Can a German be rude when speaking English?

[Chelski 1,480]

The 'Germans are rude' has been done to death on TT.

 

But its a stereotype. Like I wear a string vest and a hankie on a head whist sitting on the beach in a deckchair going lobster brown.

 

Personally, I have no problem with Germans. My wife is German, my closest friends are German.

 

If a German (or any other nationality) wants to be rude to me, I have no hesitation in giving it back. I don't walk away. I don't brood. Neither do I start a "Me! Me! Me!" snowflake thread on TT.

 

But strangely, I do pretend to not speak German to professionals (doctors, dentists, lawyers, Police etc.) or anyone I think can speak English even though I'm C1 officially. (Probably now B1.5 + local dialect if I'm honest.) Maybe that's just a quirk in me, or Germans will speak English? If pushed?

 

TL;DR - keep going and finally back on title topic...

 

Whilst I was regaling Mrs C with my latest lovely/sweet moments (and they were!) talking English with German natives and how polite/smiley they were, she responded:

 

"We learnt English at school, but like in any language, we're not taught how to be rude. We don't know how to be rude. We don't know the words. I've seen you do it. Pretend to not speak German. So, if you can get a German speaking to you in English how can s/he be rude? S/he was never taught it in school".

 

Which begs the question as per the thread title: Can a German be rude when speaking English?

 

All thoughts appreciated.

 

* For rude maybe read direct. YMMV.

[Techsmex 13,367]

Can a German be rude when speaking English?  Ha, lol,,a German can be rude when speaking German

[Elljay 525]

Well, I'm not German but English is my second language. And I can be rude in it. Or direct. I remember an Englishman saying he would call a "spade a spade", yes,and I retorted: but there is no no need to call him a bloody shovel. And I've told off people for different reasons, which probably have seemed rude to them, but it wouldn't really have been in Swedish . Brits are rather sensitive little beings. Do you remember the thread about Brits being all hurt because Germans used - can you believe it- exclamation marks in E-mails, when they wanted something done?  

[JN53 355]

If rude equals being direct, then Germans will be direct when speaking English, unless they are taught some of the culture along with the language. I can't say I was taught much culture in my German classes in high school in the U.S., but in Germany I learned how to use German to be direct and sometimes have had to catch myself being direct here in the U.S. when I speak English.

[Fietsrad 412]

Speaking English to police officers and the like, why?

..

I avoid any contact with the police as far as possible. 

[bramble 9,602]

9 hours ago, Elljay said:

Brits are rather sensitive little beings.

 

This. So easily offended. I didn't realise this so much until I joined Toytown and read all the whining posts about German rudeness - over and over again. I have been brought up in both cultures and am therefore extremely adaptable without even having to think about it. Germans are not rude in my opinion, just different. Some are, some arent rude like everywhere else in the world. Brits should stop assuming that other cultures should be the same as at home. 

[pappnase 2,625]

Let's pick this apart. 

1. Rude is a cultural standard applied by the listener. Clearly it is different in Germany, and English speaking countries like the US and the UK but also there is some overlap.
2. You can be rude intentionally or unintentionally.
3. You can learn cultural norms in school if your teacher is good, but you can also pick them up from plenty of other places too, movies, tv-shows, books, conversation with others. 
4. Intentionally rude is when one deliberately oversteps cultural boundaries. Some people (and I really don't think this is a German thing, just an asshole thing)  pay no attention to the cultural boundaries even when they are pointed out.  

 

I would argue that being intentionally rude requires a fair understanding of the cultural standards of the person you are speaking to. This is hard to do if you have not learned this well, but there are still enough common standards between German and English that a non-speaker of either language could be intentionally rude to another non-speaker.

 

Being unintentionally rude is trivial, but should also be much easier to forgive.

 

 

[BethAnnBitt 2,954]

I travel b/f to Armenia regularly, a far greater cultural contrast than btwn the US and Germany. I don’t expect it to be the same, and I do my very best to adhere to their ideas of what is rude or not rude. I sometimes make mistakes, but like @pappnase points out, people realize they are unintentional and cut me slack. I cut my DIL and her relatives the same slack in reverse in our interactions.  It isn’t so hard.

 

I didn’t expect to move to Konstanz and have the world function just like it did where I last lived in the US. How boring would that be? 🤦‍♀️ And I must lead a charmed life, cuz I encounter nice Germans, Swiss, and foreigners here every day. A German guy I don’t know from Adam just complimented me this morning on how talented I am that I can walk with two dogs and manage my coffee cup at the same time, which led to a fun conversation and more German practice. 😀

 

Like @bramble says, you can find some rude people everywhere. But then again, I’m not one of them, and I don’t go looking for them, here or elsewhere.  And I think equating directness with rudeness is blown way out of proportion.  They aren’t one and the same.

[Fietsrad 412]

I think the Ossis are particularly friendly, and especially the Berliners love telling strangers where to go: how to get to the train station, etc usw.😉

[MikeMelga 7,312]

Germans can be rude even when not speaking. But most of the times they don't realize they're being rude

[kiplette 8,712]

15 hours ago, Elljay said:

Germans used - can you believe it- exclamation marks in E-mails, when they wanted something done?  

 

Shocking .

 

Off for a lie down to recover .

[knotheadusc 521]

4 hours ago, BethAnnBitt said:

I travel b/f to Armenia regularly, a far greater cultural contrast than btwn the US and Germany. I don’t expect it to be the same, and I do my very best to adhere to their ideas of what is rude or not rude. I sometimes make mistakes, but like @pappnase points out, people realize they are unintentional and cut me slack. I cut my DIL and her relatives the same slack in reverse in our interactions.  It isn’t so hard.

 

I didn’t expect to move to Konstanz and have the world function just like it did where I last lived in the US. How boring would that be? 🤦‍♀️ And I must lead a charmed life, cuz I encounter nice Germans, Swiss, and foreigners here every day. A German guy I don’t know from Adam just complimented me this morning on how talented I am that I can walk with two dogs and manage my coffee cup at the same time, which led to a fun conversation and more German practice. 😀

 

Like @bramble says, you can find some rude people everywhere. But then again, I’m not one of them, and I don’t go looking for them, here or elsewhere.  And I think equating directness with rudeness is blown way out of proportion.  They aren’t one and the same.

 

I lived in Armenia for two years and I can definitely attest to the difference between there and here!  

[BethAnnBitt 2,954]

26 minutes ago, knotheadusc said:

I lived in Armenia for two years and I can definitely attest to the difference between there and here!  

Well, there’s Armenia, and then there’s Yerevan, yet again different worlds. And my gang lives in the thick of the international community in Yerevan. Several of my DIL’s family members live in the US and Germany. The educated class is quite well tuned into western ideas and values and is generally multilingual. But you still don’t blow your nose in front of others, most especially at the table.  

[knotheadusc 521]

18 minutes ago, BethAnnBitt said:

Well, there’s Armenia, and then there’s Yerevan, yet again different worlds. And my gang lives in the thick of the international community in Yerevan. Several of my DIL’s family members live in the US and Germany. The educated class is quite well tuned into western ideas and values and is generally multilingual. But you still don’t blow your nose in front of others, most especially at the table.  

 
I lived there from 1995-97, when Yerevan was much more primitive than it is now.  At that time, there were maybe 200 Americans in the whole country!  By the time I left, big changes were happening.  The biggest one was 24/7 power!  My first year, we got it two hours a day, sometimes in the middle of the night.

 

I haven’t been back, but I am wanting to go.  I still know people there!  

[Chelski 1,480]

Some really considered answers, and some really interesting answers based on each individual's circumstances, and therefore, their point of view.

 

So thank you all who responded. I'll ponder some more.

 

And... WE made the front page of TT!

 

Give yourselves all a pat on the back. 

 

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

[JN53 355]

12 hours ago, Fietsrad said:

I think the Ossis are particularly friendly, and especially the Berliners love telling strangers where to go: how to get to the train station, etc usw.😉

 

When I lived in the west part of Berlin and went to the former east part, I also noticed that people seemed nicer. I experienced this in stores. However, when I traveled again to Thüringen and was at a small-town train station, the person there was so nice in comparison to anywhere in Berlin that I was almost shocked!  I guess I had just gotten so used to Berlin and the "Berliner Schnauze." 

[capslock 204]

Going back to the original question, lack of a large range of expression in English and a predeposition to directness may lead to perception of rudeness in native speakers, even if the speakers or writers never learnt rude language and it was never their intention to be rude. 

 

I have a colleague in purchasing who is Croatian. His German is at about 95% of native, his English more like 30%. When he became the buyer for an American company we had been buying from for a long time but that didn't have a buyer assigned to them for a long time because the volume was limited and the quality was good, he wrote an email to the tune of: Hi, I'm the new buyer for you, we have this problem and now we need this from you, all in understandable but fairly basic English.  I was the technical point guy at the time, and when I told him his email was rude and we can call ourselves lucky if they don't clam up, he was taken aback, even offended at first. He developed a good relationship with that company eventually, but at first he'd been blissfully unaware of how he sounded. So, yes, one can be functionally rude without wanting to and not being taught the subtleties may make it easier to do so. Ok, he wasn't German, so this story isn't spot on topic.

 

Now try doing business with a Dutch customer in any language. But this is more a question of business culture than anything else, in my opinion.

[Tap 8,460]

I’m a business English trainer, which basically means, I help German businesspeople to communicate more professionally and to sound more natural.  I find that most Germans translate what’s in their heads, into English, and that often comes across as sounding rude or too direct to native English speakers.  They know this, but they often don’t know how to correct it, and that’s where I come in. They’re not trying to be rude, it just sounds that way to us.  As native speakers of English, we set a very high standard and we expect other speakers to achieve that standard, which they often can’t unless they have lived in an English-speaking country for some time.

Of course, there are rude people, be we have them in every country.

[maxie 611]

I agree that rudeness is a cultural concept and there is a massive difference between intentional and unintentional rudeness. And then there are those people (of any nationality) that pride themselves on being blunt or direct or whatever "calling it like it is" who are just rude a**holes. 

 

Quite often, it is probably made worse when people speak the language rather well (grammar and pronunciation) so a native speaker expects them to also be clued in on the subtleties of interaction. But they aren't. Because they never learned it and don't pick up on the non-verbal stuff. 

 

There are rude Brits as well: 

Arthur on Traffic (Vine Compilation) - YouTube

[jeba 4,363]

19 hours ago, maxie said:

rudeness is a cultural concept and there is a massive difference between intentional and unintentional rudeness.

Is there such a thing as unintentional rudeness? Not in my book.