Wolfe Silver

In late 2023, as things were heating up in the country I mostly grew up in, I found myself moving to Austria completely by accident. It was the second day of the war, at the point when Israel hadn’t started, uh, doing its thing,, quite yet; when the massacre against my fellow countrypeople was still at like 80% force. I called up an Israeli friend of mine who’d been living in Vienna for about a decade and asked if I could come over, just for a couple weeks, y’know, until the situation dies down and goes back to normal.

The situation did not, in fact, die down and go back to normal. Israel did what it does best (escalate things in an entirely unhelpful way that would only cause more damage) and I, being the semi-rich, privileged asshole that I am, in between jobs and living at my parents place at the time, decided that I should just look for a job here instead.

When I arrived here in October 2023, I could already speak some rudimentary German — Wo ist die Toilette? Entschuldigung, gibt’s vielleicht Birnen? Ich komme aus Michigan, und bin total kein Israeli, dessen Heimatsstaat gerade ein genocide macht!! et cetera; but when applying for jobs, I sent out a résumé in English, and I interviewed in English, and I work in English now.

My first workplace here in Austria was generous enough to pay for a German course for me, and I’d go in and sit in class and try to practice — but there was one major flaw: I wasn’t actually being taught the language that’s spoken around here.

The official language of The Federal Republic of Austria is Standard German. Letters and messages from the tax authority or from the bank or from the doctor or from the supermarket are all written in Standard German. When I speak Standard German, I am understood perfectly by everyone. But just because I understand Standard German, I won’t necessarily understand them back.

There exists a spectrum in Austria, that goes from “pig farmer in a tiny village who likes folk music and potatoes” on one extreme end, to “university professor in the Big City who wears fancy clothes, goes to the opera, and likes to eat trendy international foods” on the other extreme. And the closer someone is to the former end of that spectrum, the more likely they are to mostly speak some form of the Austro-Bavarian language. And the closer someone is to the latter end, the more likely they are to mostly speak some form of Standard German. Most Austrians in Vienna, of course, speak a mix of the two.

Austro-Bavarian is a language that people for some reason neglect to talk about. It’s distinct enough from Standard German, that sometimes Standard German speakers can’t understand it; but it’s also close enough to Standard German that it’s really easy to just mix the two together. It coexists with Standard German, it shares a lot of words with Standard German, it shares a lot of grammar with Standard German, it’s heavily influenced by Standard German, but it is, in fact, not Standard German.

And at the language course, I was, of course, only being taught Standard German, with textbooks written in the country of Standard Germany.

And to be fair, it’s not useless to learn Standard German in Austria. Standard German is, after all, the language of books and letters and laws and road signs. But it’s not the language most of my colleagues speak with each other. It’s not the language Austrians sing in. It’s not even the language that a lot of Austrian TV and movies are in. It serves official functions, but is strangely absent from unofficial, day to day communication.

And so twice a week, I would go to my Standard German course to learn and practice more Standard German, using textbooks from a different country, that contain phrases that people around me don’t use, and that as a result I don’t use either.

Most of my day to day life happens in English anyway. At work, most notably. But even at government offices, when I don’t understand something, I ask in English, and almost everyone explains in English.

And when I speak English, I have a believable American accent (so long as you don’t listen too closely), and Europeans tend to think that all Americans are absolute idiots, so when I ask questions in an American accent, their reactions tend to be along the lines of “oh you poor lost puppy :((( you’re so stupid and you need my help :) I will help you :))” and like, YES! I am stupid and need help! Just not for the reason you think!!!

In general I tend to find that people’s reactions to me are much nicer when I don’t speak German. When I speak German, I definitely sound like I’m some kind of foreigner; but I have a really good accent, so I also sound like I should be way more competent than I really am, and people tend to assume that I’m just being annoying and slightly stupid. But when I speak perfect American English, suddenly I’m this ✨exotic tourist✨ who needs help or they won’t be able to find the restroom because the word Toilette on the sign just looks so unfamiliar that they can’t possibly fathom what it might mean.

This all creates this weird situation where I’m basically rewarded for not speaking German. I have close to zero interest in Standard-German-language (or Austro-Bavarian-language) media and books and politics anyway, and the little Standard German that I already know is enough to get around and to verify that Google Translate gets things right when I get scary letters from utility companies. My friends here all speak English or Hebrew, my colleagues have no trouble switching to English whenever I’m around, and I work at a software company, so the things we make are basically exclusively in English anyway.

Is there any reason for me to ever try to improve my German?