exposed to enough of it they actually can understand some.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve encountered Germans who don’t appear to speak a word of English but if I’m friendly and polite and say entshuldigen Sie bitte, ich suche… or something along those lines I find after a bit, they offer up as much English as they know while I’m politely trying all the German I know, and together things get done. That’s all I’m basically saying. I’m not implying Germans all know fluent English but they’re just hiding it.

My last landlord had his daughter do all the talking when we were renting the place, but after a month or two of me trying (and failing) to jabber away at him in German whenever he came over, he started trying out his English on me, because hey, turns out his English isn’t too much worse than my German, and he preferred dealing directly with me instead of needing his daughter.

36

What is a “homestay program”?

37

[QUOTE=Brynda]
Visit the bakeries as often as you can. They are wonderful. I miss German breads and cakes.
[/QUOTE]
I loved the bakeries back when I ate that stuff. Nothing better than getting up really early on a Saturday and hitting your local bakery and getting fresh coffee and whatever wonderful pastry you want, fresh out of the oven. By early, I mean early. Six or seven AM is not too early.

Another thing to indulge yourself with is Italian food. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: All the best Italian chefs moved to Germany. I’ve been to Italy. Meh. The Italian restaurants in Germany are to die for.

38

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Thanks for the thread. My daughter is going to college for a year in Germany in a month. She visited in the spring, to test her German. She went to Berlin and Munich, and found that in Munich it was very hard to get people to speak German with her, but not very hard in Berlin. She stayed in what was East Berlin, so I suppose the older people learned Russian, not English in school.
[/QUOTE]

Regarding studying in Germany I’d like to mention one aspect which may apply to your daughter’s program or may not apply at all. I have read it referred to as a drawback, by Americans who have studied in Germany, and I have also seen a lot of people not dealing well in my own study days (electrical engieering):

It concerns study programs or single subjects where no-one will make you do anything. Anything includes any attendance and any learning.

Depending on the institution (Universität/Fachhochschule/Hochschule etc.) the program may be structured with a lot of classroom/seminar type learning, including taking attendance, frequent mandatory contributions or intermediate tests etc., tutoring etc. - i.e. some amount of holding the student’s hand and keeping his/her nose to the grindstone, like at school (I gather US undergraduate programs typically have a significant quantity of that).

A German term for the above is verschultes Studium (school-like study), and it’s characteristic that this term is only ever used pejoratively.

Then again, for certain institutions, programs and subjects, the basic assumption is that the student is a responsible adult and is not going to have his/her hand held at all. This means lectures in a big auditorium by a senior professor, and smaller talks (often of a more problem-solving bent than the lectures) by junior teaching staff, plus some lecture recommendations, no attendance taken, no intermediate tests, the students must organize their learning themselves or band together for this; it is up to the students how they learn enough to pass the single, final test. In these things of subjects, the only time when it comes to the attention of the professor that the student has been eaten by wolves a year ago is when he/she does not turn up for the final test.

This second approach is favoured in some subjects especially at the Universitäten (as opposed to the former Fachhochschulen), by those who stress the wissenschaftlich character of study.

A lot of students cannot deal with this approach where they must be wholly self-organized and self-motivated.

39

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Germans can be just as shy and embarrassed about using their English as English speakers are shy about trying out their high school German.
[/QUOTE]

That’s a very good point. I’m not German, but from another ‘germanic’ European country, and to my experience, even though most Europeans talk English fairly well, many feel uncomfortable doing it, with an Englishman or American, especially among friends. People often get the feeling their friends are listening to your poorly rehearsed school English, and those who are not used to talk English - very few are, of course - stumble on the words, get embarressed by their pronounciation, and so forth, and would prefer not to speak English right now.

So, in short, if the Germans you met know English, but are a bit reluctant to use it, it’s more likely not because they’re being unpolite. Try to talk German, because after a few minutes, they will probably begin to talk English a bit, and you get a conversation going where nobody feels inferior.

40

Just riffing,

I remember one time at Dehner’s. For those that don’t know, Dehner’s is like, the most awesome garden & pet store you can imagine. It’s like the best Home Depot, but it specializes in plants and pets also.

Anyway, I was perusing the plant section and picking out some carnivorous plants, and this little German kid came up and like little kids who know everything do, started telling me how to properly care for carnivorous plants. It was so cute. I had to tell the little kid that yes, I know about destilliertem Wasser and Regenwasser. As soon as he realized I was American he tried his best in English words to explain it to the dumb American.

It was a very cute exchange, while his father looked on.

Europeans do tend to think Americans are a little dumb, though. It’s partly a language thing, and partly because a lot of Americans have rightly earned the reputation.