this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
230 points (88.9% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27027 readers
811 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I mean I was planning to visit in the next couple of years anyway I guess....

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 34 points 4 months ago (6 children)

nie.

please be advised that speaking german properly is super fucking hard compared to learning many other languages, and you don't need german in germany for the most part.

when I'm in germany I speak my shitty, broken german and they respond to me in english

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago (3 children)

That's when you double down and tell them in German that you don't speak English. That'll confuse 'em.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I, a white man, would love to learn to speak German with an Indian accent just to really fuck with 'em

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

That's the spirit.

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I'd try Turkish tho

[–] Onionguy@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

Fuck it i'll just speak spanish or french then.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I once asked a German guy in Germany if he spoke German. On accident. When I was trying to ask him if he spoke English.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago
[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago

They probably speak English with you because your German is not sufficiently efficient.

[–] hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My favorite phrase to use in all foreign countries is "Please forgive me, I am American." It gets a laugh out of almost everyone even when terribly butchered in any language and most people will then attempt English for you.

Except Parisians, who do not care. I think they would prefer I point and grunt to trying either English or my awful French.

[–] Ashiette@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Thank you for differentiating between french and parisians.

[–] Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ja, wir neigen dazu, das zu tun.

[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago
[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Failed successfully

[–] sparkle@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Compared to other languages... If those other languages are Romantic, North Germanic, Dutch, Afrikaans, or Frisian. A majority of other languages are typically considered more difficult for people who only speak English.

That being said, I found Russian way easier than German at first, but that quickly stops being the case... German shares a lot of semantic/syntactic similarities with English so you can reasonably assume that a lot of German constructions will easily translate to English, for Russian though it's more unfamiliar and you have to put more effort into thinking Russian-y. The main thing that made German way harder at first is German declensions... ugh... Russian has a complex declension system but it's extremely regular, while German declensions are pretty irregular and the declension of articles is especially bad because their forms overlap a lot. Adjective declension is similarly bad. German word order also fucked with me a lot but it's decently rigid so you get it quickly.