However long I live in Germany, it seems that people spot me for a foreigner the moment I open my mouth.
The problem is that I speak a fairly accent-neutral grammatically correct German. Stop sniggering at the back there! This of course, is a dead give away. Real Germans just don’t talk like this.
The trick is to find something other than Hochdeutsch to have as your accent.
This blog already suggested that famous dialect: Imbißdeutsch as a way of passing off as a local.
To complement this, I’d like to suggest another form of German which will allow us to blend in – this time with a group which we really wouldn’t want to spot us as being foreign. The neo nazis.
5 Comments
October 4, 2008 at 1:20 pm
LOL! I asked a Bavarian friend once how well did Hubby speak German? He said he spoke fine, but with a terrible New Hampshire accent.
October 4, 2008 at 2:51 pm
argh! I wish my german was better so that I could understand that. I’m going to have to save this and watch it again in a couple of years.
October 13, 2008 at 12:40 pm
That’s hilarious! I’m curious – do you find it a disadvantage that you speak in hochdeutsch?
October 22, 2008 at 11:29 am
I learned to speak German in a town south of Munich and have a trace (used to be quite heavy) of a Bavarian accent. Many years later I’m back in Germany but outside of Bavaria – I find most Germans surprised and a bit confused by an American speaking Bairisch.
October 26, 2008 at 9:05 am
I have found that in Germany people tend to not immediately identify me as American because my German has a Swiss accent (where I learned German). It’s a great advantage.