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More German than many Germans

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Re: More German than many Germans

#501

Post by aleph_minus_one »

moezd wrote: post #500
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture. Rather: because a lot of less formal thoughts (including jokes) are difficult to express in English since they often rely on structures that the English language does not have. > if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child I can ensure you that you don't sound like a child (nursery language is typically not taught in language courses for…

I miss speaking my native language, too, but English is what I take as common ground. As an adult, I can never hope to compete on native German fluency with someone who's born and raised in Germany to educated German parents. That's just biased. You missed the point. Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired,…

> Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?

No, I wouldn't.

I think a lot comes down to differences in mentality:

- Many Germans think that they had a hard time getting to a decent level in English. So they expect the same willingness from foreigners to get to a decent level in German. (#)

- Many German native speaker really care about their language: It is a very common situation that German native speakers correct both native speakers and people who learn German as foreign language. With some people who learn German as second language, I get the reaction "Even if this is grammatically wrong, you nevertheless understood the sentence.". I do believe this person did not get my point: Among English native speakers I often observe this mentality for their native language, but I would really claim that "German language is a kind of thinking", so such mistakes really feel like a wrong-typed computer program.

So

> As an adult, I can never hope to compete on native German fluency with someone who's born and raised in Germany to educated German parents.

Being able to compete on this level is not something that is expected from you. But (also cf. (#)) willing to cram brutally hard to get near to this level over some time is.

---

Thus, to come back to your point:

> Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?

As I wrote: I really wouldn't think less of this person because he makes mistakes. But - very in accordance of what I wrote - I would think less of such a person if he doesn't work really hard to get better in German fast.

In other words: It's really not about not making mistakes (everyone does), but about not working hard to get better.

Re: More German than many Germans

#502

Post by flobosg »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #477
moezd wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The landing story is uncharacteristically soft, surrounded by English speaking colleagues in an international company. On average, you'd find that Germans tend to grow weary speaking in English sooner and almost press you to speak German the first time you blurt a reply that sounds vaguely correct German. It almost becomes a matter of protecting your personal space if you don't want to feel embarrassed for maki…

> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture. Rather: because a lot of less formal thoughts (including jokes) are difficult to express in English since they often rely on structures that the English language does not have. > if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child I can ensure you that you don't sound like a child (nursery language is typically not taught in language courses for…

It goes both ways, of course. There are Germans who do not take learning English seriously, and foreigners who stumble because many informal expressions (including jokes) are difficult to express in German since they rely on structures that the language does not have.

Re: More German than many Germans

#503

Post by qu4z-2 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #345
fluxflexer wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still do. But as you said,most people go for the 300€ product and not Miles 900€ one. I had the chance to tour their electronics production lines in Gütersloh, Germany a few years ago which were top notch, almost automotive standard, and they told me, that they plan, develop and manufacture for 18 yrs lifetime. Not sure how long the cheaper products last, any experience?

The problem is that even if you want to pay a premium, you can't be sure you're getting a better, more reliable product. It's safer to gamble on the economy option and replace as needed. If you inflation adjust prices of mid-range major appliances from the 80s they'd be massively expensive today. The price differential is the quality that has been engineered out of all products to be competitive.

Yeah, even if you look up reviews of a particular model, chances are the manufacturer doesn't make that one anymore (it's over a year old!) and just has some seemingly-identical one with different failure modes.

I'd love to buy quality products (and do when I can!) but it's really hard to get good information as a buyer.

Re: More German than many Germans

#504

Post by Behemoth66 »

Yasuraka wrote: post #395
kioleanu wrote: post #39

There is one rule of thumb that I’ve noticed: if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. Otherwise not. Your article mirrors my own experience 1:1, it’s like I’ve written it myself. Apart from the citizenship process. Even though it was also 14 months long (eerie lol), I had to do a lot of noise about it, because they are processing applications out of order (some people got…

> if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. You won't, even if you were born and raised here - 3rd generation Turks get treated worse after 60 years than Ukranians after 4, let alone someone with an arab name, all else being equal[1]. This is natural in almost all nations for its humans in all of them, but the rampant arrogance and hypocrisy is exceptional and one does no g…

"3rd generation Turks" Because they are famously a case of not having assimilated to Germany but instead over-assimilated to an islamist-conservative Turkey.

"Q: Where would you live if you were a hyper-nationalist Turk? A: Germany"

Re: More German than many Germans

#506

Post by lynx97 »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #433
lynx97 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect natives have a more nuanced view of their home country, compared to expats who end up getting a tinted view. At least it likely takes a long time for an outsider to truly understand how things work. Reading the newspapers isn't representative, you know...

The natives have their own biases.

If you call "must more anecodtal knowledge" a bias, I give you that.

Re: More German than many Germans

#507

Post by dranudin »

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…

> Perhaps the tendency to complain is a necessity to achieve a high level of efficiency.

I am pretty convinced about that. Especially after having lived and worked in other countries where people like to complain less. If people will just accept and not complain, problems also will not get fixed.

Re: More German than many Germans

#508

Post by account42 »

a2tech wrote: post #374
aix1 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they do is very interesting, though IMO "refuse to enter the country" sounds harsher than it actually is. If an inbound German train is late to Basel by more than 20 minutes, the Swiss run their own substitute train from Basel (they keep rolling stock on standby). The replacement train runs to the original timetable so that local passengers are unaffected. The late train is then pulled out of service at Basel (t…

That sounds like an excellent solution for locals. But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.

Inefficient compared to what? DB being on time is not an alternative that the Swiss can choose.

Re: More German than many Germans

#509

Post by account42 »

beeforpork wrote: post #27
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…

The driver is not allowed to open the door anywhere but at a bus stop, the company running the bus forbids it. Quite strictly, actually. I think it is mainly because of insurance things. It is the same in a traffic jam when you are on the bus and the next bus stop is just a few meters away, and the bus is stuck and nothing moves -- impatient people will get angry because they want to leave the bus, but the driver is…

Calling people "impatient" because someone is trapping them against there will without a good reason lol. Those people are acting reasonable, it's the rules that are bad.

Re: More German than many Germans

#510

Post by account42 »

dathinab wrote: post #268
14u2c wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it typical for a company to run the busses? Somewhat interesting as that's one thing in the US that is rarely privatized. The driver, etc. will be a direct employees of the municipality.

in EU it's normal - a company run the busses - its partially of fully owned by the city/state, i.e. NOT private investors, not private liquidity, no one expects any payouts - its commonly a special form of "company", e.g. "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts" in this case which you can roughly read as "installment/company based on public-law" Practical that is "mostly" the same as state run when looking at it from a dist…

> just direct one, indirectly through ownership

Well also through funding.

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