Moving to germany for a year - suggestions?
 

Hi fellow FT'rs

I am an American consultant who travels quite a bit for my job. I recently found out I will be transferring to our German offices in Rot, Germany (right by Walldorf) for a total of one year.

I am not going for another 4 months and so I have some time to prepare. I have a few questions:

1. What would be the best way to learn German?
So far I have the list of the following books/cds:
Books: German for Dummies and Fodor's German for Travelers
CD's: Living Language:Ultimate German
I've also heard Rosetta Stone is very good, but is very pricey. (~$300 i think)
Also, would it be good to take classes while in Germany to learn the language? I've heard in general the language is difficult to learn.

2. I also need to find a place to live. I will have some help from my work friends and our department that deals with transferring, but I thought I'd ask here for more of a personal outlook. To give you some background: I'm 23 years old, single (and looking, haha) and am very social, so I would be looking to stay somewhere that fits my profile. Heidelberg is very close and apparently there is a large university there. I've heard of a few other cities/towns around the Rot/Walldorf but Heidelberg seemed like it would be the best fit. If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate the feedback!!

3. Travel "gadgets" - other than an iPhone, any suggestions on some cool gadgets that work in Europe I could ask for when I travel Europe? My job will entail a lot of traveling in Europe as well as the personal travel I plan on doing.

Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions!!

1. Learning German is a great idea, taking classes while you are here sounds even better. You'll need German in daily life even if your business is in English. Many people in Germany speak good English, but not everybody does, and signs, ticket machines, timetables, menus etc. etc. etc. are in German - you'll get by much better with some language skills.
Difficult? Well, I learned German at the age of 2 and didn't find it difficult;)

2. Heidelberg isn't the cheapest place in the area to live, but it's a lively student town, so probably the best choice for a young outgoing person.
Mannheim has got a large university, too, and it's where people go for shopping, but - sorry Mannheimers - I have to admit that I do not find the city attractive.

Taking a beginners class before you go to Germany would be a good idea, so you'll at least know some basics about pronunciation, grammar etc., German is pretty difficult, so the only way to learn it properly is talk, talk, talk. Books and CDs may support your learning but won't be sufficient.
The Goethe-Institut offers German classes, which are, AFAIK, pretty good, but very expensive (more than 1500€). The is a Goethe-Institut in Mannheim.
Another possibility is to take classes at a "Volkshochschule" (there are Volkshochschulen in both Mannheim and Heidelberg), they will start from about 150€.
As I mentioned, you'll only learn German if you're forced to use it daily. A good way to get in contact to young Germans is living in a shared apartement (Wohngemeinschaft, short "WG").
As Kathrin already wrote, living in Heidelberg is very expensive, a room in a "WG" can cost up to 400€ (usually between 300 and 350€), a single room apartement can easily cost 550€, that's why most students in Heidelberg live in Wohngemeinschaften.
I lived in Heidelberg for two years, and i didn't like it, it is a nice town, but that's about it. IMHO it was to small, to pricey and to many tourists. I'd prefer Mannheim, where you'll find a room in a Wohngemeinschaft for 200€, an apartement can easilybe found for 250 - 300€, even in prime locations, plus you'll find more shopping possibilities and a bigger cultural scene.

Let me throw my zwei pfennig in here...

Rosetta Stone is a pretty good way to learn German, short of actually practicing it with live German speakers. I'm using it now to brush up on my German and am finding it to be a nice challenge. I disagree with the assertions that German is an extremely difficult language to learn. When you have a basic understanding of the mechanics of it, it actually makes more sense than English. In any case, there are quite a few similarities. Don't get fixated on the die, das, der (try to learn them, but don't lose sleep over mixing them up from time to time). Practice writing in German and visit German websites or watch German TV and you will be surprised what you start to pick up. If you have access to children's books in German, that is also helpful.

Heidelberg and Mannheim are in the southern part of Germany, and both also have higher concentrations of US troops, so you may find that English is spoken with some regularity. Do your best to speak German, but don't be afraid to fall back on your English if you get in over your head. I've never had an Germans get angry with me for screwing up a phrase, and most seem to appreciate the attempt to speak the language, properly or not. Maybe you can match up with someone who will help you with your German if you help them with their English.

Both of these towns are located on main train lines that will get you pretty much anywhere in Germany.

In my opinion ditch the Rosetta Stone idea. Get some Pimsleur CD instruction. Start with the starter set then get the more advanced ones. Follow that with a decent phrase book.

When you get to Germany do the Goethe Institute. They have schools around the world and the best certification system around. It's worth the money, especially if you are interested in German for life. As for living locations, Heidelberg is nice, Mannheim is also nice. Take some time to look around then pick what suits you best. Nice thing about Germany is that for the weekends everything is a close drive.

I enjoyed my years living there and would go back in a heartbeat. Also, German women are babes, while being intelligent and sophisticated.

Cheers,

M8

Being a German woman, I appreciate the compliment, M8!!! ;)

Isn't your company taking care of German classes? Why don't you ask your boss or HR person? You can also look already for the Goethe Institute in the USA http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/enindex.htm

For travel books on Germany I prefer the Lonely Planet.

Also be aware that as an American you will encounter a lot of political debates about George W. People will ask you questions how you Americans could let such a person to become president and so on. Some of the debates can get very hostile or at least can feel that way because we Germans tend to say what we mean. Don't get frustrated about it. You will get used to it.

About the IPhone. The American Iphone will work in Germany but I don't even want to know how high the ATT's roaming charges are. I have no idea if an American IPhone would work with an T-Mobile SIM-Card (T-Mobile is the exclusive distributor of the IPhone in Germany). So maybe an IPhone isn't the best idea.

Iphones can be unlocked. Once unlocked they will work with any network.

(My Iphone came from the USA. I've used it with my Orange and United Mobile SIMs and it works absolutely fine)

German Language Instruction
 

If you'd like a one-on-one tutor, at a very good rate -
try www.verbalplanet.com.

Seriously, I'm a fluent German speaker who needed some practice to get back up to speed since I started using it for business. Goethe Institut (great as they are) was way too expensive.

I'm paying about $25 an hour for great instruction/practice over Skype. Look at the reviews and pick one who works with beginners.

(feel free to write me if any further questions).

Alec

1. Let me introduce you to the best way known to mankind to learn a language: a local girlfriend. Did wonders for my Spanish, believe me. It also would have done wonders for my Mandarin, but I only had three months in China, which is nowhere near enough for a language as complex as that. But you should do very well indeed with a whole year at your disposal.

2. I think Heidelberg is a pretty good bet. It's a very nice city, but a little pricey. Mannheim is a little cheaper, but not as visually appealing and a little less lively. Most of the smaller towns in the vicinity are excellent places if you're raising a family, but if you're young and single, you'll prefer the cities. One thing about the smaller towns though - as long as you pick one on one of the rail lines, you usually have excellent access into the cities.

One other thing you may want to consider - how much air travel does your job involve? By train, it's much easier to get to Frankfurt airport from Mannheim than from Heidelberg. By car, it's about the same.


Part of the time, I live very close to Heidelberg (about 25 miles away) - send me a message when you're over here and feel like having a beer or two.

You are quite welcome, schatzi ;)

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

1. I am going to ask HR about comp'n classes, but thought I'd reach out here for some suggestions at first. I actually picked up German for dummies and has been a very good starter and I think i'm picking up the language quite nicely. I took latin in HS and surprisingly the verb endings, etc seem a bit easier in German than latin or even some of the other romance languages (but that could just be me)

2. Thanks DTS for the specifics on prices. My apartment will be paid for but only a certain limit so I think thats good going into it. I make a decent living and my current apartment is $615/month, so that seems pretty similiar (side note: the dollar is complete crap nowadays...ugh)

3. I also asked a german colleauge over there about the women and i got a "sehr gut"...so that's good news ;-)

4. "1. Let me introduce you to the best way known to mankind to learn a language: a local girlfriend. " - Funny story -- A colleague of mine (whos german) was in a meeting with an Indian guy. The indian corrected one of the German's grammar and all of the German guys were shocked at how fluent his German was, etc...turns out the guy was married to a German lady ;-) Might have to "invest" in this to really learn the language, haha.

Thanks everyone for their comments/suggestions. I've found nothing but helpfuly people on this site.

The German language belongs to the family of Indo-Germanic languages which has nothing to do with the Latin language family. Anyway German has other obstacles. I just say der, die, das. Anyway don't worry too much about it. Try to speak as much as possible even if you make mistakes. People will appreciate that you try. Since I live not far from Heidelberg feel free to contact me by PM when you are in Germany.

As a native french speaker (french-canadian at that), learning english was a rather long arduous process even with the insane amount of influence on TV in Montreal.

I didn't speak english all that well until I was about 16, at which time I was hanging out with english-canadian friends. It really helped me in that regards. Then I went to college in english, still in Canada. I spent a lot of time doing the 2-language dictionary shuffle but it worked out in the end.

I've been to Germany twice (7 days + 10 days) and I can pick up certain expressions, price of stuff, etc. I've never really taken a single lesson or read a book - but that's in my future.

All this to say that I find German rather similar to english in the roots of the words. French uses latin roots, Germany uses Germanic roots akin to english. Anyways that's my personal experience, I'm sure someone will correct me. :)

[To this day, the word "learned" is like nails on a chalkobard - everybody in Canada that I know says "learnt" :D)

JP

Sorry, I think what i meant to say is that the learning of the verb endings (basically replacing the infitives endings) seems to be at first glance easier to develop than Latin and some of the romance languages (i know a bit of spanish too). As I've found with most languages the gender is always a pain to remember :mad: Anyway, all good suggestions regardless. Thanks again.

You could always give a shot to french's Subjonctif-plus-que-parfait tense. That's fun! :D:D:D

JP

not familiar with that...but since its a romance language im assuming its like the tables and tables of tenses i had to learn for latin verbs...talk about painful!:td:

Gaah!!! :eek:

Just had a painful flashback to high school... I hated that tense with a passion, and I always got it wrong.

Language Learning
 

Re the references to Latin... if your first language is Chinese or Hungarian or Finnish, then knowing Latin will make learning German easier because both Latin and German are of the Indo-European language family, and having learnt one Indo-European language makes it easier to learn the next one. However, if your first language is English then Latin won't help that much because German and English are much more closely related than German and Latin. But... knowing Latin will still help in a small way because you will already be familiar with the concept of case endings.

And a general comment about learning German... I've once heard it said (possibly by my other half) that German is one of the easiest languages to learn to speak badly but one of the most difficult languages to learn to speak well. And while I can't comment on that from my own experience (as I grew up in Germany) I think this is probably right.

What makes German difficult is the fact that you have genders and cases. For example, tables are masculine, and depending on context "the table" can be either "der Tisch", "des Tisches", "dem Tisch" or "den Tisch". However... people are still going to understand you if you get the article wrong, and even if you say "die Tisch" (feminine) or "das Tisch" (neuter) they will still know that you are talking about a table... and if you're speaking with a foreign accent they won't even notice the fact that you got the article wrong because they are used to people with foreign accents getting the article wrong!

So... my advice for someone learning German for social purposes: Learn the words - learn how to string them together - but don't get too hung up on the finer points of grammar. The important thing is to be able to communicate, and learning how to communicate in German is - allegedly - quite easy.

Couldn't agree more...I may butcher the German language, but it is still understandable.

OP-Surf around on German language websites, such as Lufthansa's. You'll see a lot of familiar words and how the sentences are structured.

Actually, both German and Latin are "Indo-Germanic" languages. Indo-Germanic is a synonym for Indo-European. (http://m-w.com/dictionary/indo-germanic) The term is used, in most circles, much less frequently than Indo-European. Basically, what being in the same big language group means is that linguists believe that the Germanic and Romance languages are among those languages that had their origins in a common language (the re-constructed (i.e., hypothetical/guessed) language, Proto-Indo-European).

German (and English, Dutch, Swedish, etc.) are Germanic languages, while Latin (and French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.) are Latin or Romance languages. Here's a somewhat-simplified schema of many of the Indo-European languages: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/language.html

Back to the OP...
If you can get your company to pay for classes or a live tutor, I think you'll find that to be more helpful than books/tapes. However, pretty much anything will help you to some extent, and anything is simply going to take time for your skills to build. But don't get discouraged and keep at it!

Why is this thread making me think of those Wall Street language institute posters that are all over the Muenchen U-Bahn stations...

Andergraund --- That's falsch!

:D

Who said English is easy to learn. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkZ3f8DnKs

Wall street institute to teach ENGLISH? How odd. If anything, you'd think they'd be teaching Finance!

JP

that's great...surprisingly i think i got my "z"s and my "ch"'s down...of course a german might think differently

I took some German at the local university (although 3 hours at night after work is painful).

My boyfriend who is from Vienna (although if he had his chose I'd take Viennese German instead of German :p), downloaded the "Tell Me More" German program which is less expensive than Rosetta Stone, but the navigation isn't too great.

I would recommend taking classes so you're put on the spot about the grammar and forced to write sentences, etc. The post someone wrote about conversing over Skype with a tutor is a great idea or even find a pen pal online that wants to learn English. Luckily for me I'm exposed to it all the time with boyfriend's family-although I have to admit it's embarrassing to attempt to speak.

In parallel with classes I use a program called Linkword. It's not a good interface, but it's excellent in building vocabulary. It uses "links" to help you remember like "the lobster has a sense of humor", "der hummer". I've found it helpful and it's pretty affordable.

http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/german.htm

I even bought some children stories on amazon in German, Der kleine Prinz is cute. You can also buy short stories in English and German and supplement with those as well.

Viel Spass!

One thing I did while I was learning Spanish was to read the early Harry Potter novels (the ones which were actually still suitable for younger children) in their Spanish translations (I had read the English versions earlier). It will give you some vocabulary you're never going to need (witch, wizard, and the like), but at least it's a fairly simple way to get the hang of sentence structure and things along those lines. And you'll roughly know what's going on already if you've read the books in English, which can be a big help.

for anyone else following this thread i found this site to be very helpful as well:
www.dict.cc

I use these as well:

http://www.orbeon.com/ops/xforms-translate/

http://www.verbformen.com/index.jsp

Or (if you can stand this) watch a movie that you know by heart in German, with the German subtitles showing.

This is hard to do, though.

You can learn Dutch or Swedish that way - but not German. The reason is that it is very rare to find English-language films with German subtitles. In Germany most films get dubbed. Which I think is possibly one reason why, as a general rule, people in Germany don't speak English as well as people in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Germans, unlike their neighbours, don't hear English on TV.

It used to be rare, and you won't find much that is subtitled on TV or in the movie theaters, but now, with the advent of DVDs, you can do this with pretty much any film. In fact, now you can watch a film first, say, with English audio and German subtitles and then watch it again with German audio and English subtitles.

And, yes, I agree with you--I think that the amount of English Scandinavians hear on TV is related to their excellent English skills (there are other factors, of course, but this would seem to be one).

You certainly won't find movies subtitled in German in the US, that's for sure. I have about 250 DVD's at home and I don't think I've ever seen anything other than French/English/Spanish subtitles.

JP

Well for THAT you can use the wonderful Viennese for Americans phrase book: http://www.abseits-soccer.com/wienerisch.html :D

good day,

you didn't ask, but i will tell you anyway . . .
as an american, your income earned in a foreign country is still taxable by uncle samuel. please see the following link for some very helpful, INTRODUCTORY comments on how to exclude foreign earned income from taxation by the us, what may be excluded (and what may not), etc:

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq13-3.html

incidentally, i have been a professional tax preparer for several years -- please be sure to contact a professional preparer in your area so that you will know the rules on how to exclude your income (if you go to an h&r block office and talk with a senior preparer they will be able to help you). absent that, you could download the publications mentioned in the above url and read up yourself on what is required. or, you could get a publication such as lassiter's and read in there what you will need to know.

as a last resort, contact your hr department on this topic, or perhaps there is a colleague in your office who just returned from abroad and can advise you.

i have seen too many people lose out on this by not knowing the rules beforehand.

have a great year.

This was a comment about films available for rent or purchase WITHIN Germany.

travis - danke! sehr gut!

This is something i am definately going to look into and was planning on asking HR. Another thing I am going to look into is that my apt lease ends up in May of '07. So technically I wont have a residence in the US (i guess my parents). Unless anyone knows of anything I should watch out there for I think its just an issue I can take up with HR.

Regards,
-mb

Good advise. However I noticed that the English subtitles are most of the time word by word but it seems that German subtitles tend to be more for hearing impaired and do not always show what is actually spoken.

If you will not have a permanent residence when you move to Germany I would recommend using a friend or relatives address in one of the state tax exempt states (ie. Florida, Texas, Washington, etc) This way you will only have to file a federal tax return. I lived in Germany for 9 years as a military brat, and 2 years in Okinawa in the service. This was good advice that was given to me. Take every opportunity to enjoy Germany it is a wonderful country and has events happening every weekend in many towns.

I would recommend going with the latter - watch a movie you already know in the dubbed German version and switch on the English subtitles. I think the learning effect is much greater than if you watch English with German subtitles. And when you're ready, you can graduate to etch's suggestion, watching the German-German version. And after that, you can try to watch a German-made film (like Goodbye Lenin or something) with the German subtitles on.

It's not for lack of trying though. Unfortunately, there is a law that TV programming must be dubbed, rather than subtitled. Nominally, it's supposed to be a programme to keep the German language alive, but in fact it is just a make-work scheme for a sizeable industry - dubbing all those programmes employs a huge number of people!

I wish I at least had a choice of whether to watch in in German or English though. In Switzerland, some programmes are broadcast with the original soundtrack and the dubbed soundtrack, and you can switch between the two. I would really like to see this in Germany (especially for my beloved Simpsons).