'Accept the silence': The secrets of small talk in Germany you need to know

Local Germany

4 days ago

Conversation is hard enough when everyone is speaking in their native language.
In a foreign country, where trying to understand the culture is just as much of a challenge as mastering the language, it's little wonder so many of us sit awkwardly in a corner, smiling excessively, and wracking our brains for just the right thing to say.
Our brief guide to making conversation in Germany won't make you an exemplar of eloquence overnight – able to break the ice instinctively and navigate the perils of small talk with flare – but it might just help shed a little light in the darkness.
1. Wie geht es dir?
People from the UK especially find it almost impossible to begin any social interaction without saying, 'How are you?', which is why many of us make a point of learning how to say it in German when we first arrive in the country.
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'Wie geht es dir?
' might be the literal translation, but the meaning could hardly be more different.
In English, 'How are you?' is emphatically not a real question. It's a formula to which there is only one acceptable response: 'Fine.'
In Germany, '
Wie geht es dir?
' will prompt complete strangers to tell you about their health issues, their problems at work and at home, and – horrifyingly – their financial problems.
(For German readers: if someone from the UK actually wants to know how you are, they will ask you twice, the second time with their head titled slightly to one side and simultaneously making eye-contact.)
Some recent arrivals in Germany may enjoy learning about their new neighbours in excruciating detail. Others may find it easy to adapt and drop the question altogether.
For everyone else, we recommend replacing '
Wie geht es dir?
' with '
Alles gut?
' and hoping – occasionally in vain – that the person you're talking to will realise you've already given them the only answer you want:
gut
(meaning 'fine').
2. No means no
In English, questions like 'how are you' and comments about the weather are batted back and forth in much the same way as tennis players softball each while they're warming up. It's a way of loosening the conversational muscles before any kind of real exchange begins.
A similar approach extends to the way we use the word 'no'.
'Would you like a cup of tea?'
'No, no, I'm fine, thanks.'
Beyond Germany's borders, this exchange inevitably continues with the first person asking the same question again (and again, if necessary), until the second person eventually agrees that, in fact, they can't think of anything they'd like more than a cup of tea.
In Germany, you will never be asked more than once if you would like a cup of tea, or a beer, or a piece of cake.
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Even if you're in company, and everyone else accepts a drink and you're the only person in the room sitting empty handed, you still won't be asked a second time.
This isn't meant to be rude. People in Germany are simply expected to possess the wherewithal to express their wishes clearly and efficiently.
If you do pluck up the courage to catch your host's attention and indicate you'd like a drink after all, it will be handed to you with a slight expression of irritation – implying that your indecision has interrupted the smooth running of the occasion.
3. Funny Vs Interesting
What is the purpose of conversation? There are obviously numerous answers to this question, but different nationalities tend to form a tacit consensus on how to define a 'good' conversation, as well as the merits according to which they judge their own conversational performances.
In Britain, the ultimate aim is laughter. A good conversation is one in which the jokes are flying thick and fast, the participants collectively building a tower of hilarity, waiting breathlessly for the moment when someone knocks it down with a moment of deadpan brilliance, and leaves them gasping for air on the floor.
In Germany, on the other hand, participants in a conversation are principally engaged in an attempt to say something interesting.
'Interesting' is a subjective quality, of course, but anything which can be described as a cliché will generally fail to meet the grade.
Wry comments about the weather, for example, or about routes from A to B avoiding roadworks – which work in the UK – will elicit sighs of existential
ennui
in Germany.
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That doesn't mean you can't complain, however. Complaining is the glue that holds conversations together across all countries and cultures. It simply means you have to be a little more imaginative in what you choose to complain about in Germany.
4. Silences that go on forever
Whenever I have told friends from the UK or Spain, or Italy, that when Germans don't have anything interesting to say, they would prefer to say nothing at all, the response has been impressively consistent.
'But that's madness. If people waited until they had something interesting to say, no one would ever say anything at all!'
This observation many go some way towards explaining the extraordinary tolerance for silence in Germany.
People in Germany don't ask one another how they are. On principle, they are rarely willing to engage in conversations about the weather. Instead, they marshal their mental powers, waiting for inspiration to strike, an idea or insight with sufficient power to make the people around them reconsider everything they know about the world.
In order to survive the silences that are the inevitable result of this approach, it is crucial to think of this as an act of defiance, an admirable refusal to be bullied by the pace of the modern world into speaking flippantly, superficially, and without due consideration.
And, in truth, I do find I listen to people more carefully in Germany than I do in the UK – knowing that the speaker will generally be allowed to get to the end of their sentence, and that I will then have time to think and craft a response. And sometimes, very occasionally, I really do find myself looking at the world in a different way.
At other times, however, I have to make a joke. The silence gets too much for me. The air of profundity has to be skewered. I know that no one will laugh – still less suddenly decide to help me build a mighty tower of hilarity – but I just can't help myself.