Berliners respond to the question “Are we Germans direct?”:
And one of the comments from a German: “When I was in high school, I can remember, another student gave a poorly-prepared presentation. Directly thereafter the teacher simply looked at him and said in English: “Well, that was complete shit.”
“Germans, in general, can often be more direct and straightforward than Americans, and to be honest even after living here for eight years, that directness is still sometimes a little shocking for me, a little bit too much, or even sometimes has made me cry!”
A German comment: “Just your example about some shop assistent telling you that the piece of clothing does not fit you at all: I’m always more suspicious about a shop assistent telling me how good it fits keeping in mind he or she just wants their merchandise sold. So I tend more to appreciate an honest, though maybe direct answer.”
Another German comment: “I’m always irritated how well the Americans can hide the truth of what they are thinking behind compliments and smiles. In Germany If you are getting an honest critique, then the person likes you, thinks said critique can improve you and is interested that you do better. So its a good thing 😉 “
Oh, here’s a good one: “As a German, i feel like lying when i am asked about my opinion and i would try to let it sound “nicer”. Everyone is honest and tells what they think about everything. I tried for a while the way that is used in the staates and i gat really that awfull feeling of lying and i konstantly had to think about how i say things and not what i like to say.
In my opinion germans are just used to that honesty and fee unconfortable to alter the opinion just to sound nicer. The other way around, when i meet people from the staates, i have allways that feeling they are sneaky and false, they try to hide their thoughts behind words. I was never sure how they really are and think.”
From DW – Let’s face it, we could all do with a bit of good luck this year. Rachel is on the hunt for lucky charms in Germany and finding out a bit about German happiness along the way. Is Germany a happy nation? What brings good or bad luck in Germany? And why is Rachel on a pig farm? Find out in this week’s Meet the Germans.
A teacher in German commented: “I’m actually studying to become a teacher and we intentionally wish the students “success” and not “good luck” because of the very reason you stated: we want them to feel like they can have an impact on the result by studying and not just being lucky.”
Another commend: “The secretary at the welcome desk in our university mentioned to me that the following day was her birthday, and I very innocently and enthusiastically said, “Alles Gute!”. I will never forget the almost terrifying face, the awkward silence, like I had committed a crime. “It’s not really good to wish someone happy birthday before the day,” she said. I had no idea. She tried to laugh it off, but her eyes looked seriously worried I carry the guilt to this day.”
Christoph Waltz, an Austrian who often makes jokes about Germans in a rather gratuitous way, puts Jimmy Fallon to the test with a quiz on the definitions of long German words, like Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister.
YouTube comments:
“For non German speakers: The reason our words are so long is that you can basically string as many words as you want together and it would still count as long as it makes sense.”
“Can we just appreciate Waltz’s unwillingness to go along with Jimmy’s horrid fake laugh? He just stares at jimmy until he stops lol. An absolute icon.”
“You know you’re German when you don’t think the words are long at all.”
An American woman in Germany: “This video was so fun to make! German gets made fun for sounding aggressive (but it’s not if you watch this video!), but little did we know, French had some unexpected funny moments too for sounding so short 🙂 Watch and see what I mean.”
YouTube comments:
“The German guy was so friendly and seemed so huggable! I really liked him. I’m learning German so I know sometimes there’s a stereotype about Germans being grumpy but I know it’s totally not true.”
“As a German I actually laughed at some German words for the first time. Because every time I watch comparison video they speak German way too aggressively but here the pronunciation is true to the original, which actually makes stuff like gums vs. Zahnfleisch funny to think about.”
This video is pure genius. It gives superb examples of how the German language enables one to communicate very complex emotions in just one word, typically a compound of two or more words.
Futterneid. Kummerspeck. Luftschloss. Lebensmüde. Schadenfreude. The list goes on and on. Talk to your German colleagues about this. You’ll love the conversation.
“Say what you do and do what you say”, that’s the motto of German engineer, Norber Rudat. I think 99.9% of Germans would agree with it.
But wait, wouldn’t everyone, from every culture, agree with it? Perhaps. But are other cultures as literal about it? And I don’t mean literal-minded, but instead meaning something literally as they say it.
For example, do Americans always mean exactly what they say? And do they always say exactly what they mean? What about other cultures: China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico?
Spend any time in Germany, and perhaps in other countries, and you will hear directly or indirectly how poorly informed (aka dumb) Americans are.
Keep in mind, however, that Germans consider themselves to be intelligent. And they are. Many of them consider themselves to be more intelligent than Americans. And they are. On average. Perhaps.
One of the many clichés about Germany and the Germans says that they act in a not very friendly or even rude manner towards strangers. You might get that impression when you first come to Germany and try to get to know somebody else on a train, a bar or at work.
Especially as an American, you might be used to getting in contact with strangers really quickly. In Germany, you probably won’t. It is a scientifically proven fact that German people simply don’t chat in public places when they don’t know each other. But what is often interpreted as rude manners, is more like a basic inability of Germans to small talk – they simply are not used to it.
If you’ve done any research into German culture, you’ve likely come across blogs, articles and forum discussions on the subject of German directness. Less politically-correct results may even simply state that Germans are rude.
It’s a topic of discussion as old as time; or, at least, as old as the Internet’s mainstream popularity. There is a lot of material on the subject, and it all basically comes to the same conclusion: Germans aren’t rude; they’re just direct and honest. If you can’t handle it, you need to grow a thicker skin.