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Comment by bcye | Hacker News Reader

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app.

If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

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They still get it wrong quite often. Worst case is when the train arrives in reverse cart order, and the carts are labeled wrong. Bonus points if your reserved seat is in a cart that's missing.

Reserved seat in a missing cart is boring - 95% of the time you'll find an empty seat. Much more fun is a reserved bicycle rack in a cart that's missing. The number of bicycle racks is limited, and they're quite often sold out.

Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German.

I once had a bit of Schadenfrunde while travelling in Netherlands, having the conductor telling us to switch trains in Dutch, and all my German fellow travellers wondering what it was all about.

I wonder what's the level of mutual ineligibility between DE<>NL (probably DE is easier to NL) but it's funny how Germans sometimes seem to play dumb and not understand a thing in NL

As a German speaker, spoken Dutch REALLY trips me up because of small pronunciation differences in almost every word. Written Dutch is way closer.

The Dutch seem to understand German better, but my Dutch friends credit that more to education and exposure.

I don't know about the Dutch but apparently the Flemish don't understand German without having learned it at school.

I speak both some German and some Dutch (as nth languages, I can understand them fine but speaking is hit and miss) and sometimes I don't notice which is which and answer in the wrong language, to me they're almost the same language with a different accent. I translate the German into some Frenglish mess for my Flemish friends to help them understand and it works great.

Your Dutch friends have it right: In German high schools you don't get Dutch, Polish or Czech as a rule but you do get French and English. But in Dutch schools you do get German.

they have access to german tv and watch it.

I'm German, I don't speak Dutch. But I was able to follow a Dutch tour guide in Den Haag just fine when she was explaining things in Dutch. She kindly repeated everything in English for my benefit (I was the only foreigner) even though I told her I understood her just fine in Dutch.

You have to "adjust your ears" a bit but I think if you know German and English then you can understand Dutch just fine if it's not slang.

It also depends on the particular dialect a German speaks. Dutch is effectively old German before all the various alterations and "reforms" to the German language that were instituted to create fragmentation between the germanic people of Europe, i.e., English, Dutch, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Belgians throughout the ~16th-20th century by aristocrats driving wedges between peasants between kingdoms and dukedoms in order to define their own nations/ethnicities through language and culture so their royal families could rule over and would find it difficult to associate with each other. It is one of the things that also contributed to the fragmentation of Germany before unification, language barriers that even created unique cultures between sides of a valley that were in different dukedoms.

A similar thing has caused the tension between the germanic and Romance languages that followed the Roman border line N to S that separates Europe.

dutch is a bit harder to understand. like some german dialects that not every german understands either, like swiss german, luxemburgian or friesian (also spoken in the northern parts of the netherlands), or plattdeutsch.

i grew up in austria and in the north of germany so i got an early appreciation for understanding dialects. yet learning dutch took me a few months of staying in the netherlands. on the other hand when i visited luxemburg people were shocked that i could understand them when they spoke amongst each other

Frisian is not a dialect, and is not usually spoken outside of Frisia (the Dutch province). In German Ostfriesland they do speak a German dialect with Frisian roots.

i was simplifying. the difference between dialect and language is fluid. plattdeutsch (low german) is also considered a language, as is luxembourgish. frisian btw is also spoken in nordfriesland (in schleswig-holstein) and there are a few speakers of saterfriesish which is the last remaining dialect of east frisian.

Ironically, technically speaking, there are seemingly more similarities between British English, i.e., Anglican German and current High German due to various perversions and "reforms" of the German language over the last many decades, in order to drive the Germanic people away from each other.

If the EU were a serious and legitimate institution, there would be an effort to implement reforms that nudge English, Dutch, and present day German all towards better mutual intelligibility, NOT diversion from each other through perversion and "simplification", or what seems to be a pollution and destruction of the current German and Dutch language through what at least Germans have a term for, "Verdenglichung", i.e., the portmanteau of German (De..) and English, prefixed with "ver...", meaning the transformation or application of.

Do you seriously believe that the German spelling reforms were done to "drive the Germanic people away from each other"? If so that's quite the insane conspiracy theory you got yourself there. And lmao at "Anglican German".

I can barely follow German and I've been taught it in high school for a couple of years. I would not expect a German person to understand Dutch.

Well it's generally a good idea to ask a fellow traveller when you hear an announcement you don't understand. Especially if it doesn't use words you've commonly heard before. And maybe tell them instead of having Schadenfreude?

Which is what happened next.

The point was that even in international trains inside Germany, announcements related to trains problems are only done in German.

I speak it fluently, including some variations, however most travellers do not.

I also remember there used to be ticket machines in NRW only in German, about 20 years ago.

How dare they speak their own language in their own country on a regional train

I think you still should be able to expect a bit of accommodation on trains that cross country borders or go to airports.

The EU makes travel between EU countries as easy as travel between US states. You can just get on a train from Germany to Spain without any prior planning.

The regional trains usually have announcements in the language of the neighboring country when they get close to the border

It's also unusual given how much English you'll hear in Germany nowadays (at least in major, tourist-attracting cities) in just about any other context.

Too much English. I noticed this indoctrination way back when they released Ice Age over there for kids. The title wasn't even translated into German.

"Das Boot"

English has been in a hegemonic position over German for the past sixty years, not vice versa.

The majority of popular German language films tend to have English language titles when aimed at the English market, and nearly always when aimed at children: "Goodbye Lenin", "Run Lola Run" etc. I was pretty amazed at "Ice Age", because it would be easy and concise to translate.

They can. But they should also not be assholes with everybody else. And no not just local trains, I got information in English exactly zero times when there were huge delays on international trains. And it happened 2 times from 3 when I tried to cross Germany by train. And Germans (and Austrians btw) are terrible with this, even compared to others. The German site at my multinational company at the time was the only site on Earth which had to introduce an internal regulation about mandatory English, because they just switched to German all the time even when there were people on the call from different countries. I’m living now in Wien, and they are terrible with this even in friendly environments.

YMMV. I worked in three different German startups in Berlin and I almost never heard anybody speaking German in the company, even though more than half of the people were from Germany. Maybe it's different in bigger companies, or outside Berlin?

I would rather say older companies, and Berlin is definitely a different beast. That’s the only place where I had similarly good experience in Germany/Austria, and heard consistently good hearsay regarding this. It’s still way worse averagely than Nordic countries, Netherlands, or even some Eastern European countries. And here, I specifically mean when they can speak English, they just choose not to.

Yeah. I know, I'm from Finland originally. People in Berlin are quite often just rude, but it's just something you have to deal with when living in this city.

I've been living in Berlin for 15 years now, and every time I visit Finland I'm shocked when for example the cashier in the supermarket smiles to me and is friendly. Are they mocking me, is this a joke? It takes a few days to adapt.

Naturally living in Berlin means you learn to hate and love your city at the same time. You hate so many things in here, and when you travel, you're happy to come back because the place you were in of course misses all the unique aspects of Berlin.

You are comparing different environments. Inside a startup or a multinational it will obviously be quite common.

But you can't expect low level bureaucrats from a transportation company to start speaking english when it is not required to perform the job.

I was answering to this part:

> The German site at my multinational company at the time was the only site on Earth which had to introduce an internal regulation about mandatory English, because they just switched to German all the time even when there were people on the call from different countries.

Oh yeah, it was for the parent

It was an international connection train, ICE, between Amsterdam and Cologne....

So Dutch and German? Actually, those ICE are staffed by Dutch NS personnel until Köln where they swap with their German DB colleagues. Usually that means Dutch and German messages from Amsterdam to Köln (sometimes English too), and German afterwards.

> Yes, although quite often they forget not everyone speaks German.

Do you complain when announcements in your home country are given in exclusively non-German languages?

This is a bad faith argument. English is (like it or not) the international language. If you want tourists to understand what's happening, do announcements in your local language and in English.

Making announcements in German in the US makes little sense.

How convenient for monoglot English speakers!

Or.. english-speaking people forget not everyone speaks english. If you go to another country you have to learn a bit about how things are done there, ask for help, etc.., most people consider this a normal part of traveling.

Great advice which I assume you follow to the letter.

idk man, I get it's nice if things are clear for you, but it's misplaced IMO to have this level of entitlement over people speaking their mother tongue in their own country

I hope you get to learn Portuguese well enough that my fellow country folks never force themselves to speak any other language, in case you happen to visit us, if not, oh well.

I am fluent in several European languages and dialects, human languages is second nature alongside learning programming languages.

As for entitlement, the expectations on international trains crossing borders aren't the same as local trains, which I left out from the comment, it was an ICE after crew change.

It seems to me long-distance transportation services should make the most important announcements in the second language most likely to be understood by international travelers. In Europe, that usually means English.

Are we really living in a world where you need to have the official app - any app! - to ride a train?

Side note: as of now, I have 14 various "travel" apps installed on my phone. Buses, trains, local buses, etc. In every EU country and city there's something else being used.

I suppose it isn’t required technically, you can still purchase tickets at the stations. But oh boy, the “official” app for the Shinkansen in Japan might be the worst piece of garbage I have ever used.

Proper push notifications for train line delays are quite nice, and unfortunately half of us own phones that decided to shoot PWAs in the back of the head (there's still no vibrations for iOS PWA notifications?), so here we are.

If you can read a modicum of German wasn't this sort of thing on the timetables in a standard way pretty much forever?

It is still stupid.

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