Comments on: Germans think they speak better English than they do

By: Jon [not the site author]

Jon [not the site author] — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:04:33 +0000

Biene and Frank, would you seriously stop being so touchy? It’s not like I was never made fun of in Germany when I tried to say Eichhörnchen or Streichholzschächtelchen. We do this in good humor, and Americans do this all the time regardless of the culture. The Germans do it too, and it’s not rude, it’s funny. One of the things that was the most uncomfortable to me in Germany was when I made a funny mistake with pronunciation, laughed, and I got one of the weird people who thought it was rude to laugh, and I felt really awkward. All Americans are like that… seriously. And don’t pretend you don’t laugh at Bruce Darnel.

By: Stefan W.

Stefan W. — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:49:40 +0000

>> Another annoying one. alot of Germans (that I have met) cant pronounce the English “V” which is strange because it is similiar, if not the exact same to the German “W”. My German host sister and alot of my German friends often say Wegetable (for vegetable), wery (for very), etc…

That phenomenon is called “overcompensation” or hypercorrection ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection ). It’s rather common when learning new languages. It happens when a new sound has to be learned and used.

In this case, Germans are used to pronounce W like the English V. When learning English they’re told how to pronounce the English W. On an almost subconsious level, they often replace the V with the same sound.

However, it’s pretty easy to lose that false behaviour, you just have to notice that you’re doing it wrong.

An annoying example of this V -> W overcompensation can be found in the German dub of Star Trek - The Motion Picture. I hate it when Kirk finds out about V’Ger being Voyager VI and pronounces it Woyager.

By: Frank

Frank — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:27:32 +0000

I have to agree with biene on this. It’s one thing to criticise the Germans for assimilating these english terms so easily and also willingly. That’s a fact I totally dislike being a German myself. But to make fun of them because of their pronounciation is just plain rude.
People who work in big companies who do research or are in management HAVE to use a lot of english terms. Since in these fields english is the way to communicate internationally there is just no use in bothering with a transation which can be quite tricky in some cases. Most of these people don’t have the benefit of having lived in an english speaking country so it’s obviously not that easy to pronounce them perfectly.
Just some thoughts… sorry for my lack of comma placement. It’s one thing my German mind always gets confused about writing english essays.

By: Mindy

Mindy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:54:39 +0000

Another annoying one. alot of Germans (that I have met) cant pronounce the English “V” which is strange because it is similiar, if not the exact same to the German “W”. My German host sister and alot of my German friends often say Wegetable (for vegetable), wery (for very), etc…

By: Anony

Anony — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:01:43 +0000

@biene: why, if you assume none of us can speak German, do you ask us in German? Is that the famous German sense of irony we hear so much about?

By: biene

biene — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:48:18 +0000

was für ein unsinn, kein deutscher denkt, er spreche besser englisch als ein muttersprachlacher. klar, die angliszismen sind schon grausam, falsch und vollkommen unnötig, aber ich denke das legt sich auch wieder. früher wurden französische wörter übernommen, heute englische. das vergeht.
aber was ich hier in den kommentaren viel schlimmer finde ist die tatsache, dass sich über das schlechte englisch der deutschen lustig gemacht wird. kann jemand von euch überhaupt deutsch? vermutlich nicht. und es ist nun mal immer schwierig sich in einer sprache auszudrücken, die nicht muttersprache ist, vor allem, wenn man nicht in dem land, in dem die sprache gesprochen wird, gelebt hat, sondern nur in der schule diese sprache gelernt hat. die meisten bemühen sich wenigstens sich verständigen und einigermaßen gut ausdrücken zu können und dass man ein paar falschen freunden auf den leim geht, passiert in jeder sprache.
nur ein paar gedanken von mir.

By: FacePaint

FacePaint — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:10:52 +0000

I don’t hear much of this, as I insist Germans stick to German. The Auslaenderin angle covers a multitude of sins - in meetings, I innocently ask what the German term is for every single term they use in English.

For some terms, e.g. corporate governance, there really isn’t an equivalent. One of my pet peeves is “das Feedback” used when they mean “Rueckmeldung” but don’t dare say it, b/c they _really_ mean Kritik.

It does seem that more-educated Germans - HermantheGerman as an example - are far less likely to throw bad English around than are clerks who’ve been in the same small company where they did their apprenticeship after completing the “mittlere-Reife.”

My own English has gotten dodgy, so I can’t be too critical … I mean, I can’t give them too much feedbacks on their English.

By: baby

baby — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:33:23 +0000

Nice website!!

By: FB

FB — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:45:17 +0000

It’s a bit late (a bit very late…) but: Dent mentioned carphones; In Switzerland we actually have another word for handy / cellphone, which is “Natel”. Originally: “Nationales Autotelefon” - “national carphone”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:56:10 +0000

The problem with the germans is they don’t even speek german. They speek extremely strange and ugly dialects instead. At the same time they like to say “Deutsche Sprache schwere Sprache” to show their intellectual superiority. And yes ! They even think their englisch is better than the englisch of all other people and they want to teach better german and english to persons they have discovered not to be Germans !!!

Sorry for my bad english. My mother language is a german dialect (unfortunately ) close to standard german, closer at least than the ugly dialects spoken by the germans like swabian, palatinian, bavarian… But as I said their favourite sport is to teach me german and english.