I'm German and I know everything

I don't know what fantasy these people are living in, but there's needs to be a public service announcement to the German populace informing them of their level of English speaking ability. I imagine it would go something like this:

Attention beer guzzlers, 

Take note that despite the fact that you studied English in high school, when you engage with a native English speaker chances are real good (read: certain) that you'll be the one with the worse English. How much worse is a direct function of how long ago high school was, but, to help you out, here's a list of indicators that your fluency in English leaves something to be desired:
1) I die before you can string a sentence together
2) You know none of the nouns that you want to use
3) As long as I laugh while I'm speaking, you think I'm being nice because you can't understand anything I'm saying 

If you experience any of these symptoms you're not fluent. Ganz einfach! 

Much love,
every native speaker that you've ever talked to 

Even with this announcement, all my problems would not be solved. Actual conversations that officially put this country on my shit-list:

kweeks commenting code: % how much lambda has changed...
coworker: how much or how many?
kweeks: how much.
coworker: are you sure?
kweeks: awkward pause. yes.

Setting: kweeks was asked to read over a powerpoint presentation that was to be given to a fellow native speaker. My boss and another coworker asked me to fix any mistakes that sounded unnatural or that didn't make any sense. 


Error: buy-side economic model "in the real world measure"
Suggestion: "based on real world measures"
boss: it's a real thing, I read it in a paper once.
kweeks: we don't really say that and it doesn't make a lot of sense
boss: no this paper was written by a guy in London, it's a mathematical term.
kweeks: it's wrong.
boss: we're sticking with it

Error: presentation title: "A Unique Holistic Wealth Allocation Approach"
Suggestion: "A Unique and Comprehensive Approach to Wealth Allocation"
coworker: we mean "holistic" as in, we consider all aspects of the client's wealth. Not just stocks or just bonds, but all assets. Holistically.
kweeks: that's not really a word. and it's not even modifying "wealth" here
coworker: I saw it in another presentation. Pulls out another presentation from Deutsche Bank
kweeks: this was written by another German. Comprehensive makes more sense and it sounds better.
coworker: comprehensive means "understanding"
kweeks: no, actually it doesn't.
boss: We want it to be "holistically." comprehensive means everything in its entirety, leaving nothing out.
kweeks: also wrong.
boss: we're sticking with it.

it's rude to stare

but since Germans are the Lou Gehrigs of not giving a fuck, they do it anyways. it's apparently not an impolite thing to do, smiling seems to be the bigger offense:

it is a cultural taboo for Germans to smile too much in public, or others see them as mentally challenged.  Some cold and smile-less gazes are cultural norms.

1) way to enforce the stereotype and 2) great, another reason to have everyone think I'm dumb in the head.

Lights Camera Action!

Going to the movie theater is awkward and German in just so many ways:
1) mandatory seat reservations - these people love to plan
2) das Pause - the German word for let's awkwardly interrupt your viewing experience for a 15 minute break so that you can forget everything that's happened.
3) commercial breaks - the last preview (read: commercial) was for some type of ice cream bar. Right after it ended they stopped playing the previews and some randos came in to sell us the exact same brand of ice cream. I only consider this German because it was weird. just like them.

the German restaurant experience

one of the magical things about the German creature is that they're, by nature, very un-awkward. rules for every conceivable social situation have been fine-tuned throughout the ages and nowadays the only thing left to do is for people to follow them. that awkward ending to any phone conversation where both parties find themselves saying "ok...well...alright" on repeat for five minutes? non-existent in Germany. it's a quick, "ok, see you then. bye. [hang up]." emails to people you don't know that start out with something really unnatural sounding ("i'm writing to ask you....", "im [biography] and i was wondering...", "im an idiot and forgot to sign up for your class...can i be on the waitlist?", etc)? a foreign concept here. due to the awkwardness of an entire people, many industries in the US have taken it upon themselves to ease the awkwardness of social interaction so that absolutely zero interpersonal skills are required to do any sort of task. this is of great convenience to those of us living in the homeland, but useless for us unlucky bastards abroad in countries where no such institutions exist and people get by by being...normal.

this brings me to the German restaurant experience. on your first visit to a German restaurant, you walk in, look around, and wait by the door to be seated. and you wait. and wait. and wait. everyone in the restaurant starts to stare at you and you begin to feel slightly uneasy. then finally, some exasperated German behind you pushes through, gives you a dirty look, and sits down at whatever table tickles his fancy. confused and mildly self-conscious, you walk over to the nearest table and pop a squat. an easy mistake to make to be sure, and you make a mental note to never make it again (the German stare can be quite intimidating is scary as hell).

at subsequent visits to German restaurants, you're convinced you know the drill. you're just going to boldly walk in there and take whichever table you damn well please. unfortunately this seemingly simple plan just isn't that easy. apparently the real reason American restaurants don't let you seat yourself is because people are indecisive as fuck. you and whoever you're with spend approximately half a century deciding 1) if you really want to eat here and 2) which table is the best option. during this time, a waiter inevitably comes over to you and gives you a look like "are you stupid? do you seriously need help sitting down?" The answer to both of those questions is, of course, yes, but you dont want to say that, so you try to communicate that you can handle the situation solo. Unfortunately it's at this point when you realize that the vocabulary for what to do when the conversation isn't going according to plan was conveniently left out of 5 semesters of German and you're best option is to mumble/grunt incomprehensible English and accompany it with some nondescript hand gesture.

and make this face

somehow though, this doesn't quite indicate clearly enough that you're foreign, confused, and effectively mute. one of your friends decides to step up to the plate and try to unsubtley indicate your social handicap by turning to you and saying, "what?" in a really loud and American fashion. Germans must say "what" a lot since the waiter still hasn't caught on that socially you're the equivalent of a dead horse. Eventually you resolve the situation by, again, finding the nearest table, smiling awkward at the waiter, muttering in English, and slowly walking over and sitting down, burying your face in the menu and refusing to look at anyone in the vicinity. 

life's good

just compensated for the fact that today was the most boring day at work ever by discovering the hot chocolate machine. what have i been doing all summer?

pig banger

In an effort to fully understand the "you say German words funny comment," I asked my fellow intern about it at lunch today. He told me I probably just said some word wrong, and when I responded that I had been ordering "strudel," he started laughing pretty hard and said, "yeah, you do say it funny." apparently there's a gigantic difference between the way Americans say "strudel" and the way Germans say "strudel"...which is, predictably, pronounced just like the American "strudel," just more German sounding, and this difference is the FUNNIEST thing ever (please see previous post about how Germany was voted the least funny nation in the entire world). 

This led to a conversation about Germans names (and how they're, well, not the best....the beloved "Gertrude" comes to mind...as well as Holgar, Dirk, Felix, Helga, etc). Eventually famous soccer super star, Bastian Schweinsteiger, came up. As it was explained to me, "schwein" means "pig" and "steiger" comes from the verb "steigen" (to increase, rise), and to "besteigen" somebody means to "mount/climb" them (in the PG-13 kind of way). So, basically, the vice/co-captain of the German national soccer team is Bastian Pig Banger. Childhood must have been rough.

pictured: class B misdemeanor and a bottle of hair gel

so lustig!

being lustig is fun. i usually take pleasure in being lustig - despite the fact that most of the time it's not intentional....i take even more pleasure in other people being lustig, which is why many a German can see me laughing at work while reading cracked.com articles or why im friends with shelco (definitely a good example of unintentional lustig...). however lustig lost some major points today when the following conversation occurred:

me (trying to order studel, because studel is fucking good and it was that kind of week): kann ich ein studel....awkward trail off
waitress: what? laughter. you're so lustig when you try to pronounce german [words]. more laughter.


that's right. some bitch straight up laughed in my Gesicht about how i spoke german. these heartless blond fuckers will literally suck the soul out of you and not give a fuck. im never speaking this language again.

bonjour ami

this (x8) is the first thing I see when I got off the train in Paris, comforting.

racial profiling

Ticket collector comes in, about to ask a question. He looks at the Chinese people in front of me, opens his mouth, pauses. Turns to the Indian couple next to me, opens his mouth, pauses. Turns to me, "Ist meine Kollegin schon vorbei gekommt?"