this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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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.
German natives speaking English usually makes for one of my favourite accents, it's very pleasant.
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.
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.
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.
Well I am German living in Germany and I can assure you that is not really the case for 95% of Germans
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)
In my experience living in The Netherlands, that's usually Dutch, English and German, but strangelly not French (or at least nowhere as good as the other ones).
That said it's the place were I've met the most natives who could actually speak some more unusual to learn language (like Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin and so on) - from my sample (and I lived and worked there almost a decade) the average Dutch person doesn't know that many languages but there are a lot of Dutch people (more than what I've noticed in other countries) with a real interest in learning languages beyond what they're taught at school, just for fun rather than out of need.
Being Dutch learning more languages is actually somewhat of a necessity since everyone around us expects us to speak them somewhat at least.
My favorite original English accent (or English-to-English, so to speak, as you say with German-to-English) is the Jamaican accent. Some reggae shows on the radio, I tune in as much for the DJ's voice as for the music.
Go listen to Linton Kwesi Johnson narrating the history of reggae in a BBC Sounds documentary, to see what I mean. What a voice, my god, it goes down like dark honey, a thing of beauty.
It goes both ways - when I speak German I have an obvious English-speaker accent and many Germans will just answer me in English 😄
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.