Speaking English in German Meetings & Pubs

I had a mini-row last night with an aquaintance last night about speaking English in pubs. I speak German and will happily speak it 24/7 if appropriate. We were casually talking in German when in walks an English speaking friend of mine I haven’t seen for ages with another English speaking friend of his. Now my German aquaintance is university educated and speaks English so we all spoke in English. English speakers were in the clear majority and he wasn’t shut out of the conversation.

But he had a real rant 10 minutes later that we were talking “Ausländisch� and said as we were in a pub in Germany we should speak German! If there is someone in the company that doesn’t speak English or the English speakers were in a minority we would have spoken in German. That very often happens and I’ll switch in and out of the 2 languages mid-way through a sentence.

I thought this aquaintance might turn out to be a friend, seems not now.

This is not the 1st time this happened ether and it REALLY pisses me off.

eeeh. Yeah, seems to me you draw the right conclusion from the experience. That's never happened to me with any friend.

Graham, don't mind him. As soon as I meet germans and english speaking ppl i warn my german friends that i have to speak english if there are english speakers who dont have a clue of german. Fair enough, you should speak german in a german pub but lif e can be a bitch sometimes... when everyone tries there is always a way to make conversation even though two different native languages are spoken. Adds some spice as well.

In this day and ager of Europe that has to be a minority opinion. Rules of hospitality have to apply. It is just rude to speak in a group in a language one of the members doesn't understand - if it can be avoided.

We have a guideline (of course) at work to define the right way to handle these situations:


This all basically revolves around the idea that you try and do whatever possible to ease communication for all persons involved - out of politeness.

In general, I have found Germans to be overly polite in this context. It's the old complaint that they switch too quickly into English out of politeness. I have had to ask explicitly for my colleauges to speak German and to correct me if it makes sense to do so.

Your new acquaintance must just be a bit of a xenophobe or perhaps was just having a bad day.

That is so obvious that nothing needs to be said IMHO. Common sense.


I don't think so.

I find myself in the curious postion of agreeing with Yomama on this one. I would not think that anyone should speak any language in a pub other than that which allows the people in question to communicate most effectively amongst themselves. I know the whole argument of making an effort to learn the language of the country that you are in, but that is not in question here. If I am in a pub here in Stockholm with a couple of English mates and a Belgian bloke should we all converse in Swedish. I think not. It's whatever is easiest and most inclusive for the group that should be the spoken language.

I have had German friends that usually love the chance to practice their english, most of my german friends speak fluent english, but if I join them at an event, I do speak then german of course. I usually tell my friends before hand, hey its english tonight, and they are usually delighted. But none of them have the right to get mad at you... come on its your mother tongue!
At my office when I have Americans, Canadians, English or Aussies in my chair, I always speak english, and we talk german to the doctors, but often we stay with the english. I even make the secretaries practice their english, and do the appointments and such in english.

I actually do speak some German, however not fluently. If I am out and about and I meet a German for the first time. I usually start the conversation in German so that they know that I can speak it at least on a basic level. However if the conversation starts getting too technical, I usually switch to english to make my point and then switch back to German. As far as people getting pissed off because a group of native english speakers prefer to speak english with each other, well that's uncalled for. Likewise if a group of native German speakers understandably prefer to speak German with each other and I am the only native English speaker in the group then I certainly would not be offended. I do find however that most Germans jump at the chance to practice their English and being a lazy American I don't usually stop them.

Recently my boss asked me to attend a Technical meeting one other person from our department who is aware of my level of German was also to attend. My German is not too good so at the start of the meeting I requested that the meeting be conducted in English all the technical documents were in English. But as things progressed the meeting switched to German then back to English when we had to look at documents and back to German again. I could understand most of what was being said but not all details so I was not able to fully contribute what would you have done.

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Asked my boss to pay for more German lessons?
It is a bit rude but if you are the only non-German in the meeting, it does happen, especially if the level of English-language ability of the others is considered to be less than than your level of German. Did the others know your level of German?
It would have probably been better to ask for explanations of the parts which you did not understand at the time that they happened. This shows that you are motivated and want to keep up. If you stay quiet, you are considered to have understood.
If it had really become so complex that you had only understood "Bahnhof" then a reminder of the meeting language would have been in order.

Got out of overpriced expats bars in Schwabing and into the local boozer at the corner of your street.

Good luck improving your German!

If they've agreed to hold the meeting in English then speak up and say that you cannot be involved if they don't adhere to that. If they say that it wasn't relevant to you when they spoke German then don't accept that since if you are invited to the meeting you should be the one to decide what is relevant to you. I do that here in Sweden quite often.

My dad did one that I liked. Whilst working in Jo'burg he was often in meetings where people would start speaking in Afrikaans. He got fed up with this so interrupted and started speaking in Irish. They looked at him blankly at which point he said, "Ok, now let's speak a language that we all understand". Problem solved.