My wife and I were stationed in Germany for a couple years with the US military. Her only experience with a foreign language was some classes in French in high school, which came in useful since we were stationed near the French border. But while we were living in Germany, we decided to learn some German so we could get around easier.
We took a trip up to Berlin one week and my wife was trying her best to speak to a vendor in German, but she was really struggling. The vendor decided to switch to French instead. Apparently, her German had a heavy French accent, since that was the only other foreign language she had practiced. She was able to finish the conversation in French.
Went to a pub in Iceland. English brother-in-law had been living there a while, trying to learn some basic Icelandic.
He orders the drinks, slowly, trying to remember the words as he goes. Finishes the order. Looks at the barman.
“Sorry mate, I dunno what you’re saying”, he replies in an Australian accent.
I’ll never forget one of my coworkers asking me what my first language was because, “I speak English as a second language I know what it sounds like, so what’s your first language?”
My first language is English, I just speak it really poorly
Could also be that they mistook your regional accent for the accent one has when learning it as a secondary language.
Sometimes I can’t think of a word, so I give a terrible definition of the word I am looking for and my saddest face in the hopes that the person I’m talking to will take pity on my feeble mind.
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.
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)
