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Popularity of German in East Europe? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Vespasian Bilingual Triglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 6924 days ago 55 posts - 55 votes  Speaks: German*, Swiss-German*, English Studies: Italian | Message 17 of 31 06 June 2006 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's actually quite common. I don't want to justify it and it's getting better but there is some sort of antipathy in nearly every neighbouring country of Germany. At least that's how I perceive it. I'm not a wet blanket but let's face the facts here. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5891 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 18 of 31 04 July 2012 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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There are many jokes in Poland about every German word sounding like a firing machine gun. And there is still greater popular emphasis on German war crimes than of those done by Soviets. The most recognizable German person is, aside from Hitler and Angela Merkel, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Ulrich von Jungingen. Perhaps Bismarck can be also placed here.
At least 50% of Polish schools teach German as a third language, however most of Poles end up with no or very little knowledge of German. Russian fell out from school curriculum after 1989 and as a result many young people's competence in Russian is nonexistent, to the point that university faculties of Russian studies will recruit people with no prior knowledge of the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4662 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 31 04 July 2012 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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German can be very useful in Czech republic but it very strongly depends where you are. In South and West Bohemia, I would expect high number of German speakers. You have to look for competent English speakers among the under 25 yo or people who are using it in their professional life. But many people will have very basic knowledge of English (at the survival/tourist level).
In Prague and central Bohemia the main second language is English. Even in tourism there is geographical split - Prague and the few attractions on the main route may have strong predominance of English, but in the rest there will be strong preference for German. Český Krumlov (UNESCO site) is an exception - English is spoken there on top of German, not instead of it. Let's face the facts - the first foreign companies who invested here were German speaking and it was easier to find people with knowledge of German then of English some 20-30 years ago. Many people did brush up their school German or learned it as adults at least at some level. People are not only visiting German speaking countries but even shopping there often because it is cheaper abroad. The young people will learn English as universal language, but the smart ones will learn third language and thinking regionally, German is useful. And only people under 25 had really good opportunity to learn English in schools. There was a lot of teachers of Russian who did from one day to next start to teach English or German. It was nothing unusual to find pupils correcting their teachers in my brother's school. As for Russian - many of us did good knowledge of Russian. For most of them, it was THE second language we learned at school and some of us never used it otherwise. After 1989, the whole business went in direction West. About 10 years ago, Russian came back as good choice of third language - the English/Russian combination was the ticket to getting top jobs in Prague. To give a concrete example - in 1989, my strongest language was Russian, following with German and English. Till now, I have used spoken Russian exactly once (giving directions to tourists ca. 2 years ago). I have used spoken English when traveling, for a single year when working in Prague as "office language" with German as close second and fielding the one call in English in perhaps every two months coming in our company headquarters since then. Even then, the caller has often German as native or strong second language but simply doesn't expect its use in business contact. The company is in construction business. The office in Prague does use English more often the German but all the others use German - to the extend that they don't have competent English speakers and for some offices all the translations are either done extern or routed through me for the odd case that comes once in blue moon. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5061 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 20 of 31 04 July 2012 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Those who visited Czech republic said that they spoke russian in all the shops and other
places and people always spoke to them in Russian if they could. i spoke to Czechs and Slovaks outside their native countries in Russian, and their Russian was good. Russian helps much in any Slavic country, even if people don't know it. i could easily pick up serbian because my mothertongue is Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5787 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 21 of 31 05 July 2012 at 4:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I found in the Czech Republic and parts of Poland it was sometimes more common to find a German speaker than a English speaker.
I've a Czech friend who says her German is much better than her English because she could recieve German language TV at home when she was a kid. I'd still say English is your best bet for central europe but German really isn't too far behind at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4538 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 22 of 31 05 July 2012 at 10:02am | IP Logged | |||||
Anti-German feeling is not confined to Eastern Europe (though I don't know how really prevalent it is either). My wife, who is German, was on a school excursion in France about 16 years, was told by locals how much they were hated, and were a bunch of Nazis etc. Something quite traumatic for a 14 year old girl to deal with. I would think that there are strong economic reasons for people to learn German now within Europe, esp. in the poorer parts. I have heard that German is a very popular language now in Greece, and was surprised last Summer when I returned to Berlin after absence of nine months to discover that Neukoelln had gained a sizeable Spanish population (to the point that there are Spanish only bookstores there now). Given the UK seems to be strengthening its anti-EU sentiments it probably makes sense for people to learn German if they want to move within Europe for work. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elizabeth_rb Diglot Groupie United Kingdom polyglotintraining.b Joined 4641 days ago 54 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: GermanB1 | Message 23 of 31 05 July 2012 at 10:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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When 'penpalling' was my main hobby during the late 80's and early 90's, I was able to
get pals in Eastern Europe as I could write to them in German. Their foreign languages were German and Russian, whereas the Western Europeans offered English. I suppose that several Eastern European people in the middle years and above may still have a passable communication level of German these days?? Re whether learning German is worthwhile, various discussions (elsewhere) that I was looking at the other day suggest that German was the top language to learn for business in Europe, closely followed by French - then Italian and, perhaps, Spanish. Edited by Elizabeth_rb on 05 July 2012 at 11:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 24 of 31 05 July 2012 at 11:03am | IP Logged | |||||
"just over ten years ago" is completely wrong to say when it comes to Central Europe and it is as well completely wrong to take Central Europe and Eastern Europe as one whole. During last twenty years, many things were changing here much faster than in countries which hadn't been slowed down for fourty years before. The economical growth, the changes in society, ethics, quite anything. And the situation with languages is one of these things. I know best the Czech Republic of course, but I know a lot of Slovaks and it seems to be similar. My apologies to the Polish if I try to assume too much about their country being similar. Some people, especially older ones, can understand some Russian. Some will gladly use it if you look like one of the richer Russians who spend a lot in their shop. Others may not want to speak it at all but this attitude is on decrease. It depends on the Russians they have previously met as well, most would make everyone not understand them by their horrible behaviour (my apologizes to the polite minority). Of course, there is a huge difference between speakers of West Slavic languages and East Slavic languages. For East ones, Russian is really very similar. For us, not so much. It often takes much less effort to speak in English or another language foreign to both sides than to try to decipher what the russian wants. English is the foreign language number one, especially for younger people. We watch tv series in it,cause it's much better than the dubbing (the worst is the dubbed Big Bang Theory. Makers should be punished for cultural murder), we play computer games in it, we travel, we listen to foreign music.... completely different situation than the generations before us had experienced. Therefore the level of English is quite good here. German is one of the languages people take as their second foreign language. Yes, it is the most common one but a lot of young people at schools take French or Spanish instead because they don't need to choose so much economicaly since they know English. The esthetic view has become important as well and we are just as likely to spend our holidays in France or Spain as in Germany (and France and Spain have better sea :-) ) But most people have much poorer skills in their second foreign language. There is much less media trying to reach them in these languages, there is smaller amount of teachers which leads to schools being less selective about them etc. And there is the middle age group, generation of my parents and grandparents. Most of these people are monolingual. They had to learn Russian but most didn't want to learn it (and many had horrible teachers, from what I heard). Some had been learning German but knew they were very unlikely to ever travel to the country (even to East Germany). There were no movies, books etc in other languages than Czech, or sometimes Russian, easily available. So these people lived monolingualy for a huge part of their lives and most of them never really learnt a foreign language to high level after that. German and other languages have become very popular for people who want to work abroad, which is now much easier than ever before. Some of them just dream (If I only could speak German, I would live there and have better salary..."), some learn it and leave. But it doesn't change much inside our country. You have a chance to find German speaker but it is far from sure. For German practice, go to German speaking countries. In Central Europe, either try English as the first choice for communication or learn basics of the language of the country (most people you meet will love you for that! and where your skill won't suffice, they will stretch their language skills a lot to help you.) It is not wasted time if you wish to visit the country repeatedly or stay for more than just a few days or a week. Not more wasted than learning a large languge for the same purpose.). In the East, Russian may suffice. P.S. the antipathy is here but much less pronounced than in past. To understand, have a look at a map and in a history book. Being between Germany and Russia has never been safe and without struggle. We do not have a nice ocean on each side to protect us. Being distrustful towards these countries is nothing we should be ashamed for. Quite the opposite. Trusting them too much is dangerous, even today. And it partially reflects on the approach to citizens of these countries, which is wrong, but understandable. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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