Speaking German like a Native

[Conservator 11]

Hi all

If you learned German to advanced level and speaking like a native please share your advices how to achieve this what books or sources did you use

 

I started learning German 10 years ago and currently achieved B2 - C1 level but it is still not good and in many job interviews I got rejected for reason not satisfactory German 

 

Thanks

[john_b 3,308]

Your profile says you’re a naturalised German, what’s your mother tongue?

[robinson100 12,794]

Get out and about, mix with (German) people, and have in-depth conversations with them.

It sounds to me like you are fairly well-qualified on paper, and directly out of text books, but have little experience in actually using the language on a day-to-day basis.

[murphaph 9,713]

The most important thing is the accent. If you work on the accent it hides all manner of grammatical errors because the other party isn't sitting there, ears pricked listening for them. Native English speakers are so used to hearing their language used by non-natives that we couldn't be arsed "catching people out" but for many Germans it's still a novelty to hear their language spoken by non-native speakers so they listen much more intently. If they feel you speak like them (the accent) then they drop this "error detector" mode and just listen to what you are saying. That's been my experience anyway.

[HEM 11,085]

31 minutes ago, murphaph said:

The most important thing is the accent.

At least in my case I reckon that the accent is part of my personality & at my age it isn't going to dissappear.

 

Several years ago at the German gliding conference which was held in Braunschweig that year following her presentation the then chairperson of the German gliding movement held her usual "Ehrung" of individual contributors.  She said that the first person to be awarded that day was not even a German citizen & whenever she heard his accent she was thankful to know such people worked for the gliding movement as a whole - "I now wish to make the first award to HEM".

 

Thunderous applause.

[Fietsrad 386]

Many people who learn as adults just can not learn to speak the language perfectly, I think the part of the brain responsible for that only works when you are young.

 

I make up for that by knowing more about German history and literature than the average native😉

..

Today the Guardian has an interesting article about English stealing words from other languages. Apparently people with regional English accents feel disadvantaged.

 

But I love to hear a regional accent, Welsh, Scotch, Ulster, even London. Actually Adrian Chiles of the Guardian thinks his West Midlands accent has been an advantage in his job Talking about Football.

[JN53 355]

My German is near-native, so C2 level, although I may have lost a little bit, since I haven't been in Germany for a few years. Years ago I took a few VHS courses, after I had had 3 years of US high school German. I also joined a church, a club and looked for opportunities to speak German when I was in Germany. I also read everything I could-and that I had time for.

Currently I keep up on my German by watching the Tagesschau, shows on YouTube and then writing e-mails and messages in German. I also read my German Bible. 

As far as the accent, mine is near-native, but for some people I guess that just doesn't happen. We are all wired differently and have had different opportunities to speak German. 

I suppose what Robinson said is my advice-get out and have in-depth conversations.

 

[Widad 10]

try to listen to the radio everyday, podcast (example easy German), mix with the greman people

[TurMech 180]

I have never met or seen anybody, who learned the language in his/her adult years, and speak like a native. 

In the video below, you can listen to somebody, who successfully passed the Goethe C2 exam. You can judge yourself, whether it sounds like a native.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8VN2keDjzk

[kiplette 8,677]

Yeah, not so much. The two Brits I know well with C2 have quite crap accents - his is much better.

 

Tbf also there are some right funny actual German accents out there as well.

 

@Conservator, as many have said, speaking to actual Germans is most helpful, but remember that most Germans don't speak at C2 level, so you need to find someone with really good language to practice with in order to pick up the Feinheiten. 'Speaking like a native' covers a lot of ground. Your prospective employers seem to be wanting some really classy German

[john g. 37,697]

5 hours ago, TurMech said:

I have never met or seen anybody, who learned the language in his/her adult years, and speak like a native. 

In the video below, you can listen to somebody, who successfully passed the Goethe C2 exam. You can judge yourself, whether it sounds like a native.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8VN2keDjzk

The young man speaks excellent German but is not a native speaker. He slips uup when he says " denke an DIE Umweltschutz." Not a hanging offence but it shows being a native speaker in a foreign language is just that. ie NOT a native speaker. And he pronounces Frankreich as a French speaker does. Intonation on reich rather than frank.

I wish him well. He is bright and passionate!👍👍

 

And you know... decades in Germany and I consider myself fluent ( though it depends on the subject..can't explain cricket in German ). And a polite German on the street, upon hearing me, will adk: " was für ein Landsmann sind Sie?"

A younger one will ask: " sind Sie Holländer?"😂

The Great Unwashed in my area will ask " hey, Alter. Hast Du mal ein Euro für mich?"😂

 

Edit: by the way, can't remember his name but there was a famous American jazz musician in Berlin in the 1930s and he was dying in hospital. And the reporters came to interview him and asked him what he would renember of his life.. with his dying breath, he said: " life's too short to learn German.@😂

[HEM 11,085]

1 hour ago, john g. said:

A younger one will ask: " sind Sie Holländer?"😂

 

I once was asked if I came from Emden...

[john g. 37,697]

6 minutes ago, HEM said:

 

I once was asked if I came from Emden...

Did that person ask where you were really from?😂

Whoops.. different thread!😂

[JN53 355]

When I first moved to Thüringen, after the wall came down, people thought at first that I was from the south, which I was-Stuttgart. However, I lived with a family that spoke basic standard German and maybe it was somewhat classy, as Kiplette mentioned. I felt I had a really good grounding in the language and then I could also learn to understand Schwäbisch.

I don't know if that got us back onto topic a little or not, but those are some of my experiences.

[Dembo 500]

On TV just now was this bloke, who I've seen a few times before. He obviously speaks fluent German and gets invited onto TV to do it, but is blatantly American. There's also a British "blogger" who turns up on TV quite a lot who again obviously speaks the language fluently but nobody would ever accuse him of sounding like a native German. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEm0ukFXGTQ&ab_channel=phoenix

[Krieg 14,946]

14 hours ago, john g. said:

The young man speaks excellent German but is not a native speaker. He slips uup when he says " denke an DIE Umweltschutz." Not a hanging offence but it shows being a native speaker in a foreign language is just that. ie NOT a native speaker.

 

If making a mistake in one case (Deklination) is proof you are not a native speaker, then no one in Berlin is a native speaker.

 

 

P.S., Of course he is not a native speaker, he was born in France and learned German as an adult.   You are (again) missing the point.

[Gambatte 900]

Ex girlfriend of mine, Italian who grew up in Italy with a single language, spent 1yr as Erasmus student in Germany, admittedly majoring in German language and linguistic. She said occasionally native Germans though she was actually a native German too. 

[john g. 37,697]

1 hour ago, Krieg said:

 

If making a mistake in one case (Deklination) is proof you are not a native speaker, then no one in Berlin is a native speaker.

 

 

P.S., Of course he is not a native speaker, he was born in France and learned German as an adult.   You are (again) missing the point.

I was commenting on TurMech's post. I think it was to the point.

[Krieg 14,946]

15 minutes ago, john g. said:

I was commenting on TurMech's post. I think it was to the point.

 

I think TurMech's point is that seldom a person who learns German as an adult really sounds like a native speaker.  The example he brought is mega obvious that he does not sound like a native speaker, even if his German is better than the average German person's.  Making cases mistakes is to me irrelevant.

 

My experience is similar to TurMech's.   My own German is crap, I speak fluently at full speed, maybe even too fast, but with a heavy latino accent and with plenty of grammar errors.   But I accept my reality and sometimes I feel like rolling my eyes when people tells me they speak German like a native when they clearly have a strong foreign accent and they make the typical mistakes a non-native makes.   I once had a discussion with a friend who insisted he spoke German like a German and I pointed out he was not pronouncing the "r" like the Germans (problem I know very well because I have the same problem) and he insisted I was wrong and his "r"s were OK.    I didn't even mentioned he had another problem with short vs long vowels, which I as well have because my first language is Spanish.   I can't make a proper 'z' sound in German to save my life.

 

 

P.S., But because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, once a Turkish guy at work thought I was German.

[sos-the-rope 619]

Only my 2nd kid lived in Germany since before they could even speak, but even the older one was speaking fluently and getting as good or better grades than "native speakers" by the time we left.