After living in Vienna for 1 year, I still have experiences like this on a weekly basis where people respond to me in English after I say something in German --usually without mistakes-- but my American accent still comes through. Do you have any advice how to easily and politely switch the conversation back to German? Thanks Connor!
The first thing I would ask my self is, what are the aspects we can control in this situation?
We can't control their reaction to our accent but we can control
1. Our accent
2. Our reaction to their reaction
So my first tip would be to reduce your accent as much as humanly possible. In my experience, it's possible to drop your accent at least 85-95 percent.
Focus on the Rs, vowels and umlauts, might even be worth investing in a coach for this.
Secondly, just say back in German: Entschuldigung, ich kam zu diesem Land um Deutsch zu lernen, wäre es ok wenn wir auf Deutsch bleiben, or something
Crush it. Call me on WhatsApp later today and I can give you a couple pointers on accent.
After living in Vienna for 1 year, I still have experiences like this on a weekly basis where people respond to me in English after I say something in German --usually without mistakes-- but my American accent still comes through. Do you have any advice how to easily and politely switch the conversation back to German? Thanks Connor!
Awesome question, Mike.
The first thing I would ask my self is, what are the aspects we can control in this situation?
We can't control their reaction to our accent but we can control
1. Our accent
2. Our reaction to their reaction
So my first tip would be to reduce your accent as much as humanly possible. In my experience, it's possible to drop your accent at least 85-95 percent.
Focus on the Rs, vowels and umlauts, might even be worth investing in a coach for this.
Secondly, just say back in German: Entschuldigung, ich kam zu diesem Land um Deutsch zu lernen, wäre es ok wenn wir auf Deutsch bleiben, or something
Crush it. Call me on WhatsApp later today and I can give you a couple pointers on accent.
I have experienced many similar situation. totally agree with you!
Can only imagine! Glad it resonated, Yan.