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More German than many Germans

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Re: More German than many Germans

#321

Post by rsynnott »

pmg101 wrote: post #248
bambax wrote: post #13

The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…

Meanwhile, here in the UK we had the bus with no door at all that you could just jump on and off from in moving traffic. People trusted to manage their own risk. I remember this vividly from my childhood, in the 80s and 90s, in London. Not anymore though, sadly. https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/blog/routemaster-design-icon

They needed a two person crew, was the main problem, AIUI.

Re: More German than many Germans

#322

Post by tsoukase »

I am glad I hear the warm and polite Willkommen hasn't changed. Thirty years ago a 20 something me visited Bonn for Erasmus and the following for medical Residency. Same excellent impressions, same humanely feelings, same satisfying conclusions. Although I returned back to my country, I always question myself if I should stay and regret. But you can never know how an hypothetical life path could unfold, because, well, YOLO.

Re: More German than many Germans

#323

Post by tchalla »

pitchlatte wrote: post #236
kataklasm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich is what Germany should look like? May I ask where you are from/if you live in Germany/Munich? Munich feels absolutely dead and is culturally pretty dead compared to other big cities due to Munich's vast rich immigrant (most would call them "expats) population. Munich has no soul is a rich landlord's watering hole by now.

yeah Munich if anything is extremely hostile to integration. i know several people who moved there and got burnt out trying to integrate. with previous knowledge of the language.

You know the parent comment is blaming immigration for the current status of Munich right?

Re: More German than many Germans

#324

Post by rglullis »

rsynnott wrote: post #316
arethuza wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far." Isn't that a common complaint in the lot of countries - people complain about London in the UK in a very similar fashion?

It's a very common complaint in countries where one city is disproportionately dominant (London for the UK or Dublin for Ireland, say). It's arguably a bit more surprising for Berlin, because Berlin isn't so disproportionately huge (Berlin's metro area is 6 million out of 80 million, versus London's 15 million out of 70 million or Dublin's 2 million out of 5 million), and because Germany has other comparably sized ci…

Nah, there is a very strong reason to support the "Berlin ist eine Insel" saying. Are you forgetting the fact that Berlin was literally isolated from the rest of Western Germany and controlled by 4 other countries until some decades ago?

Re: More German than many Germans

#325

Post by poisonborz »

mr_mitm wrote: post #137
ovb39 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the complaining comes from high taxes, remembering the "good old times" and just from being German. Germans love to complain. I left Germany for a few years and came back. There are very few other places I could imagine to live in. Maybe Norway, Canada or Switzerland. I hope Germany gets its things together, the recent uprise of xenophobia and social polarization is concerning. I grew up in a Germany…

I, a German, went to Switzerland for vacation once. I talked to a Swiss guy about how I like Switzerland and all that. I told him how impressed I was with how organized everything is and how well everything works. The train system and public transport in general is wonderful compared to the one we have in Germany, for example. To my surprise, he said something along the line of "yeah well, it only looks like that fro…

A normal sized plot with a house listed to be torn down on in outskirts of Zurich costs 7mil. A 2 bedroom apartment on the countryside costs 2mil. You will not pay this in a lifetime from 2 good level swiss salaries.

Re: More German than many Germans

#326

Post by holgerschurig »

rglullis wrote: post #247
bspinner wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would like to hear your thoughts on why that is the case.

I was going to respond with "Protestantism", but then I realized that I also lived in the US for ~5 years and I had no problem to adapt there. Mind you, I wouldn't go back to live in the US unless you were paying me a lot of money to do so, but at least there I felt integrated. But honestly I don't have a better answer. Despite all my sincerest efforts, I never got the German idea of humor. I never understood their l…

> I never got the German idea of humor.

A lot of foreigners say that. Actually mostly english speaking ones. I never heard a turk say this. Perhaps it's linked to the willingness to learn the language, which is often low with english-speaking people?

No idea, but back to the story: my answer to this "I don't get the humor" is: I don't get spanish humor.

And the simple reason is that I don't speak spanish good enough. I get SOME of the british & US humor. But only a bit ... my language skill, albeit perhaps ok if you look at it, is still not good enough to detect the subtle details. IMHO that is the reason why e.g. Mr Bean was easy to export: he doesn't talk :-)

In any case: to get the local humor, you MUST learn the language and even the culture quite good. Otherwise, you simply don't get it.

Re: More German than many Germans

#327

Post by holgerschurig »

pizza234 wrote: post #256
bspinner wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would like to hear your thoughts on why that is the case.

German culture is very functional, rigid, and dry, and it serves people with that kind of mindset very well. However, it clashes strongly with typical Southern cultures, so it is no surprise that the parent mentioned this. People who value the "softer" aspects of life are not going to feel at home. There are certainly exceptions, and YMMV.

The question is... what about the german culture do you know?

Do you know the "functional" Brother Grimm's tales?

Or the "dry" humor of Dieter Hallervorden if you're a bit older? (okay, Christian Ehring from extra3 is perhaps really dry ...)

Do you know the rigid songs of, say Nena or Einstürzende Neubauten? Or is the music of BAP functional to you?

Are the books of Andreas Eschbach dry? Or the lyrics of Ingeborg Bachmann?

Maybe local customs like or the cologne "Karneval" are dry you then? These days we have CSD's all over the place. Maybe not original german culture, but perhaps the german adaption is too rigid?

Do you actually KNOW german culture? Have you been here in school, for example? My guess: you don't really know german culture, at least not so much that you found stuff in it that you enjoy. But you certainly miss your home culture. This is the culture where you were brought up, where you know the language, the norms, the taboos etc. And something else is then alien to you, not comforting. But you already adopted german directness to express this non-comforting state in harsh and ugly words :-)

Re: More German than many Germans

#328

Post by juvvel »

i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #134
juvvel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German films are mostly not great, but if one wants to get immersed into the language, music and literature are much better places. And also comedy. The language allows for some great puns.

A lot of good video games have decent German dubs, it was how I reached B2 German.

The Witcher 3 is great in German. It actually suits the game a lot better than English imo.

Re: More German than many Germans

#329

Post by i_am_a_peasant »

juvvel wrote: post #328
i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of good video games have decent German dubs, it was how I reached B2 German.

The Witcher 3 is great in German. It actually suits the game a lot better than English imo.

Yeah I’ve only played witcher 3 in german. I don’t even know the english names of many characters.

Re: More German than many Germans

#330

Post by i_am_a_peasant »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #178
i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of good video games have decent German dubs, it was how I reached B2 German.

> A lot of good video games have decent German dubs This in my experience only holds for AAA titles. For many smaller games, the German translation/localization is so bad that if one's English level is not insanely bad, it's even more comfortable to play the English version, and use a dictionary for lots of words (i.e. invest more time using the dictionary than playing the game) than tolerating the pain of how bad th…

Idk, do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s? Syberia? Broken Sword? they’re decent. Deponia also good, Truberbrook. What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
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