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Is my feeble attempt at German appreciated?
I'm a visiting New Yorker who studied German for a year back in school, I… Do the locals appreciate when a foreigner tries to speak German - even poorly? Or is there indifference/frustration for this?
I'm a visiting New Yorker who studied German for a year back in school, I love the language, the culture, the city of Berlin, and I've picked up a bit during my visits here. I always try to speak in German when starting a conversation, and I can usually make myself understood, but sometimes it gets to the point that I cant, and then I hang my head in shame and ask if they speak English :-/
you're overthinking the head-hang moment, seriously. i've watched friends who grew up here switch to english midsentence when they hit a word they don't know, it's just how berlin works. your attempt is genuinely appreciated, especially by older folks or people working in spätis where english isn't a given.
the real test is at the burgeramt or any government office, where even germans struggle with the forms. if you can handle that and still smile, you're basically honorary berlin material. keep the little phrases going, the danke and tschüss, it changes how people see you
honestly most berliners are just relieved you're trying. the stereotype is that we all speak english but plenty of people don't or aren't comfortable with it, especially outside the tourist zones. the moment you switch to english with that little head-hang is fine, no one's judging you for it, we just want the conversation to work.
a year of school german is more than a lot of people have, and you'll notice you get treated differently at places like markthalle neun or even just buying a ticket at a bvg machine if you at least attempt die, das, der correctly. if you're around neukölln or kreuzberg you'll also hear a mix of turkish, arabic, and english on the street anyway, so your german is just another layer of the city's noise. keep at it, it genuinely opens doors here.
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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