# Schwarzenegger's German
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 23, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244 "2003-08-23T23:40:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/1 "2003-08-23T23:40:55Z")
“Ahnold” is of course the butt of a lot of humor over his accent and his rather laconic use of words.
I don’t think if he ever said “hear me now and believe me latah’”, but ‘Hans and Franz’ seemed to get his essence down.
Now to be fair, Arnold was well over 20 before he even began English. And his English is far from bad. I was wondering if any German speakers have heard him in his native tongue. I don’t even think I have even heard him speak German (and I get Deutsche Welle at home).
Is his German much better, or does he just say “Ich komme zurück” and “auf wiedersehen baby” a lot. I hear Germans are quite discriminating about grammar (because there is so much more of it), and Austrians perhaps more so.
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### Author:  [@IGJoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IGJoe)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/2 "2003-08-24T00:05:45Z")
Schwarzenegger’s German?
Man, that guy has _everything_!
FTR, I believe he’s Austrian…
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### Author:  [@ProjectOmega](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProjectOmega)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/3 "2003-08-24T00:07:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mr Pud \*
> \*\*Schwarzenegger’s German?
> Man, that guy has _everything_!
> FTR, I believe he’s Austrian… \*\*
Two guesses as to what language they speak in Austria 😉
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### Author:  [@hebesphenomegacorona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hebesphenomegacorona)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/4 "2003-08-24T00:52:43Z")
Finnish?
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/5 "2003-08-24T02:44:04Z")
Well. A legitimate point still being that “to any German he has a funny accent, also.”
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/6 "2003-08-24T02:54:13Z")
My friend from Estonia didn’t know he had an accent until we told him. He thought Arnie spoke perfect English.
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### Author:  [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/7 "2003-08-24T03:05:03Z")
My mum thinks that his heavy accent is a bit of a put on. It certainly makes him recognisable!
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/8 "2003-08-24T03:17:01Z")
Actually German speakers aren’t any more obsessed with grammar than are English speakers. For instance the word _wegen_ (“on account of”) is supposed to take the genitive case, but people commonly use the dative instead, which is the case that most prepositions take. A good parallel example in English is the phrase “We appreciate you/your not smoking”–it should be “your” but “you” is also acceptable in everyday conversation.
Foreign speakers of any almost always language tend to be more careful about the grammar of their new language. When living in Germany someone overheard me using _wegen_ “correctly”, and it must have sounded odd to him because he remarked to his friend about.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/9 "2003-08-24T03:57:35Z")
No, Schwarzenegger’s Austrian, not German.
Unless you want to maintain that Martin Luther King Jr. and Ben Nighthorse Campbell are English.
The only valid reason for putting German and Schwarzenegger tgother in a positive sentence (as opposed to one laden with “not” or similar negative construction) is in reference to his first language.
(BTW, a small but extant minority of Austrians speaks Slovene, and I think there are still a few Italian speakers among native Austrians.)
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/10 "2003-08-24T04:20:11Z")
Arnie did speak some German in “Kindergarten Cop”. Remember how his partner got sick on the way up to Oregon? She kept throwing up and finally was so weak he had to carry her into the motel room where they were to stay. He was kind of disgusted and muttering to himself in German. And in that movie his character was portrayed as a naturalized American, originally from Austria. But I don’t understand German myself so I don’t know what he was saying. Probably along the lines of “She’s heavier than she looks” or “Why does it have to be me”.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/11 "2003-08-24T05:11:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The only valid reason for putting German and Schwarzenegger tgother in a positive sentence (as opposed to one laden with “not” or similar negative construction) is in reference to his first language.
Which, to be fair, is exactly what the OP did.
I don’t know about Schwarzenegger, but I remember seeing Henry Kissinger once say in an interview that while he spoke English with a heavy German accent, he also now spoke German with a heavy American accent, and there was nowhere on Earth where he sounded like a native.
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### Author:  [@universe.zip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/universe.zip)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2003, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schwarzeneggers-german/197244/12 "2003-08-24T09:36:45Z")
Yeah, he´s Austrian. And while our variety of German may sound weird to Germans, I can assure you that when Schwarzenegger speaks German it sounds even worse than his English to me.
_shudder_
“It rolls up my toenails”, as we would say here - a wonderfully graphic idiom that perfectly expresses how I feel about him speaking either language… 😉