What are you doing about languages? (German language primer)

and you can still translate for me and my wife when we get to Frankfurt Sunday morning

 

oh, you got an approval from your wife that you can have a female translatator from Germany

hmhm..

My German is perfect..but my English not so good..so I will translate you
from perfect German only into "mishapes" English

 

your english is a lot better than my non-existent German

 

and I wish I had your perfect English skills

 

Close. It should be Treten Sie nicht auf mich!. Otherwise very good. You get an A.

 

luckily our entire groups complete lack of German skills was not a problem one time on a train we asked an employeee a question and she didn't speak english she went and found a random german to translate.... and when a maid came to clean our room about 11am one morning luckily she asked if I spoke spanish and I was able to tell her come back in a couple hours!

 

The German people have been WONDERFUL, absolutely gracious.

They help us at the train station ticket kiosks without prompting. A simple, "Sprechen sie english" or even "Do you speak english?" works all the time.

In fact, often they apologize for not speaking English very well.

We do make an effort with the simple words like, bitte, danke, etc. But often we encounter local folks with very little interaction with Americans so an effort on our part is very appreciated.

Also, often, there is an English speaker nearby. Or in my case, a Spanish speaker.

We have it easy as English speakers. I've seen Japanese, Mexican, and other fans really struggle to communicate with the locals.

 

I encountered no more than a handfull of Germans that didn't respond to my "Sprechen sie english" with "yes, a little" and then they proceeded to speak better english than most Americans I know. Oh yeah and Ilike i said one of those that didn't speak english did speak Spanish so we were still able to communicate. I agree I think the people in Worms appreciated the pleases and thank yous in German.

In Heidelburg at the restuarant we ate at the waitress even brought us English menus.