10 Life Lessons from 10+ Years Living in Germany

Cultural stereotype: all germans are Nazis.

No, I don't think that cultural stereotypes are usefull. You can easily understand my point if I say: all Brits are arrogant prats who voted for Brexit.

Not very helpfull.

If you're stuck in the process of being friendly with a German, then you can kindly ask for a Turkish person to instructions 😄. I love German people, I like that they're honest about their feelings, and that they make it really obvious when they're lying. They're not all the same, but they're all in the same military regime, hahaha. Never compare it to other countries, otherwise you'll definitely end up hating it. They are so specific and not even aware.

really well put

How to keep my comment in english when I just detected a Frankfurter?

Gesprochen wie ein Löwe.
Bleib 069 Bre

The options here are not just either blunt honesty or fake friendliness; there is the third option -- courtesy -- something I (in my 70s now) and my generation were taught from infancy. This discussion seems to suffer from the polarization that characterizes all too much public discussion these days. Just my twopenceworth.

Stereotypes

Good morning to you!

You definitely got the german attitude right. We are really struggling with our "obsession" with adhering to the rules. But some times there is a time to break the rules because they are nonsencical obviously even to german brains. That is why we have the political dilemma now that we are looking at the next elections and most people here think, it is going to be the far right AFD who will be the strongest Party then, because the other Parties are going into like, well it has worked in the past, so why change a running system....

Good video. I like to point at an error you may not be able to fix. I do this because I care about your channel and hope to help you improve it even more. It's just a minor typo, that i stumbled over. 17:04 stereotypes, not steriotypes. Keep up the good work, I said unironically

🕊🌎🕊🕊sharing🫂
Thank🫂You

“The romantic connotations of French and Italian” 🤢 ok maybe I do have some German blood, I don't need faux-syrupy language. (don't get me started on Spanish..)

Me, a German, having lived in the U.K., in the U.S.A. for many years and now living in Costa Rica, I say: You nailed it.

🤣 quality

Britain: "The customer is king."
Germany: "The customer is at the center of every business where they get in everyone's way."

I recall being at the Deutsche Bahn ticket counter and a tourist jumped the queue, it was a beautiful thing to see the staff tell her to line up because everyone is waiting to be served also, and they are just as important as her. 👏💁‍♀.
Another time in Berlin a homeless man got onto a train, and a passenger was upset that his pants had holes and you could kind of see underneath, an argument erupted and the general consensus was that before trying to force this man off the train, people should offer him clothes and leave him alone. I think it was quite nice and compassionate.

Germany is not great.full of racist s,and,more recent,of islamists .

I would love to see how you move and behave in everyday situations in Germany. May you film it one day...may you already did and i didnt see...

11:25 I disagree, most germans like things done in a quick and efficient way, so waiting for you as a foreigner, stumbling through your first attempts to speak german, they most likely switch to English, except for you're living in a more rural area or in east germany where speaking english was not as widespread as in the western part.
Btw. if you want to experience real typical german roughness and rawness : Come to Berlin :D
It's getting better over the last three decades but guess many foreigners were quiet offended by the Berlin Way at first...famous even in Germany for their Big Mouth...tho behind that you mostly find a good heart...
Btw. : Being judged by Brexit is the most stupid thing I've ever heard (you should look out for better friends)...especially taking into consideration at which foul state the EU currently is.
I apologize Sir, in the name of all clearly thinking Germans 😎

Germans are friendly people but don’t expect to be a freeloader in Germany though, that’s when things begin to fall apart

There is a contradiction in German society whereby they are intolerant of inefficiency, but they've tolerated bureaucracy an almost universally, appallingly moribund and inefficient bureaucracy. They chronically decry it, yet it remains chronically unaddressed.

Yes, "The country where you are born, follows you all over the world" ;

me as a German I feel "responsable" for the Nazis and the Holocaust,

for 25 Million dead human beings in Russia and the Soviet Union,

and this is senseful, important and human..

characters are global. there's any facet or shade possible in every country

I am German and I am thoroughly disgusted by righteous aggressive cyclists. This was NOT normal behaviour 30 years ago and I stil don‘t find it normal.

I find that very fascinating. I often watch videos about how we "Germans" are. But somehow these are mostly reported from a Bavarian point of view. Bayern's mentality is completely different. Not at all comparable to the rest of the country. Completely different mentality. Quite a few would applaud if they separated and had their own king again. 😂
Die Bayer nennen die Preußen „Saupreußen“.
Die Preußen finden, dass Bayern die „größte nicht überdachte Irrenanstalt“ Deutschlands ist.

2 Points: if you don't want to be judged by where you come from, just make a short statement: tell them, what you personally think of it, denounce it, expand their knowledge. Show them that you are a compassionate and rational person. They value reliability and correctness (basically a corollary of the former) beyond most other things. The second point is also loosely connected to this: its about fault culture: know your stuff, persuade them that you know your stuff, can take responsibility and will not cause armageddon, but they will be close to a panic when you change a process or make a set of dynamic processes with error handling etc... I think Germans like to plan ahead, get into a mindset to just crunch some numbers instead of explore intricacies. Curiosity is usually not what people are paid for. Or so they claim... And that makes it hard to defend something more dynamic. Even if it is proven, that your process will take into account every little possibility along the way and make changes and improve over time. I think they'd rather not have profit at all than ship something half cooked that is going to get most functionality in the last 10% of development. In their minds there is no such thing as retry without a heartfelt "Aufarbeitung". And they will crucify you if they feel, that you are going too fast because error correction is just a learning process instead of a mourning process.

You look a little like prince Harry... lol.... i studied at the university of mannheim for a year... it was a good year but also lonely. Im lucky that im part german and my om and opa lived there in Baden baden..... so i didnt feel as lonely as i coukd have.

Regarding point 5: If you already have a bad feeling about Brexit and feel uncomfortable with the majority decision in the UK when you travel abroad, then perhaps you have an idea of ​​how I feel as a German abroad, given my own history. Brexit is a minor matter in comparison. Don’t worry - we still like you (mostly) :-))))

smiles

In one respect, you truly are "the typical Englishman."

You can do whatever you want as a German, but with every success, the envious Englishman finds "something to criticize" and downplays it. I notice this again and again with the English. Why can't you English people accept that others can do something better and begrudge them their success without envy or a negative comment?

" Efficiency & Optimisation come at a Cost"

I am not aware where you are working or having worked. Germans are no robots and life is changing daily. So part of "efficiency" is also meeting new challenges and keep processes running on current challenges that might change:
Remember: in EVERY crises the germans stepped out STRONGER from it then they got into before. This is BECAUSE german efficiency is looking for new challenges and adapting themselves to the new aspects.
Calling the germans to be "The sick man" or "downgoing" etc is from my point of view more the expression of envy then based on facts.

For expamle: It took always about 20 years from winning Soccer World Championships to the next one...But germans won FOUR of them ... not so often reached by others..... and in between those 20years the german team might run very ugly performances...smiles....but they climbed their way up again.

And so it is in economics, politics, culture and so on...there might be "bad weather" sometimes...but germans find their way back to the sunshine when others still stay under their umbrella.



P.S.: I like your videos and your soft calm voice - go on

As a German expat in the Nordics I really appreciate your personal view of your life in Germany. Could have been a bit less polite and more direct but gotta respect your British way of expressing 😅

Well said about the stereotypes. Caricaturising, generalising, and reductive as they may be, no stereotype has ever come to be from and in a vacuum.

The only one who tells everybody, that Germany is falling apart is the Bundeskanzler Merz and his team. The industry is very content.

Blunt😂😂😂😂😂 have you been to The Netherlands?

Asking as a German: Do you know an English equivalent to "Schönen Feierabend"? There is so much of the German lifestyle in this expression.

Fascinatingly true. It's my fourth year living here and I finally realise your lesson 5. But while you can adapt and live with a pre-determined identity, for some, including me, this pre-determination means a Berufsverbot plain and simple — you are unable to work they way you used to or aspired to. I am not sure about other professions but if you are a foreign photographer recently based in Germany who has been working for international media for almost 20 years, like me, and maybe even award-winning including, say, World Press Photo, like some of my friends, it means nothing in Germany. What really matters is your identity as a foreigner. In Germany, you clearly see how media are a tool of the nation state in the most literal sense: only German photographers who were raised and studied photography in Germany, that is, became part of the very narrow professional Medieval guild can work in Germany for the German media, covering German stories (Austrians and German-speaking Swiss might as well). All others, be it French, Italian, British, US, Russian, Japanese, Australian, Polish — just any FOREIGN photographers based in Germany — would almost never get any photographic assignments for the German media that don't have to do with their French, Italian, British, US, Russian, Japanese, Australian, Polish, etc. backgrounds. Exceptions are rare. German photo editors need to HAVE A REASON to hire a foreigner. It can be the language for example, which means, your photographic skills, experience, or vision don't matter, it's something else, on top of that, that matters. That is, IN ADDITION to photography you can act as a fixer or an interpreter — for free — for the writer colleague with whom you work if s/he doesn't know the language. German visual arts, art photography is also very identity-based however strongly it may piss off most of the international artists living in Germany. If a German photographer or a visual artist works on a project in Africa, the Balkans, South Caucasus, or Japan, nobody would ask questions why they do it, what's their connection to that place. It's just natural. If a photographer from Africa, the Balkans, South Caucasus, or Japan does a project that does not relate to their identity/background, it will raise questions and would not meet expectations of the German 'gatekeepers' and audience in the style: 'why would an African photographer do a project that's not related to their identity or background'. This strange hierarchy is ridiculous but it's still pretty much there and hardly anyone seems to be concerned.

I do really like your video, it gives some interesting things to think about. I am a german dating an american.
While I know ones cultural or national heritage can be used to categorise or prejudge a person a bit...I do think it has to be limited in a certain way.
Of course the nationality is something you judge at the first moment I am convinced it has to play a smaller role later once you get to know the person and their complex personality as an individual.
I would ask a british person: hey what happend with brexit if you wanna talk about it. Making a single person repsonsible that way and dropping the emotional stuff on them is a step too far I think.
Sorry you had to deal with that.

Appreciate your video

It's one of the best kept secrets in the world: Germans are actually nice people.

Mal auf deutsch, ist es besser die Wahrheit zu hören, oder lässt man sich lieber lächelnd anlügen? Die meisten Menschen sind nur zu feige die Wahrheit direkt aus zu sprechen, dann lieber hinter dem Rücken!
Ich glaube es gibt in jedem Land nette Menschen und genügend Idioten!

We Germans are not unfriendly. Our demeanor with strangers is simply neutral. When I first came to the States, I was put off by the exuberant "friendliness" of total strangers. It seemed fake and insincere. It took me a while to realize that when a cashier at the store smiled at me with all her teeth and inquired how my day was going, she really had no desire to hear the answer and really didn't give a toss. It was just an empty turn of phrase. In Germany, when someone asks that, you can bet they really care about what you did that day. So which interaction makes me feel warmer and more connected to the other person? You take a guess.

I worked in Britain for a year. Most of the Brits I met had a really poor attitude towards work - they were taking many breaks, chatting, lost focus regularly, which I found exhausting from time to time. I want to finish work as soon as possible, taking just a short break and having more free time in the afternoon in return.

To point 4. The anger is real, when someone takes you right of way, because this behavior endangerous other people up to the point that their life is threatened.

Customer is king ? - no more Kings or Emperors in Germany !!! 🤨