Deutsch outside of Deutschland

I never considered that learning German would be all that useful outside of Germany.

But there are other German-speaking countries besides Germany, even if their German is not always the same as the one I understand. In September I went to Austria to see the World Championship road races. My German was useful at the hotel desk, and with waiters at restaurants. Then while trying to navigate the race course I stopped to ask for directions from a policeman. After a moment of confusion I quickly realized what he spoke wasn’t the German I knew. He could understand my Hochdeutsch, but when he spoke it was in the Austrian dialect. I imagine it was similar to what would happen if a German who learned English in, say, Cleveland had traveled to Arkansas for the first time and spoke with a real local. Fortunately I had a map – pointing works in any language.

Traveling from Germany, it was not surprising that other travelers would be speaking German. Coming back to the U.S. at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I found myself in the interesting position of helping the person seated next to me fill out the U.S. customs form. They each spoke decent English, but I know from filling out official forms in Germany that “official language” is not so simple. How do you explain in simple terms in German the meaning of, “have you ever taken a child whose parent is a U.S. citizen out of the country?”

I didn’t think I’d be speaking German in France though. Sitting at breakfast the first morning I was in Cannes, the waiter came by and asked me in German what I wanted to drink. Without thinking I answered him in German, before realizing, “hey, we’re in France.”

He had noticed the German newspaper I was reading. He said he was from Turkey, but had lived in Germany (in Düsseldorf in fact) for quite a few years and spoke fluent German. The rest of the week every time he saw me he would speak German.

Just a few weeks later in Italy, I was surprised to see many signs in shops written in both Italian and German. I’m sure this is because of tourism. There were several occasions where people thought I was a tourist from Germany. One afternoon I stopped in a combination wine store / restaurant, and when I didn’t understand Italian the owner started speaking to me in German. On several occasions people apologized for not speaking better English or German.

One morning at the hotel I heard German coming from the TV in another room. A team from Südtirol was also staying at the hotel. Südtirol is a region in the border area between Italy and Austria. It was still winter there, so these guys had also come to Tuscany for some decent weather and good training. They spoke German, Italian, and of course the Austrian dialect. Listening to them at dinner, they seemed to speak mostly in Austrian. But to the waiter they spoke Italian, and we had a few brief conversations in German.

Europe is appealing in this way: the mixture of languages and dialects, relative compactness of the countries, blending of the border areas, pockets of different language within a single country. It makes for interesting cultural textures that change so quickly from place to place.

I’m still in awe of people who can switch between multiple languages so easily. Learning one foreign language has been hard enough. People have told me that it gets easier, each new language you pick up. Easy for them to say now. I'm not sure I would have the stamina to test it personally.