6 ms·

I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at wor

I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English and after that go outside and immerse yourself to German for a few hours and do that every single day for at least a year.

wolfgke 10y ago
> I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English I'm pretty sure at work they understand German, too.
- ced 10y ago
  Yeah, that's the key. I studied in a Max Planck Institute in Germany. 80% of the students were international and spoke English, but I could always speak German to the remaining 20% and to faculty. Of course, we'd switch to English for technical discussion, but chit-chatting in German makes a difference. Also, you can think in German at any time of the day.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > 80% of the students were international and spoke English, but I could always speak German to the remaining 20% and to faculty. Even more: Of these 80% there are surely many that also would love to get better in German: Why not also agree to converse with them in German, too?
    - bitL 10y ago
      When I moved to Germany I got one native advice: "Speak English. If you speak broken German, everyone assumes you are an idiot and behave that way towards you. When you talk English, everybody tries to impress you." While I were in Germany it held...
      - tormeh 10y ago
        Generally good advice when getting to know someone new that you want to like you. That said, you can always speak German to people you know or people whose opinion don't matter.
      - wolfgke 10y ago
        > "Speak English. If you speak broken German, everyone assumes you are an idiot and behave that way towards you. When you talk English, everybody tries to impress you." While there is some small element of truth in it, this only holds if you are new in Germany (and mostly because of politeness). If you live there for a longer time and don't work on your German, it will turn the other way round.
        bitL 10y ago
        Yes, this passive-aggressive approach from Germans is pretty common. Tolerating for a while and then forcing you to switch, and then putting you back into "idiot mode" as you both sound funny and can't express anything precisely (and don't even try to read legal documents, even Germans can't themselves). If Mark Twain couldn't learn it properly (read his story about the Museum of Curiosities in Heidelberg), how much chance do you stand? When you start studying German in depth, you are going to soon realize that it's an extremely illogical language despite initial appearances. There are so many idiomatic non-sensical ad-hoc rules, you'd have to learn an awful amount of exceptions that are used daily, you simply have little chance to catch up with the natives that consider them normal... Tja My advice - if you really want to move abroad, move to the US, much less issues overall and English is way simpler up to C2 level (which gets super hard) and you can get a recognition and make a bank way easier.
        wolfgke 10y ago
        > Tolerating for a while and then forcing you to switch, and then putting you back into "idiot mode" as you both sound funny and can't express anything precisely That's not true. The typical German mentality is rather: They are/were willing to learn English to be able to communicate with you when you came. But now that you want to stay here for a longer time, you are expected you to learn German, too. So in other words: Some English speakers rather tend to confuse politeness (speaking English at the beginning to native English speakers when they are new to Germany) with acceptance (of having to speak in English to people that stay there for a longer time and are not willing to learn German).
  - LeanderK 10y ago
    Out of interest, whats its like studying at a MPI?
    - denzil_correa 10y ago
      There are many MPIs across Germany. So, each one would have its own experience.
      - LeanderK 10y ago
        i know i may not be representative, but i am still interested in your experience.
        ced 10y ago
        The faculty were all rather nice to the students, and since it wasn't in a university, the 50 or so international students were a pretty tightly-knit group of people. They pushed a lot to finish the Ph.D. in 3/3.5 years, which is nice. Having so many experts in a specific scientific discipline concentrated in one place is pretty impressive, too. My heart was elsewhere the whole time, so I'm not the best person to ask :P Germany itself was enjoyable, and I've met some fairly friendly Germans in WGs. It rains a lot in some places. YMMV, good luck!
- syllogism 10y ago
  Pretty sure your boss is paying you to program, and your coworker to program — not you to learn German and your coworker to teach German.
- grncdr 10y ago
  This depends on the company. Many Berlin tech companies have a very international staff, and English might be the only common language.
Arnt 10y ago
At least a year? You sound like the kind of person who couldn't diet to lose a few kilos. My wife needed a few weeks to be able to speak Norwegian on a conversational level, I didn't need much more than that for German (difficult to count exactly due to travelblah). Once you reach conversational level the rest of the way has a different quality — you'll need to learn more but you've conquered the cliff, the rest is a modest incline.
- auganov 10y ago
  A lot of individuals just don't feel comfortable speaking a language before they know it well enough. I definitely have a lot of respect for people that can just pick up a few basics and manage to always get their point across. But I just couldn't do it. I'm the kind of person that rehearses what they'll say in the most mundane situations. I'm uncomfortable when the plan doesn't work out. Recently I even got complimented by a McD employee for telling them my rather lengthy order flawlessly without any need for interruption, made my day ;-D
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    So I'll risk the downvotes the parent got - massively, and say that he's got a point. You feel uncomfortable speaking the language at an early level? How.. horrible! Please do think about what you have written. Really. I don't even know what to say, it's just so silly.
    - auganov 10y ago
      Of course it's silly. As silly as being, say, shy is. Knowing that it doesn't stem from some rational evaluation or even realizing it hinders you is only the first step. And btw I didn't downvote the parent. My point was mostly tangential rather than a counter argument.
  - tmalsburg2 10y ago
    At some point I accepted that my English is terrible (I'm German) and I decided to not waste any more energy on being embarrassed. Lo and behold, that was were my English really started to improve because I used it much more and also more intuitively. Previously, I first constructed every sentence in my head before uttering it. That works to some extent but it prevents you from developing an intuitive understanding of the language. So my advice is: don't make your life harder than necessary, speak without thinking, you will make plenty of mistakes, but people will think you are cute. More generally, If you show your weakness in life, people usually react very positively.

wolfgke 10y ago

> I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English I'm pretty sure at work they understand German, too.

ced 10y ago
Yeah, that's the key. I studied in a Max Planck Institute in Germany. 80% of the students were international and spoke English, but I could always speak German to the remaining 20% and to faculty. Of course, we'd switch to English for technical discussion, but chit-chatting in German makes a difference. Also, you can think in German at any time of the day.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > 80% of the students were international and spoke English, but I could always speak German to the remaining 20% and to faculty. Even more: Of these 80% there are surely many that also would love to get better in German: Why not also agree to converse with them in German, too?
  - bitL 10y ago
    When I moved to Germany I got one native advice: "Speak English. If you speak broken German, everyone assumes you are an idiot and behave that way towards you. When you talk English, everybody tries to impress you." While I were in Germany it held...
    - tormeh 10y ago
      Generally good advice when getting to know someone new that you want to like you. That said, you can always speak German to people you know or people whose opinion don't matter.
    - wolfgke 10y ago
      > "Speak English. If you speak broken German, everyone assumes you are an idiot and behave that way towards you. When you talk English, everybody tries to impress you." While there is some small element of truth in it, this only holds if you are new in Germany (and mostly because of politeness). If you live there for a longer time and don't work on your German, it will turn the other way round.
      - bitL 10y ago
        Yes, this passive-aggressive approach from Germans is pretty common. Tolerating for a while and then forcing you to switch, and then putting you back into "idiot mode" as you both sound funny and can't express anything precisely (and don't even try to read legal documents, even Germans can't themselves). If Mark Twain couldn't learn it properly (read his story about the Museum of Curiosities in Heidelberg), how much chance do you stand? When you start studying German in depth, you are going to soon realize that it's an extremely illogical language despite initial appearances. There are so many idiomatic non-sensical ad-hoc rules, you'd have to learn an awful amount of exceptions that are used daily, you simply have little chance to catch up with the natives that consider them normal... Tja My advice - if you really want to move abroad, move to the US, much less issues overall and English is way simpler up to C2 level (which gets super hard) and you can get a recognition and make a bank way easier.
        wolfgke 10y ago
        > Tolerating for a while and then forcing you to switch, and then putting you back into "idiot mode" as you both sound funny and can't express anything precisely That's not true. The typical German mentality is rather: They are/were willing to learn English to be able to communicate with you when you came. But now that you want to stay here for a longer time, you are expected you to learn German, too. So in other words: Some English speakers rather tend to confuse politeness (speaking English at the beginning to native English speakers when they are new to Germany) with acceptance (of having to speak in English to people that stay there for a longer time and are not willing to learn German).
- LeanderK 10y ago
  Out of interest, whats its like studying at a MPI?
  - denzil_correa 10y ago
    There are many MPIs across Germany. So, each one would have its own experience.
    - LeanderK 10y ago
      i know i may not be representative, but i am still interested in your experience.
      - ced 10y ago
        The faculty were all rather nice to the students, and since it wasn't in a university, the 50 or so international students were a pretty tightly-knit group of people. They pushed a lot to finish the Ph.D. in 3/3.5 years, which is nice. Having so many experts in a specific scientific discipline concentrated in one place is pretty impressive, too. My heart was elsewhere the whole time, so I'm not the best person to ask :P Germany itself was enjoyable, and I've met some fairly friendly Germans in WGs. It rains a lot in some places. YMMV, good luck!
syllogism 10y ago
Pretty sure your boss is paying you to program, and your coworker to program — not you to learn German and your coworker to teach German.
grncdr 10y ago
This depends on the company. Many Berlin tech companies have a very international staff, and English might be the only common language.

Arnt 10y ago

At least a year? You sound like the kind of person who couldn't diet to lose a few kilos. My wife needed a few weeks to be able to speak Norwegian on a conversational level, I didn't need much more than that for German (difficult to count exactly due to travelblah). Once you reach conversational level the rest of the way has a different quality — you'll need to learn more but you've conquered the cliff, the rest is a modest incline.

auganov 10y ago
A lot of individuals just don't feel comfortable speaking a language before they know it well enough. I definitely have a lot of respect for people that can just pick up a few basics and manage to always get their point across. But I just couldn't do it. I'm the kind of person that rehearses what they'll say in the most mundane situations. I'm uncomfortable when the plan doesn't work out. Recently I even got complimented by a McD employee for telling them my rather lengthy order flawlessly without any need for interruption, made my day ;-D
- Noseshine 10y ago
  So I'll risk the downvotes the parent got - massively, and say that he's got a point. You feel uncomfortable speaking the language at an early level? How.. horrible! Please do think about what you have written. Really. I don't even know what to say, it's just so silly.
  - auganov 10y ago
    Of course it's silly. As silly as being, say, shy is. Knowing that it doesn't stem from some rational evaluation or even realizing it hinders you is only the first step. And btw I didn't downvote the parent. My point was mostly tangential rather than a counter argument.
- tmalsburg2 10y ago
  At some point I accepted that my English is terrible (I'm German) and I decided to not waste any more energy on being embarrassed. Lo and behold, that was were my English really started to improve because I used it much more and also more intuitively. Previously, I first constructed every sentence in my head before uttering it. That works to some extent but it prevents you from developing an intuitive understanding of the language. So my advice is: don't make your life harder than necessary, speak without thinking, you will make plenty of mistakes, but people will think you are cute. More generally, If you show your weakness in life, people usually react very positively.