On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch | Hacker News Reader

On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

europeanreviewofbooks.com

312 pointslermontov346 comments

Observation of Berlin from the weekend I spent there last month: literally the only place I was better off speaking German rather than English was a Turkish cafe. Everywhere else? Too many people understood English far better than they did German, especially anywhere to do with tech. Some of the tech people I talked to were running into being otherwise eligible for a permanent residence permit, but not being able to manage the moderate language requirements.

Contrast with Nuremberg and Erlangen, two relatively international cities in northern Bavaria: you can get around ok in English for anything tourist-related, but you really need to learn some German for day to day life. The B1 level that a permanent residence permit requires is about the right minimum level around here.

One thing that is specific to Berlin is that increasingly bars and cafes are staffed by foreigners. This is a quirk of the German employment system, a scarcity of staff, and the wide availability of expats in need of gigs. Instead of hiring permanent staff and paying them a salary, it's less risky to have temporary workers. However, you can't do that endlessly with the same people in the German system. You would have to employ them after a while. However, there's a never ending stream of students and other expats flowing through Berlin willing to do that kind of job. So, lots of bars and cafes employ those instead. Also, there are a fair amount of expats that stay in Berlin that open their own businesses.

That is only correct for a very small number of hip cafes and restaurants in certain districts tbh.

You can employ germans indefinitely without "proper" contract as well through something called "Minijob" and the majority of cafes and restaurant skirt the law and let you work without paying taxes "illegally". Most of the ppl working there are students or in between careers. Only a fraction of the staff will be employed permanently with "real" contracts.

source: worked in the industry there for 6+ years

My wife tried to check into a fancy hotel (nothing hip) in Berlin and the receptionist only spoke English (and presumably some other language). It's not just hipster restaurants.

Even when the person does speak German, they're often not a native speaker and speak better English.

correct, hotels/accommodations are another sector that is run mostly through students and minijobbers.

Yes, I was shocked the first time in Oslo when I went to a cafe and understood that the staff didn't understand a word of Norwegian. This is probably a capital thing. There's an expat-run café near where I live (not in Oslo) that employs a lot of US and Australian young people for shorter periods, and if they don't understand Norwegian, they surely do a lot better job of hiding it and guessing what you're asking for.

As a social experiment, tell them you don't speak English. Only Norwegian. See if they manage a few words from their language course. They might actually appreciate being forced to take the leap.

When I moved to Berlin 15 years ago, this was not the case. Many bars and cafes were staffed by German-speaking people in their 30s - underpaid artistic or intellectual types or professional partiers making an extra buck. This had a particular charm - they were often cranky and unconcerned, but they kept the same job for a long time and you could get to know them and feel like a "regular." This kept me returning to the same places time and again.

These days, and especially post-covid, the faces are shockingly young, obviously inexperienced with the skilled or social sides of their job, and seem to never last more than a month or two. The charm is completely gone.

I don't think it's much different anywhere else; certainly not in the UK or Ireland at least. My father works in the pub trade. Hospitality work used to just about be well paid enough that one could make good money out of it in while also having the flexibility to pursue other careers - hence why it attracted so many struggling musicians/actors/artist types. In the last decade, because the wages have dropped so low compared to living expenses, we've moved to a model where hospitality work is often done by people in their late teens to mid-twenties, who are living with their parents or in university digs so don't "need" the money to the same degree, just the flexibility. They're doing it for pocket money.

People later on on life with kids or other responsibilities simply can't make ends meet and independent cafe/bar/pub owners can't raise wages without going bust, as the running costs have sky-rocketed at a much higher rate than they can acceptably increases prices. People complain about the cost of a pint going up £1, but really the cost per keg is such that it should be £2 more; however, if they charged that price then customers go elsewhere to places they can afford. Wetherspoons or Greene King come to mind. These sort of commercial enterprises can afford to buy a pub outright - so no lease fees - and can reduce their bottom line through economies of scale to a point where independents can't compete. Of course, these corporations don't increase wages because God forbid their billionaire owners and shareholders don't get their cut of the pie.

My theory is that this is completely due to the raising cost of housing - it's no longer easy (possible?) do make due in Berlin on that kind of job long-term.

*to make *do.

I've been in Berlin for 17 years, and in my early days in Berlin, a room in a shared apartment could be found for as little as €75/month (e.g. 6 bedroom apartment), and studio apartments could be found for €250/month. Hell, I paid €450/month for my 2 bedroom (3. Zimmer in German parlance) in Alt-Treptow (800 meters from Schlesicher Str., where I worked).

That opened up a lot of quirky social possibilities because the floor for survival was so low in Berlin. If an artist could throw together €400/month, they could survive on that. Now that's what a room in a shared apartment costs.

Even when I started a tech company, I got my cost of living down to €800/month, in the above apartment, which I shared with my co-founder.

> That opened up a lot of quirky social possibilities because the floor for survival was so low in Berlin.

All those quirky possibilities are a tragically underappreciated consequence of having a low cost of living in a place where you'd actually want to live.

I'm agnostic as to whether we try to achieve that through some sort of basic income or by other means - I just really hope that we try, both to alleviate poverty and to see the explosion of cultural and technological innovation that will surely follow.

Same for Amsterdam and other expat-heavy places.

If you stay and open a restaurant in Berlin, presumably for the long term, wouldn't that make you an immigrant? There is a Syrian bakery in my street and people don't call him an expat.

It probably depends on the specifics. In Asia, I've known a fair number of Europeans who have lived there for a significant period of time and I would still think of them as expats.

I thought the "joke" was that expats are white, immigrants are not?

Definitely true on the whole, but perhaps identity is not the most productive lens to look through.

As a white expat/immigrant to the UK, I think it's more about whether you've committed to never returning. It's a very different mindset I find, between those who've moved and are staying put, vs those with the idea of leaving in the back of their minds. The privilege of the expat is being able to hedge for a very long time.

Still "immigrants" get accused of hedging their bets while still not afforded the "expat" moniker.

"Immigrants won't commit to their new country"

"They move their wealth abroad" etc.

I think that's fair. With respect to Westerners living in Asia there is also definitely a language/culture thing with stereotypical expats mostly hanging out with other expats and going to expat bars, restaurants, etc.

I make a distinction between a highly educated Japanese person working at a university and a boat refugee from Sudan.

Got nothing to do with race. We are a civilised people we judge on economics.

And you never let race be a shorthand for economics either.

Naah, they use method of conveyance for that.

Expats are yacht refugees, not boat.

Expats are rich, immigrants are poor.

Its both:

Leave Country A for Country B = expat

Move to Country B from Country A = immigrant

The words mean exactly the same. It's just which perspective you want to highlight. Whether you left a place or moved to a place.

If you have brown skin, you're an economic migrant.

If you have pink skin, you're an ex-pat.

I have a parent from each of those categories and can confirm from this natural A/B test that that’s how they are treated.

I might have been traumatized by US visa process, but in my mind "immigrant" has a very specific meaning: moving to a country with the intent of settling there permanently. And the US is very strict on that meaning: when I went to the US my work visa was explicitly non-immigrant, and calling myself an immigrant at the US embassy when applying for the visa, or while crossing the US border would have resulted in the denial of my visa, or the denial of my entry in the US. At least that's what the attorney drilled into my head...

Expat literally means "living outside of your homeland". So by definition an immigrant is an expat, but an expat is not necessarily an immigrant. Sometimes expat is used in a stricter sense (also called "true expat") to refer to people sent abroad by their employer on usually very very favorable packages (the "expat packages"): everything paid (rent in prime neighborhoods, private schools for kids, plane tickets to visit home, etc.), on top of an indemnity for living abroad, on top of the regular salary paid home.

In my case I was an expat in the United States (only went there to work, no intention to stay), but then I immigrated to Japan (now a permanent resident, no intention to leave). It would have been wrong to call me an immigrant in the US, but I am both an expat and an immigrant in Japan.

> when I went to the US my work visa was explicitly non-immigrant, and calling myself an immigrant at the US embassy when applying for the visa, or while crossing the US border would have resulted in the denial of my visa, or the denial of my entry in the US. At least that's what the attorney drilled into my head...

H1B is dual-intent. You are allowed to have an immigrant intent when applying for H1B, so no, nobody would refuse it on that ground.

They never specified H1B.

They were probably on a treaty visa, Like E2 (which i have, it's not just for business owners/investors, employees can get this too) or T2 (The NAFTA equivalent). These visas allow you to live and work in the US for a very long time (extendable indefinitely for 2 years a pop in my case), but they have no dual-intent attached to them. They are a dead-end and if you want to stay in the US you need to start from square one with an H1B/Marriage or convince your employer to start a standalone green card sponsorship, which costs like $50k and 2+ years of processing, where the only benefit to the employer is that you can now get a different job.

It's actually kind of a problem, there's a lot of people on these visas who've lived and worked here for 20+ years with no viable route to permanent residency.

H1B is as much of a dead-end as E2/T2 is. There is no way to convert them to a green card. You can do an AOS from any visa.

This is the reason why I would not even consider moving to the US on a non-immigrant visa. It's either green card or I'm happy in the EU.

> It's actually kind of a problem, there's a lot of people on these visas who've lived and worked here for 20+ years with no viable route to permanent residency.

That's because the INA was written in the 50s and has barely changed since, and is unlikely to change because that would require bipartisanship.

It was an E-2 visa (as "essential manager", not investor...), so not H1B. But again, that's what the attorney told me, maybe he just wanted to be super extra careful. But notice the nonimmigrant wording on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website [1]: "The E-2 nonimmigrant classification allows a national of a treaty country...". My employer did propose to sponsor a green card application, so I had a path to permanent residency. I wasn't interested: I had the firm intention of going back to Japan.

Anyway: my point is that "immigrant" and "expat" are not synonyms: "immigrant" has a much narrower meaning, which has absolutely nothing to do with coming from a poor country or a rich country.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

> Expat literally means "living outside of your homeland". So by definition an immigrant is an expat, but an expat is not necessarily an immigrant.

In practice, though, "expat" is used by people who want to define themselves in terms of where they're from, and not admit (to themselves any more than to anyone else) that they are where they are and are probably going to stay there for the foreseeable future: "I don't belong to the riffraff here in the country where I live, I'm an expat, which is something far fancier."

And possibly by a few naïve fuckers who don't actually mean it that way, and don't realise that that's how they're coming off because of all the stuck-up arseholes who do.

HTH!

IDK, I would use "immigrant" when someone moves to another country with the intent to stay there, and "expat" when someone moves to another country for work or study (so, longer than just tourism) but while they might choose to stay/immigrate, for now that's just temporary, say, for a year or two.

My wife and I were ex-pats when we lived and worked in Belgium for almost eight years. Her employer was originally a subsidiary of JP Morgan, and she was paid as an American living in Brussels. I was brought along as her spouse (although we were actually only engaged at that point), and I was able to find work locally (at Belgacom Skynet, the ISP arm of the former PTT for the country). My wife got a very rare "unlimited stay" work permit.

Come almost eight years later and we were eligible to apply for Belgian citizenship. Her employer had been spun off into a Belgian company, and they were not willing to continue to pay her as an ex-pat. So, it didn't make financial sense for us to remain in the country. So, we moved back to the US.

We never had any plans to permanently move to Belgium, so we weren't immigrants.

But it was fun being ex-pats for a while.

To me it's more or less: if you move countries with an intent to stay, then you're an immigrant. Otherwise, you're an expat. Of course an expat my become an immigrant if they decide to take roots in a place.

I’ve seen retired Brits live in southern Spain and Portugal for 20+ years calling themselves expats and not making any effort to integrate, even though they have all the intent of staying there and not returning to England.

So expat/immigrant seems like a very social/economic background distinction.

In any case, if you're a EUian, you can live and work in Germany (or any other EU country) just like a native of the country (some restrictions may apply/may have applied, e.g. with the UK (when it was part of the EU) restricting the number of Romanians and other "freshly joined the EU" citizens who could live there). There's even no need to have a high-paying contract like software dev or brain surgeon, you can be a dishwasher.

Maybe it's not just EU, but EFTA as well, I was in Iceland and there were a lot of Eastern Europeans working in the retail stores.

There are a number of overlapping things.

Within the EU, the "four freedoms" apply, of which on "freedom of movement" is the thing mainly at play.

The EFTA states have a similar distinct thing between them.

How all EFTA states (bar Switzerland - i.e. Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein) are also in the EEA Agreement, and the EU "four freedoms" also apply there.

Switzerland has a raft of linked treaties with the EU, which sort of replicate the EEA agreement, and includes the "four freedoms".

It depends on where you are and what you're doing in the city. After a long enough time here, that lack of German starts to stunt or limit you to a degree. You'll end up in the same types of places with the same groups of people. Getting colleagues and friends to call places or answer letters or emails for you, or just stumbling along in broken German.

I don't think anybody 'wants' to not know German in Berlin - it's just that they've decided it's not worth the effort at all or they are ok with their A2 level even though it's obviously not ideal. I know trilingual people in Berlin who just aren't going to learn German, a fourth language, beyond A2.

I (native English speaker) personally aspire to getting to B2 from my current A2 though.

Be stubborn and stick to your German even if it is bad, a bilingual conversation is just as fun. It took me as a German a long time to not automatically switch to English when I talk with someone who has little German knowledge.

As someone who still can't speak "good enough" after 6 years in Germany, thank you! Everyone switches to English all the time :)

Gern geschehen!

This gets harder when you struggle to meet other people who actually speak German.

A permanent residency (PR) in Berlin does not require German language skills anymore. Maybe this is official or just established practice but regardless, there’a no reason not to have your PR if you qualify otherwise.

Where do you have this information from? The State of Berlin says otherwise https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/121864/en/ :

------ Sufficient knowledge of German You must have an adequate command of the German language (level B 1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).

If you were in possession of either a residence permit or a residence authorisation on 31/12/2004, you only have to demonstrate basic knowledge of the German language (level A 1) to be granted a permanent settlement permit. ------

In practice the staff giving interviewing you have leeway to assess your German level on the spot, but applying without demonstrated adequate German levels could lead to wasting ones time.

That's for non-EU citizens. There are 360MM non-German EU citizens - some of which are living in Berlin visa-free.

There has never been any language requirement for EU citizens to live in Germany or anywhere else, ever since freedom of movement was established.

Some? Wouldn't they all be visa free?

Yeah, that page is for non-EU-ians, because if you're from the EU, due to freedom of movement, you can live and work in any other EU country, and you don't even need to apply for a "permanent resident permit".

Well, most of these 360MM non-German EU citizens don't live in Berlin or Germany at all, only some of them do.

Immigration is even more of a local matter than I thought it was! I was used to each town having its own immigration office, and the slightly different levels of service and organization, but thought that the B1 exam or degree from a German-speaking university was a national requirement for a Niederlassungserlaubnis.

I was at the local immigration office only a few weeks ago and German language skills are still very much required for PR. One doesn't need it for the family reunion visa and work permit, but does for PR.

There is talk of dropping this requirement, but I'll believe it when I see it.

> There is talk of dropping this requirement, but I'll believe it when I see it.

I really hope it doesn't get dropped; it is unreasonable to live permanently in a country without speaking the local language

There are other types of residencies available if someone is an expat and doesn't plan on staying permanently

And it's not like they're asking for a high fluency; with B1, you can barely hold a simple coherent conversation

Germany doesn't really have permanent residency - it's more like 'indefinite' residency that is revoked when you leave the country for too long.

So basically what you're saying is that after a few years you need B1 to stay. It's not unreasonable but of course will have an impact on the economy and society just like any other large decision.

I live in Berlin and am A2, with my North Star being B2 German and am a US Citizen with no intention to switch to German citizenship. I'd like to not get kicked out though.

The real caveat though is that many of the people in Berlin who don't speak B1+ German are EU citizens and do not need a visa to live here.

> Germany doesn't really have permanent residency - it's more like 'indefinite' residency that is revoked when you leave the country for too long.

That's the same as the US green card, and Australian permanent residency, and I assume most others.

I'm starting to call all of those 'indefinite residency' as well. I'd be interested to know of visas that do offer stronger residency that is more permanent than these but not quite citizenship.

> it is unreasonable to live permanently in a country without speaking the local language

But what if there are countries where the 'local language' eventually becomes like Irish in Ireland?

Everyone who goes to school in the Republic of Ireland will learn some Irish at school. Almost every Irish person will know some Irish expressions, Irish songs, and be aware of Irish-language culture and literature as well as English-language Irish culture. If two native Irish people were in a hostage situation, held by English speakers who didn't know any Irish, and had to communicate without being understood, most would probably manage to do so.

And yet, you could live anywhere in Ireland your whole life and never be in a situation where you needed anything other than English to make yourself understood. No official purpose, and no business interaction would ever require Irish, even in the most rural and remote areas.

If you cared deeply about the Irish language, wouldn't it make more sense to support and honor Irish poetry, song, literature and theatre, rather than trying to coerce or force immigrants into learning a (reputedly difficult) language with around 1 million speakers, and less than 100,000 daily active users?

Some (not historically Anglophone) countries are getting close to being like this, in particular the Netherlands and Sweden. The metropolitan areas of those countries are much further down that path. If local culture is still preserved, taught and celebrated, is a really a problem?

Will English supplant Dutch and German in a few generations?

In a way they are related, is it why people from those countries pick it up so easily?

Like kids growing up in metropolitan areas immersed in English only environments

I think that the links between these languages do make it easy for people from the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia to learn English. These countries, to give them credit, have also seen the importance of good language education, in particular English learning, for a long time.

There is also an effect which people from other countries have described which makes it harder for foreigners to learn the local language. If you approach almost anyone in the Netherlands and speak to them in semi-competent Dutch, they will often respond in fluent and nearly accentless English. This includes older people, people with only high-school education, people in official positions. So not only do you not need to learn, you are discouraged from practicing by the local population's competence and hospitality.

It might feel that way if your main experience of Germany is Berlin, but is not a risk for any of the rest of the country, including Munich with its fairly strong English-speaking expat community - Germans speak German to each other, and will politely ask you, the non-German, if it's ok to continue the meeting in German, but expect you to at least attempt to learn it.

I've not spent enough time in the Netherlands to speak to Dutch's future, but a big difference I can see is television and movies, even on streaming services: popular US shows are dubbed into German and it takes a bit of doing to get some of them with the original English soundtracks; Dutch has long been a target for subbing.

Wish Spain adopted that view a bit more. Let alone English, some of local officials just refuse to speak Castellano and tell you to come back when you have learned the local dialect/language (lol). Most official forms are primarily in the local language - sometimes official websites too without option to translate to the official language of the country. Most kids in local schools learn Castellano Spanish as a foreign language - imagine the disadvantage it brings. Local universities require a local dialect language exam as part of their entrance, even to foreigners. Most classes are held in the local language. I get and support regional pride but it should be done with a common sense approach.

>If local culture is still preserved, taught and celebrated, is a really a problem?

Yes because it won't be really preserved if you don't have speakers who use it as their main language since nothing new will be created, just relics of the past that will slowly be lost.

Most people other than highly-cosmopolitan minorities don't think they should lose their language, which is so deeply tied with how we even process our understanding of the world, by mapping concepts to words, with their culture and identity, just to make it easier for foreigners who can't be bothered to learn the local language.

The problem is that the minority is way more vocal and has more influencing power.

> If two native Irish people were in a hostage situation, held by English speakers who didn't know any Irish, and had to communicate without being understood, most would probably manage to do so.

Perhaps, so long as what they needed to communicate was that either they wanted permission to go to the bathroom, or that they liked something in the room (most likely a girl, cake, or window).

mar ná beidh ár leithéidí arís ann

Ah yes, the only Irish sentence you can guarantee everyone in the country knows.

An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas?

Well, that is how it is in the whole of the EU: you can go and live anywhere you like without speaking the local language.

Sorry!

Where are you from? Post brexit I was just handed perm residence with no language test and one short form…

I do speak German, and have a German native child though.

London. It depends when one applied. If you were already there and it was by 30/6/21 then you would have been handled normally under the Withdrawal Agreement, if after, you are able to rejoin on a family reunion visa by dint of having a German child - with no language requirement - but that still isn't permanent residency. All that said, there appears to - still - be some lack of clarify between various government departments on this front. Not sure why, because the UK is now a third-country and that should be the end of that.

> A permanent residency (PR) in Berlin does not require German language skills anymore.

Of course it does

The problem is that in most places people want to display their ability to speak English to show their sophistication. Let’s hope that some day speaking another language besides English is a sign of status.

The language requirements for a PR are lower if you have a blue card

B1 is actually pretty strict, Spain only requires an A2 even for citizenship (after ten years of being a resident). In a parallel universe, imagine needing to learn B1 Turkish as a German to become a turkish resident. Pretty daunting.

The funny thing about that is most people who never did a real language test have no idea what these categories even mean. I only learned languages in high school and I never moved to another country. A coworker of mine once tried to explain it to me, but his German and English was pretty much flawless so that didn't help telling me where he (may have) struggled in the past.

For anyone else curious:

Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.

Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken.

Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest.

Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

A2:

Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).

Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.

Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

I wish I could admit to being able to tell a significant difference between those two lists.

From what I gather C2 - Borderline Native

B2 - A fluent, but not overly practiced level, An example that comes to mind, First Generation migrant that is usually surrounded by people that speak it's native language, they can clearly communicate, but might slip on word order or particularly complex information

A2 - Think about the level of someone that paid attention in 2nd language classes, simple sentences, describing yourself and your immediate enviroment

A little bit late to the conversation, but my way of looking at the lists is:

A2 - Can survive in the country (get where you need to go, order food, etc.) but will have a lot of trouble in casual conversation.

B2 - Conversationally fluent. In addition to the requirements of A2, can have talk with strangers about daily life as long as they want to chat. Will still be completely lost in technical conversations.

C1 - In addition to B2, can take university classes in the language.

Some of the definitions of C2 I've seen are positively absurd. Someone at C2 level is supposed to be able to talk in technical detail about any topic. I've seen standards so high that I don't even think I would qualify as C2 level in my native language in my lifetime.

As a native Urberliner I am both flattered and confused by the fact so many young Americans choose to live in my home town. I always wondered what makes it so attractive to you. I mean, winters are miserable, the city is ugly compared to many others in Germany, the people are rather not friendly to each other, the German language is difficult to learn, our history is troublesome, German immigration laws still difficult to surmount and Berlin is becoming very expensive to live in these days compared to 20 years ago.

Edit: Perhaps I‘ve got the typical love/hate relationship with my home town and don’t see the forest for the trees we keep saying around here ;).

I hear it has the best night life, second to Seoul.

Depends on what you prefer I guess. Also I’m not sure if I’d relocate just for nightlife alone.

I think one major plus compared to US is how easy it is to get around. The trains still run (at least weekend nights), and if you’re partying on a day they do not they start up fairly early, so partying til first train is alright.

The Uber rides in a city in America at night can get more expensive than the total drink bill I remember spending out in Berlin.

I have an acquaintance that moved there for the electronic music scene, DJ’d regularly at Berghain, and has an Essential Mix. She probably would not have been that successful had she stayed in SF.

Staying out from Thursday or Friday evening until Monday morning is not for everybody, but Berlin's a city where that's eminently possible.

it's the capital, large, already has a big international presence which tends to in turn attract more migrants and it has a great nightlife. The clubbing, music and arts scene in Berlin is vastly better than any other city in Germany in my experience. After that maybe Munich and Cologne? But given the size of our country there's surprisingly not that many cities that are fun.

Depends on what you're looking for specifically but I'd rate Hamburg higher than both (I'm from Munich).

- easy visa to obtain + fairly cosmopolitan city, but still cheaper than NYC//London/Paris

- good location to visit other spots in Europe

- probably already have a friend of a friend living there

- the party scene

Very few Americans intend on living in Berlin permanently, though. It's an extended study abroad session for them.

The average stay IME is less than 18 months.

If you stay a few years you will have made and lost touch with a good few friends from all over the world who will have come, partied hard for a year while working for Zalando or N26 or some shit, and fucked off.

As a new Berliner who immigrated here I can answer some of those:

- Berlin has a reputation for its artsy party scene and lax enforcement of drug laws. People come here in their 20s to let themselves loose.

- German universities are good quality and free for all (excluding the Semesterpauschale, but for my American or British friends this 300€ is basically nothing in comparison - especially when you count in the public transport ticket that comes with your student card).

- Immigration is hard, but you are entitled to permanent residency after you've contributed into the pension system for 5 years total within a continuous period of stay in Germany. People are willing to play the game with the Ausländerbehörde for some time if they know they will eventually become eligible for a permanent stay.

- Free, good quality healthcare. Agreed that Berlin is not the representative example in Germany, but for many people coming from places where healthcare is unaffordable or outright dangerous (I'd never want to go to the hospital in my hometown again), this is a huge change for the better.

- You can "get by" in Berlin with English only by now, although you'll be highly dependent on others. I know people who've been here for 5+ years and still struggle to order a beer. Not the best way of living, but definitely possible with so many other expats around.

- Prices/earnings ratio is still better than in many places in the West.

I chose the city myself because I already knew the language (mandatory second language after English at school in my home country), and I don't regret it. You can navigate around the coarse edges and live a good life in here.

I now what you probably mean when you say "free", that you don't have to pay for it, but in reality, the universities are paid by everyone. Same for health care. I pay 400 euros per month. Of course, then I don't pay much else. But the cost is distributed, they are not "free". Maybe I am sensitive to the word, because in my home country, Argentina, populism has made people believe that everything has to be "free".

That's a good point and we should differentiate. The taxes in Europe are very high for a reason.

This is an accounting trick. Taxes do not cover the same services everywhere. Of course, taxes are higher in Sweden than in the US, but then you don’t pay as much for your children’s education or your parents’ health care. So sure, the young and healthy people without children are better off in the US. Or the very wealthy who would nominally pay more taxes, though they have other tricks to use.

On average it’s much more nuanced, though. Comparing at one given level of service, public services are actually good value for money.

It's about mentality. Americans strive to attain the ideal of a "self-made man"; prizing work ethic and self-sufficiency. Germans (Europeans is too broad of a label) are okay with learning a trade and then doing their job consistently for the rest of their lives - that's why the employment conditions in Germany are tuned towards long-term, stable employment.

I understand your perspective, but it is still mostly free for the people who need it (there are always fees and things so it is never completely free, but it is still very cheap compared to the actual cost).

In case of education, young student typically don’t earn enough to pay income tax, if they have any salary or wages at all. To them, it’s free. I now pay for them through my taxes and I am happy to because I was in their position and if uni wouldn’t have been so cheap, I could not have attended. It’s not free for the overall society, but it is free for those who use it.

Same for healthcare. We all pay but when you need heavy surgery or long-term care that would cost tens hundreds of thousands of euros, it’s close enough to free as to not make you bankrupt. Again, free-ish for those who need it.

I mean, the money has to come from somewhere. Yes, in terms of government-provided services "free" tends to mean "socialized", but if I compare it to a market-driven healthcare system in the US where the majority of effort goes into creative billing to milk people's insurances, the overall lifetime cost of healthcare appears to be much lower. Especially that with German insurance, there's no copay for treatments, only for prescription drugs (and even then, it's between 5-10€ per item, which can be further refunded if you are eligible).

With universities, my argument for public funding is that it theoretically makes higher education accessible to people actually interested in the subjects, instead of people who can afford it and go for the prestige of it. I feel that elsewhere, big name universities serve more as a platform for networking rather than actual educational institutions; here, I do not even know which universities are more or less prestigious. A degree is a degree.

In the UK we have the term "free at the point of service."

When I'm in Berlin (mainly talking to Americans) I get the impression that Berlin is especially great if you don't have need to have a job / pay tax

Yes, that's what "free" usually means. When people talk about free healthcare they usually don't mean that the only doctors should be hobbyists.

That's what the word "free" always means. Goods and services don't spontaneously materialize into existence.

You can get a PR faster (3y) if you’re here on a blue card (which is likely true for all non-EU tech workers).

Universities are not all free for non-EU citizens and some programs (generally English-speaking) Masters are (properly, not the 400€) paid for citizens and non-citizens alike.

Possibly, I'm a EU citizen myself. To be fair, in my home country courses taught in English had actual tuition even if it was a public university as well. Quite a few people who did not do well on their high school graduation exams would opt for those courses just for the prestige of studying at a public uni.

You're not kidding about lax enforcement of drug laws. In Kreuzberg I'd often see people obviously offering to sell drugs to passers-by as police cars would drive down the road practically next to them.

On the other hand the police does occasionally decide to make a show out of its enforcement. I think it's more appropriate to call it "selective" than lax, at least by German standards.

If you're a POC in the Kreuzberg parks, you will get searched by the police eventually. As a white kid going to clubs, it is very rare if you behave.

Try to do the same in places like Munich. The police can stop your taxi, search your pockets and bag, and if finding some illegal substances you lose your driver's license and need to go to the court. This will (hopefully) change for weed this year...

It is a show, that's true. However at least in my circles drugs - or at least talking about them - are so normalized that I have to remember to censor myself whenever I meet my friends who don't live in Berlin.

The healthcare is not "free" - health insurance is mandatory, and its quality varies massively depending on your insurer, the hospital/doctor you go to, etc.

Berlin is still cheaper than other major European cities, is big enough to have lots of things to do, has a good nightlife, is very international (as in you can live there without knowing too much German) and, more recently, has developed a good tech scene.

On friendliness, I found Berlin more welcoming than Hamburg and Munich. I felt people were friendlier in Köln (apart from the police that wanted to fine me for jaywalking), but it’s much uglier than Berlin.

I'm British by birth, I chose Berlin after Brexit because:

1. Friends here

2. Alternative countries were Luxembourg/Switzerland (more expensive); Canada (worse weather); Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time); USA (weird culture, guns); Australia/New Zealand (too far from the old country to visit regularly); France (I find the language harder than German); Belgium (saw a police officer with a long barrelled gun at the train station and noped out of even visiting it during an Interrail exploration trip); or somewhere where I hadn't even started learning the language.

That left Austria, which was an option, but Germany was bigger and I didn't want to risk having to move country for work before getting a permanent right to remain in the EU, which I think I need another 6-12 months for depending on what exactly counts.

Alternative cities within Germany: many pretty options, but the tech scene is mostly here, and also the friends.

> Belgium (saw a police officer with a long barrelled gun at the train station and noped out of even visiting it during an Interrail exploration trip);

Sounds like you visited not too long after the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. I've seen the same in London at times though.

Just before the Brexit referendum vote, so yes.

Same with the security conference in Munich and other days, so not sure that's a perfect reason for Germany per se, but good if you like it :P

> Belgium (saw a police officer with a long barrelled gun at the train station and noped out of even visiting it during an Interrail exploration trip)

You know St Pancras has the same?

Although maybe you'd also exclude London on the same basis.

It was bigger and scarier-looking than the ones I've seen anywhere in the UK, and if I'm now actually remembering those of St. Pancras rather than just imagining some, those were small compared to the ones in the airports.

Police with guns are extremely rare everywhere in London, although yes, we do have some cosplayers in big stations and outside Parliament.

Was it possibly the Antwerp train station?

I think it was Brussels; I really need to finish turning my notes from the trip into blog posts, given it was 2016…

Come to Holland! It's basically Belgium with better frontyards and nicer cops.

Belgium wins on the beer and frites front though.

Belgian beer and frietjes are available in the Netherlands.

But you can't compete with the rotten herring.

That's Swedish, not Dutch.

Belgium wins on the entire food front. By knockout.

Dear neighbor, with all due respect to Belgium, you are underselling your country.

And you yours!

> nicer cops

Until you actually need them. They'll do everything they can to get out from doing any work. Especially if you are foreign.

Not only when you're foreign. They have been useless so far in my life when I actually needed them

Same here. But the way they just this week talked a foreign friend out of filing a PV is absolutely shameful. They fully abuse they fact that she doesn't know her rights that well and isn't as likely to push as a Dutch person might. Disgusting.

Ah, but that is a common trope I think. Is there any state, where police is held in high regards (and shows competence?). My experience with police in germany was a time waste as well.

I certainly considered the Netherlands… «maar ik kan een beetje maar Nederlands spreken» and I'm not even sure I'm supposed to use "maar" twice in that sentence or not.

(Sadly I don't even get to use the wonderful «Ik ben groot», because I'm only tall by non-Dutch standards).

> «maar ik kan een beetje maar Nederlands spreken» and I'm not even sure I'm supposed to use "maar" twice in that sentence or not.

“maar” can both mean “but” or “only” but you have to use it like this: «maar ik kan maar een beetje Nederlands spreken» literally translated as: «but I only can speak a little Dutch». A native speaker would use it twice.

Bedankt :)

So the (second) use of "maar" is just like English "but" in, say, "...I speak but a little Dutch".

Australian here, living in Austria (lived in Germany for a few years too).

You're missing out. Austria is so close to so many wonderful, foreign things. In Germany its very easy to introvert and never leave the village, mentally or physically - in Austria, its the same - but you can drive an hour in pretty much any direction and get the cold culture shock you need to make you appreciate what you've got.

A stint to Italy or Czech Republic or Hungary or Slovakia or Croatia for an afternoon will shake your bones loose of their cultural chains.

>Tech scene in Germany

Don't underestimate the Ruhrpott. Many ex-pats in Germany do, but its a mistake. The tech scene in Essen/Bochum/Duesseldorf is pretty hot, too ..

If you travel to NRW, you will get the special forces police units using those kinds of guns on train stations, specially in days where critical football matches are taking place.

> If you travel to NRW

North Rhine-Westphalia? (Don't live in Germany, took me a while.)

Yes. The official/technical abbreviation is apparently NW because German Bundesland abbreviations are two letters, but colloquially (and even formally on most occasions) everyone calls it NRW.

Incidentally when GP said the police "use" the guns at train stations, what they meant was "carry". The German "einsetzen" is more ambiguous about whether something is part of the loadout or actively used (I guess "deploy" is the closest equivalent). I'm fairly certain the guns aren't actually loaded (they're just too big to holster) but at times the Bundespolizei (the federal police responsible for train stations and ports of travel) will indeed carry H&K machine pistols.

Those MP5's they (some German cops) carry are loaded.

Negligent discharges happen every now and then. Usually only injuring other cops.

Wait, you mean that cop I asked lied to me? Huh.

That one. It's the only Bundesland commonly referred to by an acronym and I guess we are lucky that the English toponym still matches.

The other three-letter candidate (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) is more commonly just shortened to Mecklenburg which isn't an option for NRW because the non-Westphalia part is the more important by far but "north-Rhine" wouldn't really work as a standalone name.

Acronyms for our various Saxonies would be rather awkward because both prefix-Saxonies would collide prominently with an acronym already taken by nazism.

I'd say you see RLP in written form from time to time, but yeah, not "commonly". Also BaWü isn't an acronym but you're right, compared to other countries we're not really big on abbreviating the states it seems.

> Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time

Just to be clear, this basically would never happen with most people. Now, the North of Ireland (the part still in the UK) might be a little different, but most Irish (i.e. republic) people couldn't give two sh*ts about where you're from as long as you're good craic.

I assume people are much the same everywhere — 80% fantastic, 10% arseholes, 10% lizardman constant.

But with headlines like this, and a somewhat-posh English accent, I didn't want to risk either of those 10s: https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/fury-at-torys-call-to-th...

In retrospect it would've been fine, but I had to guess in advance the UK wasn't going to actually try that, and they kinda have a history there…

Mate, I wouldn't worry about it. In Ireland you'd be fine, no different from someone in Scotland ranting at you about the Tories.

Our largest immigrant group in Ireland is Brits.

Nobody gives a fuck.

"as long as you're good craic."

Now that is an interesting usage.

I take it as using "crack" in an expansive sense of "company" rather than simply "news" or "gossip"?

(Possibly something which may confuse non native speakers of English.)

Comedian Dara O'Brien wanted to name one of his shows something like "Good craic", but was told he couldn't because the British would colossally misunderstand.

Misunderstand in what manner? The written form, the spoken form, or some minor meaning?

The spoken "crack" has currency from around Yorkshire / Lancashire north, meaning "news" / "gossip" / "comversation", it'd not be confused.

South of there is isn't so common. Many folks in the northern part recognise the Irishised spelling, but not all.

Have a read of the first paragraph of this, which (as far as GB goes) is a fair summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic

Misunderstood as the homophone crack is type of cocaine.

Either that or butt checks, which are also euphemistically someone's "crack", but the implication I took from it being disallowed was the former.

> USA (weird culture, guns)

I was at a book reading in a cafe in Berlin once and there was some sort of loud noise outside, firecrackers I believe. Some people flinched, some didn't. The reader said something to the effect of "watch the Americans in the room, when they duck, you duck too".

Did you never consider Sweden or Spain? I see these two being popular with tech expats too.

Language barrier in both cases. Since moving to Berlin I've picked up tourist-grade Spanish — without looking at Google Translate, "Hola, una mesa para dos personas, por favor. Un hamburgar vegetario y un café. Graciás." — but not enough to function outside a holiday.

If I even know a single word of Swedish that's not a loan-word, I'll be surprised.

If you can speak English and German you’re 80% of the way towards Swedish, honestly. ”Hej! finns det plats för två? En hamburgare och en kaffe, tack.”

Why are you afraid of police with guns?

It feels like a sign that the authorities believe there is at least a medium likelihood of Bad Things Happening.

I don't know which country you're from, but the normal thing in the UK (where I'm from) is no gun at all, and when I've traveled abroad previously the most was a pistol.

There have been occasional exceptions in the UK, as noted in other comments, but in the case of what I saw in Belgium it was the combination of armed police being a rare experience for me plus the gun in question looking exceptionally large.

I've seen officers with SMGs (or something like that; I'm no expert) in the UK more than once. E.g. in an airport.

Better than that, though, I remember going to a cash machine in India and there was a security guard sat next to it with the longest, biggest shotgun I've ever seen. He gave me an incredibly relaxed nod and smile, and I got my money.

That sounds like typical German pessimism. Rents are up but compared to some other major cities around the world? And why would the "troublesome" part of our long and rich history prevent people from moving here in 2023? Berlin is safe, cycleable, in the EU, the language not an order of magnitude harder than, say, French and people are speaking English anyway.

> typical German pessimism

Yes, it is. What shall I say. :)

Typical Berlin phrase BTW: „Kann man nich meckan“.

That’s about the highest praise you can expect from an Urberliner.

> „Kann man nich meckan“.

> That’s about the highest praise you can expect from an Urberliner.

That's the other reason I picked DE over US: British don't say everything is awesome all the time ^_^

The highest culinary praise reserved for the finest of treats is famously "Kannste essn", lit. "you can eat that".

„Bleibt drinnen“ is quite colloquial, too. ;)

As a long time expat living in Berlin, it's actually a nice place to live. The city actually has some charm compared to other cities in Germany and it's never boring here. I've spent some time in Munich as well and that caused me to seriously wonder what else there was to do after a few weeks. Not an issue in Berlin. And I've been here for fourteen years.

German is completely optional here. I know that's not appreciated by the natives. But I don't actually deal with a lot of those. Almost everyone I know in Berlin is from outside Berlin. And that includes most Germans. A lot of those move to Berlin for many of the same reasons that foreigners do that. I do meet actual real Berliners once in a while and by and large they are actually quite friendly. But the fact is that they are a minority in this city.

keep asking myself the same but web / tech employers are attracting all the talent there.

Bowie. It all goes back to Bowie. He's really the one who made Berlin so attractive to young Westerners.

We think Berlin is a lovely city, with lots of tolerant people and a diverse set of cultures providing a rich and interesting outlook. Of course, the reality is, Berlin is as much of a shit-hole as any other major European city, but the fantasy of meeting an intelligent, inspired, enlightened 'newly free' young German thing in the streets of Berlin is just too enticing to a lot of us romantics.

I live in Vienna. I love to visit Berlin just so that I can come home to Vienna and appreciate what I've got, even if the effect wears off after a week of interacting with Vienners ..

Do you find Berliners friendlier than Viennese?

Nope. About the same, just grumpy for different reasons.

> ...but the fantasy of meeting an intelligent, inspired, enlightened 'newly free' young German thing in the streets of Berlin is just too enticing to a lot of us romantics.

(East) Berlin (along with the rest of East Germany) was 'newly freed' over thirty ears ago, so none of the people who actually experienced that liberation are all that young any more.

I moved to Berlin about 10 years ago. In my opinion Berlin was attractive because:

- Friends and people from all over the world

- Culturally and historically interesting: clubs, events.

- Capital of the biggest economy in Europe

- Cheaper (not anymore). Also, clubs because of the particular history.

- Slight barrier to entry. A bit of German is a higher barrier to entry, compared to English speaking options.

Having said that, I find people friendlier in Köln, although this has improved in Berlin. Also the payment with card has improved in the last 10 years.

I moved eleven years ago because I loved the party scene. Took me less than a month to find a huge apartment for under seven hundred a month from a nice neighborhood.

Now I cannot move out anymore without doubling or tripling my rent. Also chose to study Rust instead of German, and been having so much work afterwards that I still haven't started my German studies. My husband speaks good German so that helps.

The weather is awful, our landlord only listens to us if we sue him, the internet seems to always be bad and expensive without hope for any better, the parties are way too crowded and dealing with local bureaucracy is not a great experience.

At least the rent is still cheap, if we don't move out. Lots of great art is happening every weekend. Nowadays you have some of the best restaurant scene going on in Berlin. The city is super relaxed about beer and weed, and the parks are great. It is easy to travel around the city with public transport, bike or quick rental cars. But now it is impossible to find apartments, all prices are going up and people are getting angrier every year.

My feelings about Berlin are super mixed. But, at least one thing makes me a Berliner: I love to complain about the city.

I could have written this word for word. Maybe we should do a cranky-HNers-of-Berlin meetup.

Some uneasy food for thought: we're not that far off from the brave lucky weirdos who moved to NYC in the 1970s and bought decrepit flats for a song, who now find themselves aged and bewildered among the billionaires, trying to afford groceries. Hopefully it won't progress quite that far, but NYC does show that capital isn't deterred by a little dysfunctional urban chaos.

And more rich people from outside move in, everything changes into a more boring, but expensive new reality.

At least Berliners revolt all the time and the government is so dysfunctional. Change in the city will take a few lifetimes. It might feel like a good idea to invest, but then you face the German and especially the Berlin bureaucracy and how slow it works. Everything takes forever to finish.

I hope this will save Berlin from becoming the next New York. It still is so much more colorful than any other German city.

P.S. the running joke amongst my friends is how CDU will finally make the ringbahn go on time...

Uh, yeah Berlin is definitely a mixed bag. To me it's like a bigger Glasgow - a local epicenter for everything but has really unkempt and outright scary parts. It's sort of cheap but not really. Public transport is great but in every one seems to be someone smelly or just too weird. Maybe some kind of re-urbanization programme would help the city, so they would rethink some areas.

I don't think the city needs, or wants, to be "helped".

> the internet seems to always be bad and expensive without hope for any better [ .. ] > dealing with local bureaucracy is not a great experience

Living in Germany at more or less the furthest point possible from Berlin, I can still confirm those two points..

Language note:

> find a huge apartment for under seven hundred a month from a nice neighborhood.

Wait, what, find things from -- is this a...? And then I looked into the darkness: Yup, that's where you're from.

> The other day my friend S., an American Berliner, said that he had noticed his English-language social circle starting to use the word « spontaneously » wrong. When Germans say they’ll organise a social event spontan, they mean they’ll work out the details at short notice. To socialise spontaneously, in English, means something rather different. But S. and I and our Neukölln friends have started using it in the sense of spontan. « OK cool text me Sunday and we’ll choose a place spontaneously. » This error is becoming part of our little language, our ultra-local dialect, just among us.

On behalf of the entire Netherlands also using this wrong in the same way: what does the Anglosphere consider correct usage of spontaneously then?

Without any prior forethought. Immediately, on a whim.

E.g., "We were in Vegas and saw an Elvis chapel, so we spontaneously decided to get married!"

They were in Vegas without any plans of marriage, saw a venue, and decided immediately to marry.

That seems like exactly the meaning that "spontan" has in Germany. It's like you plan to be in Vegas but there you spontaneously decide to get married. In German, you would say "Wir sind nach Vegas in den Urlaub geflogen und haben dort spontan geheiratet", so pretty much identical.

That's different than vanderZwan's quoted description of what spontan means in the GP comment.

Yeah. The article is confused.

In its example deciding spontaneously is fine since you're not deciding what to decide but you're deciding that you will decide and then later you'll suddenly decide what to decide. The decision to decide was planned but the substance of the decision is yet to be decided.

Something spontaneous is something that happens on its own. If you can say that you will do something, then it is not spontaneous. You cannot decide to do something spontaneous next week because then you’ve planned it. Improvised may be better suited in that case, from what I understand. It’s similar in French: “il y aura un rassemblement spontané” (there will be a spontaneous gathering) is nonsense. Even if it is understandable, it would label you as a foreigner or uneducated.

Similar words generally have different scopes in different languages, or have more meanings in a language than in another. So you have to go further than the first meaning in a dictionary to make sure that a word is right in a given context.

For the sake of the argument, if we assume that a word with one meaning in English has the same meaning in German plus another one, then using it with the second meaning in English is wrong. Native speakers are very sensitive to words being slightly wrong or use in slightly wrong places. It happens all the time with foreign languages, and I am sure a native English speaker could point out one example in this very post.

“spontan” means in fact both spontaneously and, when used in a planning context, “let’s play it by ear”. So you plan to have lunch but keep it “spontan”, meaning for example that you expect each other to plan closer to the date, maybe even the same date. It’s a very Berlin thing I have to say. At the same time, spontan is even mocked to be a way to kindly part ways. You don’t really want to have another date? Then at the end you don’t make plans and say “lassen wir uns mal spontan treffen”, meaning you won’t probably ever meet again.

Definition: a result of a sudden impulse and without premeditation

Spontaneously would be "Let's go do x right now at y place." not "Let's pencil this half-baked plan into our calendars and finalize some details at that time."

In English, we have the abbreviation TBD (to be determined) if you want to note that some details haven't yet been finalized.

We also have "to be determined" as an expression in Dutch, but in this particular context that would imply "to be determined later than now but before we meet" to Dutch (and presumably German) ears.

Other comments insist that something is only spontaneous if it was done without forethought. If we decide to not think about where to go until we meet, then have we given "where to go" any forethought? My gut feeling says we haven't in a meaningful sense. In a meta-sense perhaps, because the decision is to think about it when we meet.

The reality is that if people know there is an event coming up that they have some say in, they will tend to think about where to go or what to in the interim. It will probably result in a different decision than a truly spontaneous decision with no prior contemplation.

That's not a bad thing. It will probably tend to improve the outcome on average.

It's just not what the word spontaneously means in English. And you asked.

Living language evolves. It's not a big deal. But that's simply not the current meaning of that English word for the Anglosphere.

The Germans even plan being spontaneous ;)

This is the crux of the matter!

Actually, as a native Berliner I'd never use spontan when making plans. I guess this usage might be the result of talking about the future the way you'd like to reminisce about it once it's become the past. "We spontaneously decided to sit down at a café to have some jelly doughnuts." sounds more interesting than "We couldn't be arsed to decide beforehand where to eat", IDK?

But it's still understandable, same as when people call jelly doughnuts something other than Pfannkuchen, so no big deal.

About 30 years ago, I met a vivacious German-Brazilian woman at a party who complained at length about how miserable it was visiting her relatives in Germany. This precise issue was her main complaint.

To my ear, to do something “spontaneously” means to do something without having planned it. So to make plans with someone to do something “spontaneously” sounds oxymoronish.

IDK, it sounds OK to me: you make plans for meeting, you'll decide what to do on the spot, "improvising".

Meeting is definitly not done spontaneously. Neither is choosing the activity. The choice, however, may be spontaneous.

Spontaneity implies impulse, without forethought. You just wouldn't say something was something spontaneous if it was at all planned. Having a plan to do X, but working out the exact details later is not spontaneous unless there's a radical departure from the plan.

Situation 1: On your way home from work you run into an old friend and decide to go to the nearest bar. In retrospect you would call that outing spontaneous - it was the result of unplanned, unexpected circumstances.

Situation 2: You plan to meet a friend for a drink but haven't decided a location. The two of you meet up and decide to go to a particular bar, and then walk to that bar. There's nothing about this that is spontaneous, because each step involved some amount of forethought, even if there was an amount of "winging it" in meeting up before deciding where to get a drink.

Situation 3: You plan to meet a friend for a drink, meet up and decide to go to a particular bar. On the way to the bar you spot a comedy club, and in the spur of the moment decide to go see a show instead of just grabbing a drink. This could be considered spontaneous because you had no pre-existing intention of going to see a comedy show, it just happened because of circumstance.

In short, spontaneity sort of involves departure from the expected. If your plan is to work out the details later, then it's not spontaneous. It's only spontaneous if the event disrupts what you would have expected to happen.

You meet your friend at a pre-arranged time, walk down the street and spontaneously choose which bar to enter.

That still sounds weird. You knew you were going to choose a bar to enter, just not which one. That's not really spontaneity. It's just postponing the final details of your plan.

Spontaneity isn't going to the restaurant as agreed, but without being sure what you would order to drink.

It's bumping into an old friend on the way back from the post office and deciding "fuck my conference call at 3, let's go catch up for coffee right now."

Y‘all overthinking this. As I have written somewhere below:

Words usually have multiple meanings, common ones and less common ones. "False friend" words usually swapped their common and rare semantics when entering a different language. In this case, the common meaning for "spontaneously" is "without direction" but not "on short notice". But it's the other way around in German. There actually is the German term "spontane Ordnung" ("order from chaos") using the English connotation in this case.

Spontaneously in English usage is something done without pre-planning. Spur of the moment. As in "we spontaneously decided to drive to LA"

In this German context it's more like "we will figure it out". As in, we plan to meet up yes, but whatever we will do we'll figure it out at that time. As in "we'll meet at 3, hang and figure out what we'll do. Maybe we'll go somewhere"

For native speakers struggling with spontan, just translate it as “let’s play it by ear”

For native English speakers, the German "spontan" translates as "improvised" rather than "spontaneous".

"on the spur of the moment"

Global English is both a blessing and a curse. Never before could so many people communicate across linguistic divides (even if imperfectly). But the price is that never before was the rich collective cultural heritage under such threat.

The two facets are deeply related. Like any lingua franca before, global English was invented to facilitate trade (economic exchange). The fact that it is English and not Basque or Suahili reflects the dominant economic power of the 20th century. But the peculiarity of the Anglo-saxon world that insists on financializing and commercializing everything (David Bowie securities anyone?) means that culture too became a tradeable cash crop. Pop culture became an exportable mass market product against which local traditions stood no chance.

Thankfully it seems that the relative shallowness of commercially distributed culture (required if it is to reach global markets) limits its scope. Once local culture stops being seeing as an anachronistic relic but rather a source of wealth people embrace it again.

So it may be possible to both have our cake and eat it. The story has not fully played out yet.

This is perhaps nitpicking but I wish non-native English speakers would not use the term “Anglo-Saxon” to describe anglophone or (better) English speaking countries. The term refers to the original north Germanic invaders of England and so has tribal (racial) connotations and is typically used in English to distinguish people on that basis. Many/most Americans (e.g. black or Native American) so not consider themselves “Anglo-Saxon” nor would most Irish people nor many non-white Australians, for example. Heck - lots of British passport holders would not identify as Anglo-Saxon. If you don’t identify as Anglo-Saxon in an English speaking country, it’s jarring to hear your native home country being referred to as “Anglo-Saxon”. Just use “English speaking” which has no racial overtones and is both easier to understand and more precise.

> Just use “English speaking” which has no racial overtones

A lot of countries are English speaking. It's not racial, it's cultural overtones, but I agree that it sounds segregating to other.

The bigger problem is that they've used "anglosaxon" to use what we would probably refer to as neoliberalism, acting as if a controversial policy setting is somehow cultural or racial. You can be a good anglosaxon who opposes neoliberalism. You can be a good English speaker and oppose neoliberalism - whether from the right or the left.

neoliberalism is a second-half of the 20th century phenomenon. The mass production and commercialization of culture significantly precedes that, it is more an advanced industrialization pattern (late 19th / early 20th), with the invention of photography, vinyl disks, movies etc.

You look at the 19th century and instead of calling it neoliberalism, it was just called liberalism. It wasn't called neo- because they weren't trying to revive a discredited ideology, that's all. But it was still a contested position.

Now you attribute the mass production and commercialisation of culture to a technical development: this is not completely correct (trinkets are as old as trade, but might not have always been so affordable), but it's much closer to the truth than some kind of false racial essentialism. There's nothing anglosaxon about it and there's nothing English-speaking about it.

What happened to Anglo-American anyways? Substituting that term with the wildly incorrect but similar sounding Anglo-Saxon is quite literally a linguistic attack, unfortunately one that seems to occasionally get picked up by people meaning no harm because of how "more historic" is often conflated with "more sophisticated" even if it's the exact opposite when the assumed historic implications are wrong.

I stand corrected. Anglo-American would definitely be closer to the intended meaning. The term is only meant to be a rough placeholder for a set of norms and values anyway (and the corresponding economic systems and arrangements). It is neither geographically nor historically particularly sharp (has nothing indeed to do with race) and some non-English speaking parts of the world (e.g., the Netherlands) have been very much aligned.

I think it's different because it excludes Australia and New Zealand, which are otherwise exactly like North America in that they've inherited their language and culture from Britain. If you want to talk about the world-wide English-speaking-culturally-British-based-community it's "Anglo-American" that is more wildly incorrect, which makes "Anglo-Saxon" -- denoting the common heritage from a British, English-speaking, culture -- more correct.

As a born-and-raised American who speaks English for a first language and is of mixed Semitic and Celtic descent, I endorse this.

> I wish non-native English speakers would not use the term “Anglo-Saxon”

I quite like it and find it endearing. I'm definitely not of actual Anglo-Saxon stock but if non-English use that term then they're free to do so. Everyone knows what they mean. There are zero racial overtones associated with it.

Good for you. I mean that without sarcasm. I most certainly am not and don’t consider myself Anglo-Saxon in any way although English is my mother tongue. I would consider referring to New Zealand (for example - not my home country) as “Anglo-Saxon” quite insulting to Māori.

But I disagree with your last claim - there most certainly are racial overtones associated with it. Nobody would ever refer to Barack Obama, MLK, Kāterina Mataira, Rishi Sunak as Anglo-Saxon simply because having white skin and being off English stock is understood as being implied.

There are definitely racial overtones with the expression "Anglo-Saxon" as used in the US, at least in the last decade or so. This article is an example of some of the discourse around the term - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/anglo-saxo...

This is from the English Wikipedia. [1] Nowhere in the article is there any hint that the term is perceived as problematic by native English speakers or that it has racial overtonens. If indeed there is a critical mass of people who feel offended by it, you know what you need to do :-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_model

The article about the actual people the anglo saxons does reinforce their point though.

> The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity. It developed from divergent groups in association with the people's adoption of Christianity and was integral to the founding of various kingdoms.

> Catherine Hills summarised the views of many modern scholars in her observation that attitudes towards Anglo-Saxons, and hence the interpretation of their culture and history, have been "more contingent on contemporary political and religious theology as on any kind of evidence."

> During the Victorian era, writers such as Robert Knox, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley and Edward A. Freeman used the term Anglo-Saxon to justify colonialistic imperialism, claiming that Anglo-Saxon heritage was superior to those held by colonised peoples, which justified efforts to "civilise" them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons

> The article about the actual people the anglo saxons does reinforce their point though.

Nope. On the contrary, it rather directly contradicts it.

> > The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity. It developed from divergent groups in association with the people's adoption of Christianity and was integral to the founding of various kingdoms.

And that's why "Anglo-Saxon" is nowadays used to mean at least the British nation -- a nation that includes the conquered Celts of Scotland and Wales, and lots of more recently immigrated ethnically and religiously diverese groups, but still as a whole the somewhat coherent Christianity-based English-speaking culture descended from the original Anglish and Saxon tribes that migrated to the British isles a millennium and a half ago -- or indeed that nation, plus the Anglophone erstwhile colonies that were settled and inherited their mainstream cultures from Britain (i.e the USA, Canada, Emutopia and Kiwiland, and possibly some smaller ones I'm forgetting at the moment). It is, as Wikipedia so correctly notes, a cultural identity.

It's just a convenient shorthand, because "Anglo-Saxon" is a fucklot easier to say than "the somewhat coherent Christianity-based English-speaking culture descended from that of the original Anglish and Saxon tribes that migrated to the British isles a millennium and a half ago, encompassing all the tribes they subjugated and assimilated since" or "all the preceding plus the Anglophone erstwhile colonies that were settled and inherited their mainstream cultures from it". That's how language works.

As an American (with no Anglo-Saxon ancestry), I strongly disagree.

We call them Germans, the Italians call them Teutons, the Spanish call them Alemanni. Those were all distinct peoples who came together along with others to call themselves Dutch. But we use Dutch to refer to different people, and Germanic to refer to an even wider group of people then all the aforementioned put together. I've never heard a non-joking complaint from any of them about that. Granted, they're saying Anglo-Saxon while speaking English, but it's their dialect of English.

I also can't see why Englishspeaking is better than anglophone. Engl- comes from Angl-. -phone means -speaking. They're both English language words with identical meanings.

You haven't mentioned Anglo by itself, but that's even more common. It means English, but disambiguates England and English people from their global influence. If English is fine, Anglo should be fine too. And if Anglo is fine, then Saxon and Jute and Frisian should probably be fine too. But it's not fine when you put them together?

It's ridiculous to say that the actual self-given name of the predecessors of a language and culture has racial connotations.

I use the term Anglosphere. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere).

Borrowed words and phrases can lead to weird things that we don't even notice.

For example the author of the essay casually calls English the lingua franca without pausing to realize that he's using an Italian phrase for "French language", and means English by it!

This borrowing, adapting and linguistic evolution has been going on for a very long time.

Well, English is the lingua franca du jour, after all!

That’s because the English are very industrious, not like the French who don’t even have a word for entrepreneur!

/s i suppose

Reminds me of the gag, "English is the best language as it always has a mot juste for everything"

English has lots and lots and lots of vocabulary. Of course, a lot of that vocabulary still has tags on it saying "PROPERTY OF SPANISH" or "IF FOUND, RETURN TO FRANCE".

Kind of like the English, while in many senses having lost their marbles, still have a lot of marbles with "Return to..." labels on them.

Which I bet the French just _love_.

Definition of lingua franca: "bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca

And it does not mean French, but Frankisch tongue. And by the definition this phrase means "language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language" - which is English nowadays, at least in the Western Hemisphere.

> And it does not mean French, but Frankisch tongue.

Yeah, but "Frankish" in the sense of what we now call French. What is nowadays called "Fränkisch" is the dialect of German spoken in the north-west corner of Bavaria, and that sure as fuck wasn't what was used as a universal pidgin around the Mediterranean in the days of the Crusades.

> And by the definition this phrase means "language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language" - which is English nowadays, at least in the Western Hemisphere.

Yup. Which in the days of the Crusades was a mixture of many tongues, prominent among them knights from, if not then, then what is now France and whose language(s) even then were seen as variants or close relatives of that "Frankish" we now call French.

> an Italian phrase for "French language"

Nitpicking: 'lingua franca' actually referred to an Italian-based Mediterranean pidgin. It was called 'franca' because Byzantine and Muslim peoples would call all Western European peoples 'Franks'.

We have a number of Indian-language radio stations in the UK, which are good to listen to because the music is often great. Part of the fun is spotting the odd anglicism creep in:

<something in Hindi><something in Hindi>"that's not cricket!"<something in Hindi><something in Hindi>

i remember something similar in Dubai, while riding in a taxi hearing the driver listening to the commentary on a cricket game:

very fast/excitedly: <something in Hindi><something in Hindi>"OUT OF THIS FIELD!!"<something in Hindi><something in Hindi>

I think code switching is often a really cool/cute thing but also cringey sometimes.

"Jargon" terms tend to not often have translations in other languages I think.

I always enjoyed listening to Navajo Radio driving across the Res: <beautiful but impenetrable language> BASEBALL! <beautiful but impenetrable language> Hay bale auction on Sunday! <...>

Been a while since I watched it but there was an interesting difference between tennis broadcasts on German TV and Austrian TV. The Germans were using German game-specific terms - e.g. "Aus" for out of field and the Austrians were using English terms.

Is the music Hindi or Punjabi? (Or both, there is a spectrum of sorts between Hindi/urdu with Punjabi influence to "pure" Punjabi)

Depends on the station. I've heard a bunch of different stuff, but Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and Gujarati stuff all crops up at least as far as I can tell. I'm also not terribly good at distinguishing them but can tell when I'm hearing Hindi or Urdu.

Interesting that you mention the spectrum of Punjabi - I think I must have been taught some Punjabi-inflected Hindi which was very much like Hindi, and then had other people tell me they're completely different. Makes more sense now.

"All the lyrics of the stupidest possible songs" - I feel that one. When a store blares some incredibly vapid English pop lyrics I hardly even notice it, but when they do it in Norwegian, I flee the store to escape the vicarious embarrassment.

This is undoubtedly the best-written essay I’ve read this year. Fascinating too. Thanks to the poster and writer.

I grew up in a bilingual home. I sometimes refer to what I speak and write as Germish.

I routinely have to look up "Is that one word or two?" because German runs words together so much more often than English and I capitalize too many things because German capitalizes all nouns and English only capitalizes proper nouns.

A friend of mine once described my capitalization choices as "raising my voice," a place between "speaking normally" and the internet "yelling" of writing in all caps.

>”I capitalize too many things because German capitalizes all nouns and English only capitalizes proper nouns.”

I’ve gotten into a particularly bad habit of capitalizing nouns haphazardly and I don't speak any German. I think it’s from programming becuase it happens very often in my Code Comments.

On Twitter, phrases for hashtags should use capitalization of all words for reasons of accessibility.

Screen readers can parse it that way and can't if you don't and it's easier for human eyes too, so it helps visually-impaired people who aren't yet actually blind.

> On Twitter, phrases for hashtags should use capitalization of all words for reasons of accessibility

Ah, the classic #susanalbumparty

0_o

Tell your friend you are emulating 18th century English:

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

More like 19th Century German.

My German mother was taught to write by an Elderly Aunt before she started School, so her Handwriting looks like old German Script.

Note the founders were already declining to capitalize Truths or Men :)

Those are both towards the beginning of the sentence. Maybe just an "Oops, forgot to capitalize the nouns, better start!" moment? (But sure, the reason they forgot -- if that's what happened -- was most likely that the practice was falling out of common use, and therefore reserved only for fancier Shtuff like Constitutions.)

The part about feeling a certain tristesse that your native language is a shared commodity rather than a cosy secret was very resonant. And a native English speaker who tries to speak the local language in, I would say, most any sizable European city will typically find that their attempt is politely shut down by their interlocutor in favour of English, because they will speak it vastly better than you speak their language.

This is a very real barrier, it takes some time to build enough confidence to push through and continue in the target language.

For me, with my newly acquired Swedish, it was a pretty specific barrier of four months’ learning. After that, people would continue in Swedish whereas before they’d seemingly relish the chance to practise their English.

I can attest to this. I've lived in German-speaking countries for twenty years and English is still my daily language. Germans just love speaking English, especially since they speak English better than most English-native speakers can operate in German.

I speak German when I'm out and about and nobody knows me, and I don't mind if the frustrated stranger laughs at my weird and obnoxious dialect. Among friends though, they don't have the patience and just plow through the conversation in their excellent English.

It can be very frustrating, but it helps to unleash the German with strangers. You will very definitely see a strata to the folks who will and will not, willingly, put up with your Deunglish...

> Among friends though, they don't have the patience and just plow through the conversation in their excellent English.

That's kinda sad. I totally get the impulse to do so, and once I've started speaking English I might not even notice I'm doing it, but if I know someone is learning it is IMHO the decent thing to do to try let them practice if it doesn't matter to get to the point quickly.

Yes, I agree, it is frustrating, but on the other hand its also a matter of wanting to freely communicate and not wanting to have to keep correcting the other person. Most of the time, ze Germans think they are being kind and considerate by using their English. I see it from both sides, especially when the marbles start falling out of ones mouth .. and to be fair, once my German-speaking colleagues start with their Deunglish, I do switch to my Germlish in reflection.

That said, my crappy German is often a great source of mirth for my colleagues and friends, and this leads to me teaching my German friends some of the best, most finest and refined bollocksy English I can muster .. "weil, ohne Rache kann Mann nicht leben .."

A big part of this is that there casual traveller will typically primarily interact with people who work in hospitality - hotels, restaurants, bars - for whom dealing with foreigners is a major part of the job and who will accordingly be heavily biased towards using English to any foreign customer.

Saw a couple of good examples of this on holiday in Rome a few years back - one sensible, one bizarre: first a couple of Scandinavians on the table next to us in a restaurant, talking to their waiter in english, which made total sense. The bizarre one was a French group walking into another eatery and negotiating for a table of five with the maitre d using the English word "five", even though the word in French and Italian is basically the same!

It's not just German. Language groups around the world are struggling to fit English vocabularly into their language. My favorite English borrowing into Polish is probably kolesław (pronounced something like COAL-eh-suave) for coleslaw, but there are so many that it's hard to choose. Poles in Chicago decline "Milwaukee" (the street) as if it were a Polish plural ("na Milwaukach"). I'm fairly OK in Polish but still find it impossible to pronounce "cheeseburger" the way they do in Poland.

Which is funny, because coleslaw itself is borrowed from Dutch (koolsla).

The funniest thing about „kolesław” is that the suffix makes it sound like a traditional Slavic first name: Bogusław, Jarosław, Mirosław, Stanisław, Władysław…

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imiona_słowiańskie#Imiona_złoż...

Why would anyone use "downloaden" when there already is "herunterladen" is beyond me.

„Downloaden“ is still common because of its web context. But it is used interchangeably with „runterladen“, especially if you use it as a separable verb.

The worst thing is someone trying to put it in past tense: For "herunterladen" it's easy: "herunter-ge-laden". For "download", the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"

Downgeloaded is hilarious!

> the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"

You are using an English word in a German sentence, while they are (almost correctly, downgeloadet) applying the rules for words lended from foreign languages. So unless you are doing it for some particular effect, their sentence sounds funny, but is grammatically correct, yours only shows, that you know how to correctly speak English.

Best examples of the same thing are the plurals of nouns ending in y: In a German sentence, the correct plural of Story (capital S) is actually Storys.

This looks wrong to most Germans, too. So now you basically have to guess, whether you can impress your reader more with your advanced and wrong-looking German grammar knowledge, or whether you should play it safe and not risk to look like your English is rusty.

Another great one are Deppenleerzeichen in English or English-German compounds, which basically no one gets right, even though the rule has no exceptions. Author of the article slipped one of those in, too.

Surely you mean downgeloadet? It's a weak verb. :D

I know because ich habe gegooglet.

Gegoogelt? Auf Deutsch heisst es wohl -eln, nicht -len. Zum Fische fangen gehst ja auch angeln, nicht anglen.

I think it looks weird even in present tense: "Ich loade den neuen Gamingstreamvod down".

Nobody uses it as as a separable verb

As per the article, in the past tense many people do indeed use it exactly as a separable verb.

> For "download", the obvious choice is "downloaded", but instead some people prefer the weird hodge-podge of "down-ge-loaded"

Duden lists both "downgeloadet " and "gedownloadet" (note the final "t"). It observes that in printed press texts, "downgeloadet" occurs more frequently, whereas in online texts "gedownloadet" predominates.

I ran a full-text search of my entire Duden library for the word "downloaded" and it does not occur at all.

<duden>

downloaden: Das Verb downloaden »herunterladen« wird sowohl als trennbares Partikelverb wie auch als nicht trennbares Präfixverb verwendet. Insbesondere beim Partizip II finden sich beide Formen: Wir tragen stylische Jacken, haben Musik downgeloadet und den Ausflug gecancelt (Freie Presse). Hallo, mein Sohn hat ein Spiel illegal über Torrent gedownloadet (finanzfrage.net). In gedruckten Pressetexten kommt downgeloadet häufiger vor, in Onlinetexten hingegen gedownloadet. Beim Infinitiv mit zu wird in Pressetexten meist die Form downzuloaden verwendet. Die finite Verwendung (z. B. ich loade down / ich downloade) kommt fast gar nicht vor, hier wird auf das Verb herunterladen ausgewichen: Er lädt sich spezielle Software aus den USA herunter (c't). Amerikanismen und Anglizismen (1.3), Partikelverb (2.4).

</duden>

I wouldn't call it weird, I think it's common in most languages to use local conjugation rules even for foreign words.

In French, even though "télécharger/téléchargé" is most common and "download" is not really used, I would definitely say "je l'ai downloadé" (and I would expect Quebecers to say mostly that). I have observed a tendency to avoid any conjugation ("je l'ai download") in younger tech workers but I don't know how representative my young colleagues are. It always sounds weird to me and sometimes leads to misunderstandings, in this case for example it's not obvious if the person is saying they "are downloading them" or they "have downloaded it".

In Dutch there is no other word than "download" and it gets conjugated like other Dutch words, "downloaden/downloadde/gedownload". And I always feel like saying "gedownloaded", I probably do it half of the time. I thought it was because my Dutch is far from good, but maybe it's just a natural thing if it happens for native German speakers as well.

> In French, even though "télécharger/téléchargé" is most common and "download" is not really used, I would definitely say "je l'ai downloadé"

I think the OP’s problem comes from “down” being used like a standard German prefix, which does sound really awkward. Foreign verbs in French are (almost?) always used like first-group regular verbs, the only alteration is the suffix. It feels less out of place.

It gets worse. I don't know who started it (personally I blame Apple talking about its app store) but increasingly I see "laden" being used instead of "herunterladen". When used with "auf", it's usually about installing an app: "lade dir die App auf's Handy". But frequently it's used without any preposition to mean "download": "lade den Gratis-Background".

I'd much prefer "downgeloaded" over this nonsense using "actual" German words incorrectly.

So, this is how the German transition to Swedish grammar begins! Not the with a bang but with a lade den gratisbakgrund.

> German transition to Swedish grammar [...] lade den gratisbakgrund.

Vilken "den" gratisbakgrund (dvs som vadå?), vart lade du den, och ligger den kvar där?

Two syllables less.

Though there is herunterladen as a verb, there is no noun for download(s). “Herunterlad(s)” doesn’t quite cut it. So because the term Download is already used as a noun why noy use downloaden as the verb.

Heruntergeladetes? (In contrast to Geschnetzeltes, it isn't served with Spätzle.)

good article, reminiscent of my own time in berlin never heard of berlinglisch, but lived through a lot of denglish i still find myself writing sentences like “that should do it, or?” and saying “alsoooo” and “na ja” way too much.

never lived in neukölln so i missed out on the more hipster bits, and actually had to learn proper german eventually

The great strength of English is its uncanny ability to create new words and vacuum up material from other languages... and make it sound good.

Other languages are left with the problem of Anglicisms where handy English words and phrases are imported but never sounds like natural parts of the language.

That is a bit of an exaggeration. We use English word in German and French and barely notice anymore. Maybe the difference is that everybody speaks English, so we are more aware, that they are imported words…

English is full of loanwords from French in particular. 'particular' being from Old French of course.

The ultimate champions in "new word creation" are languages which allow the creation of new compound words, though, like e.g. German. That's the way you get those hyper-specific words in "the <name> language has a special word for the concept of <something very specific>" articles most of the time. :P

"Neologismuskreierungsmeister" (new word creation champion)

I'm not sure if compounds count, it's almost a spelling convention as much as it is truly new language

I would say so, compound words are a defining feature of the German language, especially with the ability to make up words on the spot if required ("Gelegenheitsbildung"). Many of the words in the article are also compound words (e.g. "Spätkauf", "Rundfunk").

It's not possible to say the same thing without using compound words without heavily modifying the sentence structure. It would be in English, if you translate it directly, but it isn't in German:

"Sie sind die Neologismusbildungsmeister" vs "Sie sind die Meister im Bilden von Neologismen"

If those compound words are only a spelling convention, the question would be, where do we draw the line. Does "Firefighter" count, or do only the words it is made of, "Fire" and "Fighter"? "Railroad"? "Notebook"? :D

English is the same, just with spaces in between. Lumping ten nouns together for a mega compound noun can be useful but it isn't what I originally meant.

I meant English is flexible in the way it absorbs and digests foreign words and makes them sound and feel like natural parts of English.

It's uniquely good for engineering and science terms. For instance, if I try to translate a term like Random Access Memory to my native language, it just sounds dumb and doesn't tell you what it is.

Dutch is really close in compound word creation. Hottentottententententoonstelling : Exposition of the tents of the Hottentot people.

What I really like in English is how they verb nearly everything, especially nouns.

Where I cringe at, is Dutch and German pronunciation of English. There are very few non native English people with perfect pronunciation. European commissionary Frans Timmermans (who had his education in Belgium) and vrt journalist Johny Vansevant, who both have perfect British English pronunciation (Received pronunciation). Kim Clijsters speaks near perfect General American (but she lives there and has an American husband). I like Greta Thunberg's command and richness of vocabulary and grammar despite the accent.

I'm making a conscious effort to speak General American and follow a few youtube channels to get better all the time.

The author would be amused to learn that are dedicated dictionaries specific for "fremdwörter": defining the word, indicating plura and informing gramatical gender so you can have the proper declensions and therefore correct gramatic for these borrowed words.

Do you have a favorite dictionary for Fremdwörter?

Very nice overview of our Berlin patois.

As an Italian living in Berlin, my favorite (which makes my Aussie partner roll her eyes) is saying something like “you are invited” when you pay for someone else’s coffee or meal. It’s a literal translation of “du bist eingeladen”. My partner taught me “I shout you”, but I also have the feeling that’s pretty Aussie or Brit. Any non-native friend understands “I invite you”, but would probably never get “I shout you”.

“I’m treating you” should he a proper translation of “offro io”

I always used (maybe wrongly) "it's on me" for "offro io".

“My shout” is typically how I would use it - something like “should we split the bill, oder?” “Nah, my shout”

As an Aussie living in a German-speaking country, this just makes me hard cringe.

Aussie vernacular (or even, Brit) simply shouldn't be propagated beyond the pubs.

Lade deinen Freunden ein - nicht auf Sie Schreien, oida!

> My partner taught me “I shout you”

Yeah, as an American, I learned this from reading an Aussie web serial. In the states you'd say...uhh, "my treat" or "I'll cover you" maybe?

(joke warning) The omnipresent English in Europe is the Mohammad English, a very simplified and useful version - spoken by most middle-eastern emigrant, and some Balkan residents. Next to it is the very distinct (by its accent) French-English.

Not funny. Prejudiced. The trope of "Mohammad in Germany" is sinister and should not be propagated in that realm.

This more or less matches my experience in Paris. I would add loud Americans, uneasy Brits, and charming Aussies, but they are not as prominent on the streets or in cafés. It is also very common to hear English with an Indian or Pakistani accent in Paris. And of course the broken and horrible Frenglish some people seem to be so proud of for some reason.

Why is it prejudiced? This name is very common so if you actually have some levant friends there is very good chance they have this name. And with the influx of people from Pakistan and Levant this is a fact - they didn’t study English to know it well, but to survive in a hurry. Is sad and practical… should you want to label it. Like it or not. Perhaps you should also call prejudice that Ivan and Marsha is associated with slavic (if not Russian)…

Its prejudiced because not all folks originally from middle-Eastern cultures now living in Germany are uneducated and poorly-spoken, as the OP implies ..

Its a racist trope.

Next time he will send you a trigger warning beforehand.

What was the issue with "spontaneously"? (Maybe I'm secretly a Berliner.)

It’s a false friend for a German. The German adverb „spontan“ does not mean „spontaneously“. The former means „at short notice“ while the latter „without direction“.

eventuell and aktuell are two great ones ask any tech worker shat eventual consistency is in german and then get very frazzled

Haha lovely!

Whoa, that's indeed a good one.

I think the best option would be to turn it into an adjective:

irgendwannkonsistent.

"Sometime" consistent and "eventually" consistent, not the same things and still confusing.

Maybe better: "letzendlichkonsistent"

(Disclaimer: expat English native speaker, living in Austria, enjoying this thread immensely..)

My Austrian co-worker hates talking tech in German - it just doesn't roll of the tongue and he's more comfortable in English with that domain.

Same. I live in Vienna, and converse with my technical colleagues in English most of the time - although they do expect me to keep up with their crazy dialects over the coffee machine, an activity I find often quite fun, oida...

If you like comics, "Asterix speaks Viennese" might help: https://www.diepresse.com/5450586/asterix-auf-wienerisch-wap...

Thanks for that, its brilliant. Me and my kids salute you!

I've seen Asterix in printed form in Schwäbisch, Swabian. Also in, uh, can't recall if it was Karjalaa or Savvoo, the Carelian or Savonian dialect of Finnish. Maybe both.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/spon...

"spontaneously" translates to "spontan".

Yeah weird, the description "in a way that is natural, often sudden, and not planned or forced" is exactly the meaning in German too. Maybe "spontaneous" has different semantics between US and UK English?

You are overthinking this.

FWIW I usually use "spontan" like "ungeplant" (unplanned). Maybe there's even differences for native speakers in different parts of Germany (wouldn't surprise me, especially between East and West).

May I ask if you're a native German or English speaker?

There is an example in another thread here which has the following example: We spontaneously decided to get married. I would translate that into: Wir haben uns spontan (dazu) entschieden zu heiraten.

What is the difference in these two? Same words, same meaning to me as a native German speaker. As I see it, spontaneously can have a subtle other meaning than spontan, but can also be the same.

I am a German native speaker.

But we can resolve this confusion around "spontaneously" by going to its actual origin: The English word "spontaneous" is a loan word and originates from the Latin "spontaneus" which itself derives from the Latin noun "spons" (feminine) primarily meaning "free will". It also has a secondary connotation meaning "impulse". [1]

So the common English usage is closer to how the Romans used the word. That does make sense: The Romans conquered the British isles but failed to win against the Barbarians that lived east of the river Rhine. The Germans only much later incorporated Latin vocabulary and did so mostly only in elite circles. That's possibly why "spontan" means "acting out of impulse".

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spons#Latin

This is what I was confused about as well. In the example the meetup itself could be held as non-spontaneous (telepaths spare the price of the phone call), but deciding on the place will still be done on a whim, off the cuff, impromptu, not before, impulsively. Spontaneously? :)

(On an unrelated note, let me share my favorite Anglicism that I've heard in a movie: "gekidnapped")

And speaking of "false friends", telepaths save the price of the phone call.

"Spontaneously" conflicts with "intentionally" in English. A spontaneous act is incompatible with having made a conscious decision about acting in that way. When something happens spontaneously, it happens by itself, without any intentionality.

Spontaneously means for something to happen surprisingly or without an apparent cause.

Swedish "simplified" this problem by having the same word (spontan) mean both 1) Happens without apparent cause 2) Happens at short notice

Context is your only clue to which meaning is intended...

Does it really tho? Can't come up with an example of the second meaning right now.

"spontaneously" is "plötzlich".

I always felt plözlich was more urgent, like "suddenly"?

One example I vividly remember was somewhere in very rural Germany in the early 2000s. A new burger chain called McDonalds recently opened and they had the most bizarre slogans and scripts written, in English, but in German phonetic transcription, like in the parking lot it said "Häppi Börzdäi" or something like that.

As an American living in Berlin since 2008, this weird hybrid language is now my brain's default mode, and I have to explicitly code switch to pure English or pure German whenever speaking to someone not bilingual in both.

My non-german-speaking partners now all have learned a few dozen german words and expressions as a result.

Nice typography on the blog. I checked and the font family in question costs 820 CHW 9seems to be a swiss foundry)

> intensiv means « intense » not « intensive »

Huh, Leo.org doesn't seem to agree, I have seen it multiple times used like intensively.

https://dict.leo.org/german-english/intensiv

> a photo shoot is, rather alarmingly, a Shooting.

That's hilarious lol

> an online German 32-year-old and I will both, for better or worse, understand what is meant by « emu lesbian finally milkshake ducked »

I am international native and I'm not sure I want google that.

> I am international native and I'm not sure I want google that.

I had to, only it didn't help.

Internet native* thanks auto correct

English is widely spoken and understood, even in tech-related environments, and that speaking German may not necessarily be an advantage in all situations. A moderate level of German proficiency is required for obtaining a permanent residence permit in Germany.

I honestly can't be friends with people who use beamer and public viewing in one sentence.

The term „beamer“ is an interesting one. Elder east Germans use the specific GDR term „polylux“ instead to name an projector. Since Berlin was divided not long ago. You will find both terms still circulating.

Note that "beamer" is usually used for a video projector. A polylux (which, for me, is "obviously" the better term, even though I was born after the unification :D) is only for overhead projectors that display slides. So beamer and polylux are two different things

> overhead projectors that display slides

Which is it, an overhead projector or a slide projector? They're different things.

Beamer is used in almost all Europe.

One of my favorite anecdotes: A German was going to show the football game at his place, but had to cancel because his beamer broke, so he sent an email to the people he invited.

An American who got the email wondered why they couldn't watch the game because the German's BMW broke down...

As a native English speaker this is somewhat comforting since it means I can get around easily, but my family is planning to move to the Netherlands this summer and one thing that strikes me is how hard it will be to learn Dutch when virtually everyone seems to speak excellent English. I was looking for a summer camp for my daughter and was a little dismayed to realize they were an English-only summer camp - to help Dutch kids learn English. Hopefully she'll become fluent anyway (she's only 5).

I met a Dutch woman expat and she didn't even teach her son Dutch - just totally migrated to English. The husband is British and they live in Germany.

>Rather more disturbing — particularly here in Neukölln, a neighbourhood copiously populated by leftie Americans and families from the Middle East — is the Arabic-German barber shop called WHITE BOSS.

Not sure why that's disturbing. I imagine if it were a different color, the author would have no issue with it.

Yes, but it isn't a different colour, and that's what the author finds disturbing. Not sure what's to be not sure about.

I wonder why the author couldn't have used Fußgänger with enough English context to explain the word, feels like the kind of thing I'd appreciate were I an expat reading the English language paper- "The Fußgänger commuting on foot, to work or shop or visit friends" something like that.

English is widely spoken and understood, even in tech-related environments, and that speaking German may not necessarily be an advantage in all situations.a moderate level of German proficiency is required for obtaining a permanent residence permit in Germany.

There are 360MM people who aren't German, but are EU citizens and have the right to work in Germany without a permanent residence permit.

Probably every country has its own English.

At least both languages are Germanic. Spanglish from low cultured Hispanics in the US makes my eyes hurt.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com