No, no, no, the British are far too polite for that. In general, my impression is that as soon as you can struggle through five words, English-speakers will compliment you on how good you are speaking the language. I think this comes from a kind of inferiority complex - they know they can get around the world almost only with English, they had a few years of a foreign language at school, so they realize that learning another language is hard and difficult, so they are impressed that anybody actually speaks several languages.
No, it was my own observation, and I was disappointed because I didn’t expect it. I have no trouble reading and understanding the board, or writing a response; but listening to spoken (British) english and trying to reply was very hard, and I was always fumbling for words.
Part of that was probably the accent (yeah, I have a strong German accent myself) - I still can’t get used to the British accents. To my ear, it sounds as if each word is “rolled up into a circle” from the beginning and end, and I have to unroll it to figure out what the word is. (In contrast to French, where ten words are pulled together into five by dropping letters, and then smashed together into one word).
Standard American accent is much easier for me to understand.
I think that’s part of the snobbery of the Germans: they expect people to speak their language perfectly. In contrast to what I said above about English-speakers complimenting you: if you spit out a twenty-words sentence in German, and mess up one of the Der, Die, Das people will criticse or correct you. (Even having the wrong accent - saxon, frankish, swabian, even bavarian outside, esp. Turkish - will get you mocked relentlessly. Only accent-free High German is proper German for real Germans, the rest are speaking “Gastarbeiterdeutsch” Sorry for that, that’s just how the majority feels.).
In several cultural courses for Germans going abroad to prevent major gaffes and lessen culture shock, one of the constant advices was “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes when you speak English, just start”.
Sociologists have noted that even Germans with a high level of English skill feel self-consious for not being 100% perfect.
Yeah, I avoid him with most of the High literature. Aside from theater and poems, what work of high literature is not depressing and ending sad?
To the OP: that reminds me of Paul Watzlawick and two books of him you should go read (he’s Austrian but writes of course in standard German)
Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein (instruction on how to be unhappy), where he makes this point about unhappiness being more interesting than happiness, and thus, what drives literature. It’s of course written with a twinkle and meant to be taken as opposite.
The second, (which I think has been translated into english, but I’m not sure) is “Gebrauchsanweisung für Amerika” (Users manual for Amerika) - describing America from the point of view of an European. This might be interesting for you, or insulting (though that’s not intended, just light ribbing). or eye-opening, I don’t know.
