My experience with speaking German, understanding Austrian dialects, and discovering delightful online videos that are helping me improve my language skills
That's really interesting! I wonder what in your accent made her think you were Dutch? (In English, Dutch and German accents sound quite different to me...)
I applaud you for taking up the efforts to re-learn the language, Clarice. Of course with your heading to Austria and Gerhard's friends speaking a different dialect than you are used to, it will be a real impetus --and with a carrot at the end! Good luck w/ it, and great you found explicit YouTubers that make it easier to learn.
Thank you, Jeanine. Learning to speak German fluently feels like an unmet, lifelong goal of mine. So I am newly inspired to achieve it. We’ll see what happens!
You’ve motivated me, @Clarice! I’ve learned and forgotten most of what I ever knew of both German and Arabic, however, when in country, I like to think I’m able to understand and communicate well enough - tho some of the reactions I get make me see that as fantasy 🤣
I really enjoyed this discussion of learning (or relearning) a language, a challenge at any time, but more so when you’re older. The “Oida” video cracked me up!
I grew up visiting my grandmother in Berkeley and hearing a lot of German spoken among my immigrant relatives, especially when they wanted not to be understood by the younger generation. Unfortunately I never picked up more than a few words of what was probably Hochdeutsch. Lately, after coming across a trove of very old letters written in German, I’m wishing I’d studied German as well as French. Maybe I’ll check out some of those sites you mention. Never too late, right?
Thanks for this engaging piece and good luck with your German language studies, Clarice!
Thank you, Ruth. Do you think your relatives spoke Hochdeutsch, or did they maybe speak Yiddish? It would be interesting to know. And good luck with translating their letters (and script). Also, thank you very much for the note referral!
Well done to you, Clarice, for persisting with your German attempts. I'm a shamefully lousy language learner. Three years now in Vienna, and I still have barely any German, much of that because just about everyone hear speaks such good English, plus I have my 7 year old daughter as my personal translator. But I really do want to know at least some and not be so useless linguistically. I will check out that EasyGerman YouTube channel and see how it goes. My daughter has also been trying to teach me and I'm slowly picking up words here and there.
Good luck to you, Daniel. It was certainly a lot easier to learn languages in my teens and twenties than it is now, but I refuse to believe that it is impossible even at this stage of life. And the couple on Easy German are so appealing and gently funny that I am enjoying watching their videos as a lovely antidote to all of the awful news that is out there.
I'll be cheering you on as you work to recover and beef up your German! I do the same thing every day with French (and find it's a lot more challenging than when I was in my twenties, learning German).
I studied German at university for two years and read a lot thereafter, but it was only when I spent a year in Germany 1978-1979 that I really became good at it. Still, it wasn't just a matter of coping with Hochdeutsch.
I enrolled at the Goethe Institut that was then in Grafing bei München. I tested for placement in Mittelstufe 1, but was placed in the more advanced Mittelstufe 2 and it made all the difference.
After four weeks I was comfortable communicating in most everyday situations.
But this was Bavaria and I was to spend a year in Munich. My stipend was insufficient so I ended up taking day work at the Munich Grossmarkthalle, then later got a job at the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten: it meant hearing a LOT of bayerische Mundart!
The solution, in part, was (1) buying cassette recordings of the Bavarian comic Karl Valentin, and (2) purchasing the book "Alles von Karl Valentin" where they are all transcribed. Listening to the cassettes and following along with the transcriptions was an enormous help.
My favourite Karl Valentin piece is "Der Buchbinder Wanninger." A Bavarian bookbinder telephones the company whose account books he has bound to inform them that they are ready. He gets transferred from one person to the other, heading up the company hierarchy. With each new person he speaks with, the language becomes more formal and closer to hochdeutsch until finally, the head of the company answers in his crisp "Preussischen" accent. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5SENIhMMvM>
I wrote an essay about this called "German then, French now" if you're interested.
I like your idea about buying cassettes of a comic and following along with the transcriptions. Thanks to Youtube, it's so much easier now to accomplish the same thing! I listened to the link with Karl Valentin, but I must admit I had a hard time recognizing how the language changed as he was transferred from one person to another.
From what I understand, though, the dialect in Bavaria is much closer to that in Salzburg than in more northerly parts of Germany. Is that true? And what about French? Does Nice have a markedly different dialect from Paris, for example?
Travelling around Bavaria in the 1970s I'd say there were many variants of the Mundart; even when I felt I could cope with most dialect in Munich I'd find myself nearly helpless in other places. I'd agree, though, that the dialect in Salzburg is similar. I used to say that Bavarian German is to Hochdeutsch what Highland Scottish English is to King's English. There are northern dialects as well, like Plattdeutsch, which acquaintances in Elmshorn spoke when with family--I had trouble with that as well.
As for French, my ears are still not as well attuned to accents as they are to German. I'm aware of some differences in native speech to Parisian speech, but to my anglophone ears it is not striking. Many of the French people I've met here are not originally from mainland France, but were born and raised in former French colonies; some of the native Niçois I know were raised speaking both French and Italian. The city of Nice sponsors classes in the local Niçois dialect, which is a Provençal language, but I am not sure I'd recognise it if I heard it spoken. My Niçois vocabulary is limited to typical foods of the area!
There was a highly publicised incident a couple years ago when politician Jean-Luc Mélanchon mocked the accent of a reporter who spoke with an accent from the south and was accused of "glottophobie."
Oida! Relearning how to speak fluent German is challenging but you once knew it very well so it should return more easily than if you had never learned it. Good Luck!
I love it! I am German and speak Hochdeutsch. When I visit Austria I am sometimes completely lost.
But everyone speaking a German dialect might also get confused when hearing Hochdeutsch. Happened to me once in store in Oberammergau, Bavaria.
I asked for stamps, and the lady at the counter replied: “Nach Holland?”
Which, in her tone, seemed to mean: Do you want to send your mail to the Netherlands?
😳
That's really interesting! I wonder what in your accent made her think you were Dutch? (In English, Dutch and German accents sound quite different to me...)
Exactly. Perhaps she had a long day. Enjoy your German studies.
Thank you!
Reach out, if you have question.
I applaud you for taking up the efforts to re-learn the language, Clarice. Of course with your heading to Austria and Gerhard's friends speaking a different dialect than you are used to, it will be a real impetus --and with a carrot at the end! Good luck w/ it, and great you found explicit YouTubers that make it easier to learn.
Thank you, Jeanine. Learning to speak German fluently feels like an unmet, lifelong goal of mine. So I am newly inspired to achieve it. We’ll see what happens!
You’ve motivated me, @Clarice! I’ve learned and forgotten most of what I ever knew of both German and Arabic, however, when in country, I like to think I’m able to understand and communicate well enough - tho some of the reactions I get make me see that as fantasy 🤣
But at least you remember some, Lori! And that's a big plus.
I really enjoyed this discussion of learning (or relearning) a language, a challenge at any time, but more so when you’re older. The “Oida” video cracked me up!
I grew up visiting my grandmother in Berkeley and hearing a lot of German spoken among my immigrant relatives, especially when they wanted not to be understood by the younger generation. Unfortunately I never picked up more than a few words of what was probably Hochdeutsch. Lately, after coming across a trove of very old letters written in German, I’m wishing I’d studied German as well as French. Maybe I’ll check out some of those sites you mention. Never too late, right?
Thanks for this engaging piece and good luck with your German language studies, Clarice!
Thank you, Ruth. Do you think your relatives spoke Hochdeutsch, or did they maybe speak Yiddish? It would be interesting to know. And good luck with translating their letters (and script). Also, thank you very much for the note referral!
Well done to you, Clarice, for persisting with your German attempts. I'm a shamefully lousy language learner. Three years now in Vienna, and I still have barely any German, much of that because just about everyone hear speaks such good English, plus I have my 7 year old daughter as my personal translator. But I really do want to know at least some and not be so useless linguistically. I will check out that EasyGerman YouTube channel and see how it goes. My daughter has also been trying to teach me and I'm slowly picking up words here and there.
Good luck to you, Daniel. It was certainly a lot easier to learn languages in my teens and twenties than it is now, but I refuse to believe that it is impossible even at this stage of life. And the couple on Easy German are so appealing and gently funny that I am enjoying watching their videos as a lovely antidote to all of the awful news that is out there.
Hi Clarice,
I'll be cheering you on as you work to recover and beef up your German! I do the same thing every day with French (and find it's a lot more challenging than when I was in my twenties, learning German).
I studied German at university for two years and read a lot thereafter, but it was only when I spent a year in Germany 1978-1979 that I really became good at it. Still, it wasn't just a matter of coping with Hochdeutsch.
I enrolled at the Goethe Institut that was then in Grafing bei München. I tested for placement in Mittelstufe 1, but was placed in the more advanced Mittelstufe 2 and it made all the difference.
After four weeks I was comfortable communicating in most everyday situations.
But this was Bavaria and I was to spend a year in Munich. My stipend was insufficient so I ended up taking day work at the Munich Grossmarkthalle, then later got a job at the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten: it meant hearing a LOT of bayerische Mundart!
The solution, in part, was (1) buying cassette recordings of the Bavarian comic Karl Valentin, and (2) purchasing the book "Alles von Karl Valentin" where they are all transcribed. Listening to the cassettes and following along with the transcriptions was an enormous help.
My favourite Karl Valentin piece is "Der Buchbinder Wanninger." A Bavarian bookbinder telephones the company whose account books he has bound to inform them that they are ready. He gets transferred from one person to the other, heading up the company hierarchy. With each new person he speaks with, the language becomes more formal and closer to hochdeutsch until finally, the head of the company answers in his crisp "Preussischen" accent. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5SENIhMMvM>
I wrote an essay about this called "German then, French now" if you're interested.
I like your idea about buying cassettes of a comic and following along with the transcriptions. Thanks to Youtube, it's so much easier now to accomplish the same thing! I listened to the link with Karl Valentin, but I must admit I had a hard time recognizing how the language changed as he was transferred from one person to another.
From what I understand, though, the dialect in Bavaria is much closer to that in Salzburg than in more northerly parts of Germany. Is that true? And what about French? Does Nice have a markedly different dialect from Paris, for example?
Travelling around Bavaria in the 1970s I'd say there were many variants of the Mundart; even when I felt I could cope with most dialect in Munich I'd find myself nearly helpless in other places. I'd agree, though, that the dialect in Salzburg is similar. I used to say that Bavarian German is to Hochdeutsch what Highland Scottish English is to King's English. There are northern dialects as well, like Plattdeutsch, which acquaintances in Elmshorn spoke when with family--I had trouble with that as well.
As for French, my ears are still not as well attuned to accents as they are to German. I'm aware of some differences in native speech to Parisian speech, but to my anglophone ears it is not striking. Many of the French people I've met here are not originally from mainland France, but were born and raised in former French colonies; some of the native Niçois I know were raised speaking both French and Italian. The city of Nice sponsors classes in the local Niçois dialect, which is a Provençal language, but I am not sure I'd recognise it if I heard it spoken. My Niçois vocabulary is limited to typical foods of the area!
There was a highly publicised incident a couple years ago when politician Jean-Luc Mélanchon mocked the accent of a reporter who spoke with an accent from the south and was accused of "glottophobie."
Hopefully!
Oida! Relearning how to speak fluent German is challenging but you once knew it very well so it should return more easily than if you had never learned it. Good Luck!
Thank you, Janice.