What do you know about germany and where did you learn it?

[Never_falter2]

Just interested because in another thread I had the hypothesis that we know most of the things we know because of the media. I want to test my hypothesis.

 

[Deleted member 40995]

Just interested because in another thread I had the hypothesis that we know most of the things we...

I was partially raised by my grandmother who was German and my father who was also German and spoke German growing up.

 

[Never_falter2]

Och nö... das gilt nicht... das ist gemogelt ;)

 

[Sweetpea76]

Public school as a kid... geography, history and social studies. The wall came down when I was a child so that was big news.

A lot of people here in my area of the country have German ancestry, myself included (although only about an 1/8th or so). There are "German Town" areas in some of the larger cities, and Oktoberfest usually draws crowds in most of them. We also have a lot of Amish that speak a dialect of German, although I think they're technically of Swiss origin (I'm an 1/8 Swiss too).

I took two years of German language and some German Culture classes at Uni, but I'm rusty. I even did an independent study on German Expressionist films, which was a great excuse to watch some really great old movies.

America is a nation of immigrants, so I think we tend to be pretty globally aware here.

 

[Freida]

bits and pieces -- very little about the holocaust other than it happened. Social studies classes combined all the countries into "Europe" so there wasn't a lot on the individual ones. I went on a Europe tour (Italy to England in 26 days - so it all ran together!) when I was 16 and loved it. Ended up there for 2 years when I was in the military and really didn't want to come home.

Most of what I learned came from the people who I worked with - this was cold war days so Germany was a pretty hot topic for us stationed there.

 

[Friday]

Before The Wall came down, most of what I knew was about West Germany, and learned from school. Some from friends & family & friends of the family who had spent time there. I was mostly living in SE Asia at the time. I didn't go to Europe myself until later.

But a lot of it was also historical. Habsburg / Holy Roman Empire / Protestant Reformation / German Confederation / Franco-Prussian War / etc. (Unless we want to go back further before Germany really resembled Germany at all. But just sticking with mostly modern looking DEU? Rough European political shifting about from the 1500s-early 1900's. Especially military bits which relate to the US, like the Hessian mercenaries during our revolutionary war, or US/German settlements-regions-history-customs within the US). Then a whole lot of our side of the wars from the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand until the end of the Second World War. Then things tend to get fairly sketchy until 1989.

From the 1990s onward? Not a huge amount, I couldn't hold my own in conversation with diplomats or anything, but I've been there several times. My brother lived in Stuttgart & Berlin for a few years, and I visited whenever I was in Europe (He's fluent, I'm not... My German is a truly embarrassing mix of high/low and contains random swabish where you wouldn't expect it :bag:). I worked with German aid workers after I got out of the military, ditto knew a few IDF folks who settled there and would visit them, also, although I tended to spend more time in Switzerland or Italy. Later on, in university, there are/were a helluva lot of German scholars, & artists. So I've got a general feel for the country, although very basic. To be honest, I think my son knows a great deal more. My knowledge is very scattered.

 

[Sweetpea76]

That'd throw me for sure. I'm not up on my German etiquette :whistling:. I studied "culture" more in the sense of art, philosophy, history, and religion of the country. That's one of those English words that has multiple meanings... what a pain! German is such a nice logical language... which is probably why it baffled me so much. Too logical lol

Although a lot of kids from my Uni studied abroad in Germany. We had a sister college there. I'm sure my German prof gave them all a thorough course on etiquette. I believe he studied in Berlin for quite awhile.

 

[Never_falter2]

It won‘t be a problem because Germans do like Americans and they do not mind you know nothing about their etiquette.

Did I get it right with the things I said about the USA?

 

[Sweetpea76]

Sounds pretty good @Never_falter. I think we tend to be so much more informal here there is really not much you can do "wrong", at least with middle class, everyday people.

 

[Never_falter2]

Cool!

Maybe a little thing I just thought off about stuff that can go wrong in Germany. Typically we do not discuss stuff like PTSD with people we do not know very well in Germany but might also be the case in the USA. Not sure. Will that be openly discussed in the USA?

Is it different for upper class or lower class American people? What do I do when they invited me to their home?

 

[Sweetpea76]

Class isn't as much as an issue here as in Europe. The word class in the US is used to talk about income levels. For instance, you're not going to be "upper class" based on family name or anything, unless you inherit money. I'd say etiquette here would be based more on the occasion. It's pretty relaxed unless you're doing something formal or professional.

 

[Deleted member 40995]

Och nö... das gilt nicht... das ist gemogelt ;)

Deutsch war meine erste Sprache als Kind :p
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