AMERICAN FLUENT IN GERMAN! Our Bilingual Friendship | Feli from Germany

but at the same time i should have just put on a heavy american accent [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello servos and welcome back to my youtube channel my name is felicia i'm originally from munich germany but i have been living in cincinnati ohio off and on since 2016. and this is my friend josh he is from here but he's fluent in german so we have a bilingual friendship and i thought it would be cool if we talked about that a little bit today so josh tell us a little bit about yourself because you're a pretty special person whenever i'm somewhere with you and we speak in german people are very surprised about your story if you will so yeah yeah where were you from and how did you learn german and why are you fluent yeah so my name is josh i'm a cincinnati native grew up in a very typical white american household when i started learning german i learned i started in 10th grade so i think i was around 13 or 14 and the reason i started was because my last name is very german that was kind of the initial um motivation and i once had a school counselor who said with the last name that sounds so german you can't learn anything else than german you can't learn spanish is what she said um when i started learning german it was really came really easy to me and it was a lot of fun um and i saw the world starting to open up for me through it meeting different exchange students and whatnot so that what helped to um encourage me to continue so it's just been a progression since then so your last name is german but you don't actually have german heritage not at least in the past few generations right yeah my family's been in the u.s for at least six generations yeah so no one else speaks true nobody speaks german you don't have any german grandparents or anything like that no so you really just felt like learning german in high school yeah my dad my dad learned a little german in high school so it was always something that i knew he did um that i thought was interesting so that was part of the motivation as well but he knows duncan but that's about it yeah and the crazy thing is you'll hear it in a second for all the german viewers um that he speaks german with basically no accent so he sounds like a native german speaker so when he meets my friends or family or whoever we meet everyone always assumes like they'll ask me oh hey where are you from and i'll be like oh i'm from germany we always like tell each other stories um i'll be like i'm from germany and i moved here and i'm a permanent resident blah blah blah and then they're like oh and then where are you from and he's like i'm from here and they're like no but where are you really from and he has to explain that he's actually an american which people just can't believe and so when's the first time that you went to germany and how often have you been to germany and how long did you stay because also a lot of people just naturally assume that you must have attended high school in germany or anything like that so the first time that i ever went to germany was 2014 it was a graduation trip with my high school so a big group of americans went and we did the typical tour of all the main cities in central europe that was the first time i was there since then i think i've been back between like nine and ten times last time i counted i think it was 10 or 11. short trips yeah a lot of them were just short trips um but on top of that i've had some opportunities to do internships in germany so while i was in college i went over for three months to do an internship with a company that also had a location here in cincinnati and in germany um in addition to that then i now work for a german company so i've gotten to go over quite a bit with work and i've spent in total time living in germany nine months which is not that three months each time yeah which like nine months in total is really not all that much no it's not okay so um i asked you guys on instagram what questions you have for us about our bilingual friendship and you guys submitted so many questions so i just like i'm gonna look through the questions on my phone and see which ones we can answer and which ones we find interesting so the question that definitely uh was asked the most by like probably 30 people was which language do we talk to each other in the most or do we switch languages do we speak in a mix of languages do we switch mid-sentence those kind of things so what's our answer um um and i think that's a good example too because like we're currently in the area where i grew up yeah so when i'm going through certain areas it's like that's my childhood back in the time when i didn't speak any german so it's easier for me to talk about those things in english yeah and then the thing is though as soon as we switch the other person usually switches to so that was another question a few people asked that um if we ever talk in two different languages so that i speak in my first language and he speaks in his first language and i would say that sound i would say that probably never happens no hardly ever maybe like if i think i i may have done that sometimes if we speak in german and then you switch to english because there's just like this one sentence that you can only describe in english but our main language right now is german i may reply back in german yeah but a whole conversation no like usually if i reply back in german then you're going to speak german again too the only thing i would say as far as when we switch languages sometimes for me when we're texting with each other like i have to write this out in german i'll just write it in english sometimes that happens to me yeah that was another question so another question that came a few times was which language do you text each other in and that's i mean that's basically the same thing like talking texting whatever that's all the same thing so usually in german sometimes i even did that where i would text you in english i didn't even notice yep i know for me my autocorrect is so confused especially with spanish mixed in there somewhat too i mean my autocorrect has no clue depending on what keyboard i have what language i'm supposed to be writing that's the same for me so like in both languages i always text a bunch of [ __ ] because my phone always corrects to the wrong language for some reason whenever i try to write i'm in english sometimes it'll turn into m yeah just like without the other way around sometimes when i'm lazy in english and i don't want to capitalize my eye i just do i am without the apostrophe and that's a german word so then it gets confused i never capitalize my eye and another thing is that preposition so there's in and on in english right and in german we only have in so i use in a lot more than on so whenever i want to type on my phone automatically automatically thinks that i want to stay in so then like all of my english sentences are usually wrong and people i think probably assume that i just don't know it any better but i can hardly ever type on again what learned is one of those really funny german sayings that sound really funny when you translate them literally into english that was a joke i wouldn't actually say that yeah and you would only say that to someone who speaks german right okay there's another question related to kind of like the first question we talked about do you switch languages based on the topic of conversation are there some subjects that are better in the one language or the other and we kind of talked about emotions but maybe there's something else so one thing that came to mind when you were talking about that and i somewhat mentioned it with the whole if you're telling stories in a certain language you're used to saying it over and over again something that happened to me is i when i started my current job and was in germany learning i was there for the learning process i come back and i didn't know a lot of technical terms in english yeah so it was so much easier for me to talk about robotics in german than english which was a process i can talk about both in both languages now yeah yeah you would just assume that such a complicated topic could be easier in your mother tongue but yeah it's not for somebody well like my typical example that i always use is the graifetz fishing belt which now in english all germans know what he's talking about but that's a good example of the compound words in german but in english it would be your gripper interface module it took me forever to learn that in english yeah see i wouldn't even know what that is in german are you going to work on a hybrid language like german english which so there is a term for this so you know spanglish so um we have denglish because german in german we say deutsch and then plus english is english do we speak in that i would say yes yeah i it's i say that i speak to english more than i speak german for sure yeah i mean like for me it depends on who i talk to but i definitely use even with my normal german family and friends i use a lot of english words but when we talk then yes because we just know that the other person understands it i think it's interesting i don't realize how much i use english in my german because so many germans do it as well until i'm in germany talking to someone who doesn't speak good english really and then sometimes i'll like try to use some more english phrases or like i don't know like i'll say like switched oh yeah and i don't know sometimes that i realize okay they're not quite getting it or okay i really should try to speak more pure german pure german yeah which is something that we don't really have in english that we use too many non-english words we do but yeah i guess this one is kind of just you can compare it to speaking slang yeah in english because which that's really like youth language that's kind of like slang yeah i mean if i were in an official business meeting at work i wouldn't say that yeah i would think of accidents yeah i wouldn't say that but if i'm on the street talking to someone yeah you would definitely say it to me yeah i would use that yeah yeah or like all those things that i've mentioned in my um yeah all those all those words that i mentioned in my video on english words that german use wrong germans use wrong um get downloaded um upgraded nice safe all those words which was a process for me to get used to as well when i was learning german like that sounds really weird like why are they using that english word that's like for me saying things like gesundheit in english which i don't do that but just hearing it is weird to me to me too yeah how easy is it for each person to switch between languages that's a fun question because i feel like it really varies not between the two of us but just like it's kind of like what mood you're in or like the form you're in that day so some days for me it's very easy to switch some days i have an english day some days i have a german day depending on like i think which language i used first when i woke up or like some days i talked for two hours to my friends and family in germany and then it's really hard for me to speak english and then also the switching mid conversation thing which we do a lot gets easier when you're a little drunk so like at parties oh yeah for me for sure like when i'm a little drunk it gets really tipsy not drunk a little tipsy it gets like after like a beer or two tipsy um it gets really easy to switch back and forth and like also my english often gets better or at least you like you speaking that second language in that moment you think it gets better and then there's a point when you drink another one or two beers then it gets worse again yeah i always say before my first beer my english is perfect after my first beer my german is perfect and after maybe my fourth or fifth beer my bavarian is perfect that's awesome okay so he can also speak bavarian dialect do you want to say something i can't really speak it i'm gonna i'm gonna imitate there was a question there was a question there someone said that you should say and also the bavaria yeah so for those of you who don't know aishwaryan is squirrel in english squirrel but in bavarian it's cattle yeah or and say yeah there you go luckily i spent a decent amount of time in bavaria and worked with people who spoke bavarians so i got used to it yeah and like i said if i've had a couple drinks and i have the confidence i'll let it be housed yeah and also he also knows some swiss german which i do not understand any swiss german i do understand bavarian dialect and i would say like your bavarian dialect skills are probably almost the same as mine uh probably understand it better than i do yeah i would i would hope so that i understand it better because i lived there my whole life but um my swiss german isn't really that good but you understand i understand it and you know which words to use maybe you can't speak it yeah fluently or anything my swiss german has gotten a lot worse my family had an exchange student from switzerland which i think probably played a significant role in why why i wanted to continue learning german but from him and spending time in switzerland having visited him i got good at understanding swiss german and i learned certain phrases and words yeah that's crazy for me because german isn't even your first language and i don't understand um one more thing that i would like to mention that isn't really like in the questions but it's about switching back and forth too sometimes we switch between languages and then we pronounce different words differently so even our names so we basically like once we switch to german we both have a german accent and when we switch to english we both more or less have an american accent so i know how to say your name in english josh yeah but then when i say say it in german i pronounce it the german way i say josh yeah and it's the same with you yeah no for sure when i'm speaking english i don't say faily yeah i say faily yeah because it's like it feels more like a flow kind of it's like the flow of words and you did that the other day we talked on the phone and it was like a more emotional topic so we talked in english for a change and we said goodbye in english too and you said bye philly and it sounded so american like i don't realize technique happens but yeah like technically that's not how you say my name and you know how to pronounce my name but it's just something that happens when you're in the in the english mode no for sure and i think for me it was weird when i was in germany working and you do meet people who don't necessarily have the highest level of english people would pronounce my name yosh and that was something that took me so long to get used to and it still makes me so uncomfortable to hear yosh because i'm so used to either josh or josh but okay the next question is does being bilingual make it easier or better to be friends well i definitely think it makes it easier to be friends because you have a connection point with someone yeah and then also when you do speak another language at a fluent level it changes your identity somewhat in my opinion so you have someone who can both connect to for me at least my english-speaking identity and my german-speaking identity and can relate to both experiences which someone who's monolingual or hasn't spent time in germany couldn't necessarily relate to on that level yeah there was a question about that too that was do we have different personalities in the two questions and so like the answer to that which you just said is yes yeah like i would say i do and i would say you do too to a certain extent so basically the bilingual part of it then makes it easier for the other person to fully know you you really get to know you i would agree um and i mean it's not like i'm a completely different person when i speak german but maybe your manner of um expressing yourself is a little different in german you can i tend to be a little bit more direct than i would yeah in english and um i don't make small talk as much in german even though i love to make small talk in english yeah same for me so there's just certain things that you you first of all you know that you don't really use that in german but second of all you don't really have the words in your head for that in german because people don't really say those things like for example um in america i'm like definitely more outgoing than i am in germany and i'm more american um and i say things like thank you so much i really appreciate it or things like that and in german there really isn't any good authentic translation for that yeah like you can say danke you can say um but if you like overdo it it really doesn't sound sincere anymore yeah i think and we both have this experience when people ask us to translate things like they'll say how do you say this in german and they'll give you some really american saying or very americans like to speak in a very over-the-top manner yeah and then you come back with the german equivalent which may not be the direct one-to-one uh translation but it's like one word it's like danke like someone says thanks so much yeah so basically if you don't only translate the language you translate the culture too yeah pretty much i would definitely say that's yeah that's true do you ever talk about people around you using a different language so i think i think anyone who speaks another language does it even if you don't want to admit it and you know that it's not necessarily the nicest thing to do i try not to but it's very convenient i mean we're both not very mean people yeah i mean generally i'm not going to talk horrible about someone or horribly about someone but i i'll make a comment here too like did you just see what happened definitely even like so we have a few other friends who are bilingual and um even in situations when we're like at a restaurant or in an uber even like we had a situation where like we had a really sketchy uber driver so like then of course we switched to german and we talked about him in germany and we're like do you feel comfortable with the situation i don't know so yeah i was gonna say it's really the only time i ever notice us doing it is when it's in a situation like that where we're really uncomfortable with something that someone else is doing they want to check on how everyone is feeling without having to um not break the fourth wall but involve the other person in the conversation or it's just something private for a second like hey um do you want to go to like the other party or do you prefer going home and then we're like yeah we both want to go home okay or if the party itself is just really boring you're like let's get out of here for best idea when it was [Music] foreign um um um actually all the time but in german it's not that that way so or you don't use it in the same sense at least so you corrected me that once and i think for a while there i was getting good at it and then i kind of fell back and now i'm trying i i i i'm conscious of it so that's a good example yeah of where english may be a disadvantage um when learning german yeah because i mean about it's the same way both both ways because sometimes there's just for me for example people say that i always say for example which i just did because we use that a lot in germany so apparently outside of english in a lot of languages people use that a lot i wonder if that's just something that you learn in school at an early age you get used to it but i i use it all the time in germany and that's why i use it all the time in english too so but just english people phrase their sentences differently so that they don't need that little phrase what's interesting um since my german has gotten good it's definitely influenced my english and my english grammar has gotten worse yeah if i'm not concentrating um so my family is no they're like josh that sounds weird they know it's because of german or because of spanish or whatever it may be um but my mom noticed that i say the word exactly all the time in english now um because germans love to say good now so as something where it's like it creeps into the other language and i actually say more often which i would say is the most accurate translation for actually on the other hand so i actually say way more just like i do in english and also jumping off of that is that sometimes depending on the context when i have like a bad german day or we're at a party and we're switching back and forth sometimes i'll start a sentence in german which is my first language and i'll start it with an english sentence structure so that like halfway through the sentence i realized that there's no way out here like this is not how the sentence works and then i have to start all over again and that's just honestly a really i want to say embarrassing thing almost it's scary when you start to learn or lose your yeah yeah but it's apparently so i've heard that for people who were raised bilingually that doesn't happen all that much but for people who learned a second language later in life that's something that actually happens and i'm sure a lot of you people know someone who moved abroad and actually kind of lost their first language or speaks their first language with an accent it would be interesting to ask our friend cynthia yeah i don't think cynthia has that problem honestly that's interesting she was raised bilingually yeah yeah she's a friend of ours who was raised in germany but um has a german dad and an american mom and then she moved to the states when she was 14. so she really is 100 bilingual what language does your friend think slash dream in and this is interesting because i just answered this question for myself in my past video and i said that i don't know like i don't think i dream in a language what about you um why we were talking about this before too i tend to know realize what language i'm speaking yeah um i know that you tend to they get kind of muddled together um but for me i definitely would say i tend to dream more in english but that could have to do with the fact that i'm currently living in the united states um at the same time when i'm in germany i definitely dream more in german and i would say it also depends on the topic of the dream you know if you're in a dream or some of my other german speaking friends are in a dream the dream is normally in german okay so you said you don't realize which language you're speaking in it's the same for me and like i just don't sometimes realize which language i have to switch to so sometimes i'll be talking to my friend on the phone but i'm at home in cincinnati so i'll be talking german on the phone and then like my roommate wants something from me and so i know i have to switch language but i somehow switched the wrong way so then i end up speaking saying something in german to my american roommate and then saying something in english to my german friend on the phone i'll be like hold on jabba skips and it's like exactly the wrong way and i knew i had to speak two languages but i just do it the exact wrong way no i just was thinking not necessarily about the language but just how um sometimes people forget that i'm american yeah and we were hanging out with one of one of our german friends and what was the name of the comedian from oh stefano yeah i know who that is just from watching videos but i couldn't associate the face with the name yeah like yes dustin yeah and he couldn't really believe that i didn't know him because for a minute yeah that's like the downside of being bilingual and almost having no accent like yeah both of us kind of do i mean like especially when you're in a social setting and it's loud and everyone's maybe a little tipsy or it's just like casual topics that you talk about it's really hard to notice any kind of accent yeah and so then people forget that you don't know certain things and people will use slang with me that i don't understand or people will use pop culture references but i have no clue what they're talking about and then it's really awkward to just in the middle of the conversation be like um excuse me something that's so essential to this conversation i have no clue what you're talking about or it's just like a joke and you're not sure if it's important or not like was that a good joke bad joke was it racist i don't know you're just like um could you explain that to me i'm from germany i don't know if you knew that yeah that's that's an interesting thing when you do not have or if you don't have a heavy accent like having to explain to someone that you're not a native speaker yeah how do you do that i try not to unless it comes to this situation where i have to um but i don't know it's just i i i just say i'm sorry i i i remember specifically once i think i was in munich and it was yeah it was one of the first times i was there and i had to get gas and the way that you pump gas in germany is a little different than in the us in the u.s you normally put your card into the machine at the gas pump first then you pump your gas in germany you pump your gas and then you have to go inside and pay for it yeah and i didn't know the the numbers are different the names of the gas is all different yeah and i went up to this one woman and i was like hey but at the same time like i should have just put on a heavy american accent i know because it's just easier that way i know sometimes it really is because people look at you like you have 12 eyes like you have wings and horns i've been in that situation too where i was like should i just speak with a more german accent right now because this is super uncomfortable that this other person doesn't know this right now i feel like it would be better if the other person knows give them some hints yeah i've been i've been in situations where then like i would be like by the way i'm german and then the big misunderstanding happens in the us where the other person will say oh i'm german too and they obviously speak about heritage and then i'm like no i was actually born and raised in germany and they're like wait what and you came to the us when you were a little kid and i'm like no i just came to the us two years ago so i don't i don't really know what you're talking about saying i'm sorry english isn't my first language yeah probably but i've had that situation where i was like i'm german and then people think oh cool i'm german too okay so we have a lot more questions on my phone that we would really like to talk about but it's just way too much and we've been recording forever already so we're just gonna wrap it up for now and we'll try and do a part two if you guys enjoyed this video if you don't then of course we won't do this and we'll just talk about it without a camera running but if you enjoyed this please let us know by leaving us a comment below hitting the thumbs up button and then we'll get together for a second part talk about these questions including which language do we talk in when we're mad um what's the longest german word that he knows also discussing different german and american accents and if you have more questions for us feel free to leave them in the comments below and then we'll talk about those too for now i hope that you enjoyed this video um subscribe to my channel if you like what i do on here if you want to also check out my new patreon page if you want to become a patron for this channel and support me even more but for now i just hope that everyone's being safe and healthy and i hope i'll see you next time choose and service [Music] you

Channel: Feli from Germany

Views: 1,584,304

Keywords: Germany, USA, America, US, Munich, Cincinnati, Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, Kulturelle Unterschiede, Feli, Felicia, Deutschland, München, Amerika, Kulturschock, Ohio, Bavaria, Abroad, USA vs. Germany, Comparison, expat, bilingual, School, second language, Fremdsprache, code switching, dream, English, Englisch, Denglisch, Spanglish, Translation, Mistakes, Hybrid, friends, Freunde, accent, fluent, native speaker, foreign

Id: gr313Rac0Z8

Length: 32min 47sec (1967 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020