• Ephera@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    That’s one advantage of being German. You do just hear it when a German speaks English.

    A few weeks ago, we had a meeting at work and it was like 20 Germans, but one guy greeted in English, so I guess, this meeting is gonna be in English then. And like, us Germans were all doing extremely fine, but it was still just absolutely fucking comical when the native English speaker responded. In comparison, we all just sounded like shitty robots.

    • Riley@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      German natives speaking English usually makes for one of my favourite accents, it’s very pleasant.

      • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I love Germans for a million reasons. there’s nothing I don’t like about them. Particularly impressive that most of them speak five languages fluently.

        • SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          That’s not Germans, that’s Luxemburgers. Many Germans speak English, some will speak the neighbouring country’s language close to the border, but not 5 languages.

          • TwanHE@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Going to a McDonald’s in Luxembourg it was quite amusing to see one person take on 4 orders in 4 different languages back to back. (English, Dutch, German and French)

            On another note while most Luxemburgers will speak 4 or more languages, most people I spoke to wouldn’t respond if you didn’t speak the language they find “native” to their area. Until you then start speaking another one of the languages and they understand you’re just a tourist trying to speak one of their languages.

        • Darkblue@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, I think you are confusing the German with the Dutch. (Which happens a lot…)

          Dutch generally speak several languages. Germans in general speak only German and rudimentary English (if you’re lucky).

          (A common Dutch gripe with visiting German tourists is that Germans just assume the Dutch speak German (which they mostly do, so okay, they’ve got a point, but still) and just start speaking German without asking first)

    • miridius@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It goes both ways - when I speak German I have an obvious English-speaker accent and many Germans will just answer me in English 😄

    • JayObey711@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The past few years I’ve desperately tried to not sound as German. Now I have a weird Britishish accent and I’m kind of sad I don’t sound German anymore. But then again I work with Luxemburgish people (and other internationals so we often speak english) sound more German than Germans and it can be hard to keep a straight face at times.