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Avoid talking in English? | ||
Tags: Convincing native speakers | Germany | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4619 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 17 of 25 31 May 2014 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Many people in east Germany have little or no grasp of spoken English and will welcome your attempts to
communicate in German. Even in Berlin there are situations where a working knowledge of German will be invaluable. You have to remember that it is easily possible to live a rewarding life in Germany knowing only German (with perhaps a few snippets of English when you visit another country as a tourist. That said, German is usually understood in the multitude of border regions around Germany). Yes, some German people do speak excellent English but among the ordinary working population the level is a lot lower than what you might think. My in-laws all live in a fairly rural region and they simply spoke German to me from the outset, expecting me to understand. Great way to learn though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4366 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 18 of 25 31 May 2014 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Based off of my limited experiences (unfortunately never in Germany), I have the impression that if you approach someone in German and your pronunciation is clear enough, it's probably going to stay in German. If somebody insists on switching, what I like to *think* I would do is say something along the lines of: "Oh sorry, yes, I know I have a pretty noticeable accent in German. I understand everything though, so I'll try to speak more clearly--I'm bad at switching into English when I'm surrounded by German." That's completely true for me by the way; I can't switch languages instantaneously, and when I try I end up speaking English with a German accent! Personally I'm a little leery of saying you want to "practice" the language--that can be done with teachers or people who have the patience to specifically work on language skills, it doesn't need to be done with someone who is working. I think generally just approaching them in German and saying it's easier for you to only focus on German will be sufficient.
Enjoy Germany! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| EnglishEagle Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4572 days ago 140 posts - 157 votes Studies: English*, German | Message 19 of 25 31 May 2014 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thankyou, I think I might speak in German from the get go and see how that goes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5127 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 20 of 25 31 May 2014 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
You mentioned in a previous post that you've done a fair amount of reading and listening, but have you tried practicing with a conversation partner - either online or someone local? There's no reason you can't get more comfortable with speaking before your trip in August. The more comfortable people see you with the language, the more likely they'll stay in the language for you. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| EnglishEagle Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4572 days ago 140 posts - 157 votes Studies: English*, German | Message 21 of 25 31 May 2014 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm planning on putting in my more hours about 4/5/6 hours a day in from June 10th (after my exams end). I reckon I could get in about 300-400 hours of reading, listening, speaking and writing before my trip. I am definitely going to go on Skype with people through LingQ or iTalki - the progress I've made is slow due to lack of time spent with the language. My revision for my exams has been the top priority for a long while so all my hobbies and extra curricular activities were neglected. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| camus Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5231 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English, German | Message 22 of 25 01 June 2014 at 4:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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ahh, I just came up with something goofy: do you speak(here i mean know several words) any not-so-widely-spoken languages? pick one and tell them you are from there... Chances of people knowing that language are looooow. so you end up practicing German with those native speakers!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fnord Triglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5030 days ago 71 posts - 124 votes Speaks: German*, Swiss-German, English Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch | Message 23 of 25 04 June 2014 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
In academics and higher education, many (if not most) people will be fairly proficient in English - and many will (have to) use and practice English in subsequent jobs / careers. Otherwise, most German speakers not only cease actively using English. once they graduate from/leave school. There are rarely exposed to English at all. Virtually any English-language movie, TV show or news segment will invariably be dubbed (and I would consider Germany to be leading in the world at that). This is in contrast to, for example, the Netherlands or the Nordic countries, whose population I’d consider, on average, to be much better speakers of English. Personally, I believe that a certain degree of fluency (in its literal meaning) should work wonders. I’d recommend trying to get some common phrases down really well (in fluent utterance and pronunciation), instead of overfocusing on certain language specifics, obscure vocabulary or other minor details. And then allow yourself to make some mistakes. A particular good case for English speakers might be the variety of German articles (“der Baum / die Bäume / den Baum / der Bäume), with their inflection in grammatical gender, number, case, etc. Yes, they can be hard (certainly much harder than in English) and from my experience even advanced speakers have their difficulties with them, are getting them wrong. I’m certainly not advocating anyone disregard them as “unimportant”, if you strive for proficiency. Yet I’d say you shouldn’t worry too much about them either. If in doubt, just run with what you think is right. Example: “Können Sie mir das Weg zu den Bahnhof zeigen?” Two mistakes in there. But they should be tolerated well and you will (in this case) be perfectly understood. Uttered fluently, I believe this sounds much “nicer” (and will more likely prompt people to reply in German) than if you hesitate about it and make small pauses “just to get everything right”. While we are at it, it’s good to have some polite phrases. Some may break the ice and set the tone (here: language) for the conversation: “Entschuldigung… können Sie mir helfen?” “Darf ich Sie etwas fragen?” (Can’t think of other great ones at the moment) “Ich hätte gerne ein/eine…” is a polite form of ordering in shops or restaurants. A smooth “Ich hätte gerne ein Weizenbier, bitte” signals you understand/speak some German much better than just “ein Weizenbier, bitte”, even if you have an accent (but do beware of stiff textbook delivery, which might have a contrary effect!) Edited by fnord on 04 June 2014 at 11:47pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4530 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 24 of 25 05 June 2014 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
Unless you are working in academia or in international finance English can be pretty far between. I can confirm here in Berlin that neither my accountant, landlord, nor anyone at the bank will speak English; my doctor can if forced, but would really very much prefer to speak German. Actually when I think about it I can't imagine why expats complain so much about people speaking English to them all the time. I think the only people that do that are people in the service industry that are regularly used to dealing with tourists. As others have said, Germans can live very comfortably in German without out ever venturing into English, except perhaps while on holiday (if they don't go to Majorca). Basically people do a few years of English in school (and students are like students everywhere and some study hard, but most don't), and then after school they rarely if every use it again. I am not sure the situation is so different in countries like Spain or France. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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