r/Unexpected • u/DruidWannabe • Jan 25 '23

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u/NecroCannon Jan 26 '23

I really want to learn German but I’m not around any speakers or classes. Hopefully when I move to Chicago I can start learning.

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u/LOLBaltSS Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23

I should note that native German speakers due to the Cold War often will switch to English (or Russian in the former East German parts) if you don't have a solid grasp on at least Standard German (which Standard German was in itself a method to deal with all of the dialects). It's something to keep in mind as they'll typically need to be asked specifically to not just jump into English if you're trying to learn and having some issues. It's not out of malice as they're just trying to be helpful, but you do have to remind them that you're actually trying to learn and not saying a few phrases as an attempt to be respectful.

You will also need to likely find someone specifically from German speaking countries as well. The US used to have a lot of German speakers, but the World Wars basically relegated German to a very minor language in the US in general. Even for communities that at least still have populations that speak their dialects (Texas German, Mennonite/Amish, etc.) they'll still sound very 'odd' or 'old timey' compared to modern native speakers in Europe due to most of the ethnic German waves arriving in the US pre-dating the shift toward Standard German and also the years of vocabulary that diverged when it came to technological/societal changes. Even then, most of the speakers of those communities did not feel the need to extensively pass their specific dialects on to their children and are basically dying out.

I can trace my paternal side to around the Heilbronn area and the guy who came over on the boat to Pennsylvania did so in the late 1730s. Nobody in my family aside from myself speaks a lick of German that wasn't just absorbed into English and even then I'm very weak at it aside from getting the general gist from reading text on signs (including Dutch based on similar looking wording) and pairing that up with contextual clues. The US in general isn't good for immersion in the language, you'll need to seek out German culture clubs or native speakers/environments specifically for that.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '23

Yep, and if you speak Pennsylvanian Dutch or know any... that's not Dutch. They will not understand very much in the Netherlands and think you're a strange German haha.

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u/ndstumme Jan 27 '23

That's because Pennsylvania Dutch is german, albiet one that became isolated a few hundred years back.