Deutschland über alles. Über alles in der Welt!

If you went to Germany, would you learn German first? If you went with a friend and weren't comfortable speaking German, would you speak English to your friend? Or would you speak German for the benefit of anyone eavesdropping nearby?

Ich bin in mein lieben Damefreund.

I would learn German ASAP, he said the people KNOW English, and I would speak German as much as possible to familiarize myself.

whats the point of that argument? lets take this situation and expand on it....

Do i have german friends there? or only my english speaking friend? am i living there? or just visiting?

If i had german friends who i sat at a table with who spoke only german and both myself and my english friend spoke german, I would speak german if I knew it. if my friend spoke only english, I would spoke english thats an entirly diffrent story, if i can speak both languages and he can't i'd speak english around him speaking german if i had to to others.

if I was living in germany i would learn german and most defintly speak german, it would help me to learn more if i was speaking it to them...

again, my point is missed, think it's rude to talk to someone across from you when someone else is sitting beside you talking to someone three seats down? it'd be annoying and confusing and hard to concentrate, now in my situation... they are not only talking across the table while we are having conversations, but they are speaking in german. if it was in english i think i'd find it a bit more toleratable as it'd be less i donno... odd maybe. hearing forreign words while trying to talk to someone is distracting.

Wait. You're annyoed because they are having a conversation in German while they are around you even if you aren't aprt of the conversation?

Or try, at least... :p

Maybe you should offer the other German guy your seat?

I think its kinda rude of them, but from what you have said I think is was the fact that they wern't sitting togather,

pretty much sounded like if it were all english, the whole table was talking about 'x', then 2 guys far apart on the table start talking about 'y' , if you want to talk about 'y' its not hard to go and sit next to each other so has no not mix people up.. but that's not so much that they were talking in german though..


what would be rude if it was a small group of 6 people(lets say they're riding in a van to some where) and 4 spoke german and the other 2 couldn't, and they could all speak english.. then the 4 started speaking in german leaving the other 2 not knowing wtf they're talking about... Thats rude..

It's not "preservation or heritage", it' ****ing logic. If you go to a restaurant in america, you expect to be served in english, not russian, vietnamese, or whatever. Or yet, how would you feel if CNN suddenly changed their language to spanish?

Yeah, because we firmly believe in "assimilate or die."

If I have a conversation with a fellow landsman, I'm going to be having it in my language, unless I'm with a group of people who are all having a discussion in which case I'm sure everyone will try to find a common lingua franca. I think it'd be sad to be unable to speak my own language when I was living abroad, and we found it absolutely essential to keep speaking our native languages amongst ourselves in order to preserve our proficiency in them. It would have felt very artificial and forced to speak English amongst ourselves.

There's nothing rude about it.
Would you throw a tantrum if I said to my sister "Kan du vara snäll och räcka mig kniven?", when all I'd be asking is "Would you please pass the knife?" in Swedish? We were staying at a friend's grandmother's place, and I did the above. She went nuts (seeing as she was monolingually Finnish). Until then we had been conversing amongst the table in Finnish, but once I arbitarily asked my sister for the butter, she went nuts and went into an extended lecture mode.

Really, next time if you suddenly offended by it, just politely tell them. They're probably just going to shrug and tell you that you shouldn't care since the conversation wasn't about you anyway. Better yet, just ask him about what he said.

Why do you want to eavesdrop? Speaking in another language is no different than if they wrote English on paper or whispered English so that you could not hear it. Would you find those things to be rude as well? Probably, since you can't seem to stand the idea of you not knowing what everyone is saying. You are the rude one.

Hey, you seem intolerant. Have fun in life.

Ich sage, dass wir nur jetzt Deutsch sprechen. Wir koennen ihn sehr boese machen, weil er so engstirnig ist.

Ein was für intoleranter Stichel. Kein Zweifel erhält er seinen Esel eines Tages getreten.

The apostrophe in the thread title really irritates me.

Totally.

I'm from Norway, moved to Britain in 1990, and we only ever speak Norwegian at home. I think it's incredibly awkward speaking English to my parents. English is the 'school' language, it always feels far more.. formal. It's hard to be sincere in English. Norwegian definitely feels friendlier. It's always great when I come across other Scandinavian immigrants. :-)

Even if we have English people over, and I need to say something to parents, I'll say it in Norwegian, despite the ??? face from those around. Speaking English to my parents would be like.. wearing a thick winter coat when indoors with central heating. in summer. during a heatwave.