Comment by scrollaway
5 months ago
Germany is the only country in which I’ve had 112 (emergency services) hang up on me because they couldn’t speak English.
It’s worse than France in this regard.
5 months ago
Germany is the only country in which I’ve had 112 (emergency services) hang up on me because they couldn’t speak English.
It’s worse than France in this regard.
Yes sir. A friend of mine, the girlfriend passed out, being pregnant. In the moment of total stress, we called 112, and said “passed away“ instead of „passed out“. The guy on the other side “well, if she is dead, why are you calling?!” Very rude. He went on to explain, it was an error, an instead of just dispatch an ambulance, had to hear a 10 minute lesson in english (from a german) after which the ambulance was dispatched. When the ambulance finally arrived, she was “ok” so they had to pay couple of thousand Euros for a “negligent dispatch”…
The level of arrogance and lack of empathy and service is beyond limits.
> When the ambulance finally arrived, she was “ok” so they had to pay couple of thousand Euros for a “negligent dispatch”
That part seems really hard to believe for me. The only time you should get charged at all is for prank calling. In fact, if you call and tell them and decide you don't need EMS after all they will in fact come anyways because they need to check on every call. And you will not get charged for that.
Believe me, it was charged. I could not believe until I saw the papers. This is noones land.
Yes, but it’s still fine to have a customer service only answering in the official language. The chance are high that a random German speaks english so you’ll probably be good but if that’s not the case, blaming the company seems unfair to me.
> The chance are high that a random German speaks English
Not sure how random my selection process was, but that certainly wasn't my experience when I lived in Germany a few years ago. Maybe in big cities, yes. But even in the burbs, chances are you have to look for the metaphorical needle in the haystack to find someone speaking English. Your best bet might just be teenagers and young adults.
Absolutely. There is a big myth that “germans (all?) speak good English“ and nothing can be further from the truth. There are good ones, sure, maybe even more percent than other places, but go out of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich… and good luck!!!
Please look my comment to the parent comment. If you do find a german that speaks understandable english (that you can differentiate “think” and “sink” or “g” and “she” or “zoo” and “sue” then may be the arrogant crap that got my friend. For that they receive years of “Ausbildung”…
Jaa. Vell. Trai zamm Turkish or Arabic zen?
What THE FUCK is it with the expectation that everybody has to understand and speak in-glitch? Employ a local guide. Too expensive? Bad luck. Entitled little .....
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>The chance are high that a random German speaks english so you’ll probably be good
What does high mean in this context? I experienced what I would call the inverse Danish maneuver, the German obviously understand English because they often answered our English questions correctly - In German.
In Denmark if a Dane understands what you said in Danish but you have a definite accent they will often answer your question in English.
Maybe Germanic cultures are geared towards the rude.
This sounds like a language education issue. It's easier to understand a language than to express yourself in it, so possibly Germans on average have good enough knowledge of English to understand you but not enough to adequately reply in English. Conversely, Denmark has some of the highest English literacy in Europe.
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They might have been rude, but that's besides the point. Even if they could speak English you shouldn't expect them to be comfortable doing so. That actually seems pretty rude in itself to me.
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Sure, that’s bad, and a service dealing with train ticket machine failures not available in English isn’t as bad.
Ticket machines are still something foreigners can be expected to interact and need help with.
People visiting a foreign country can still expect to have to interact with local not speaking their language.
Go to any museum… just brutal.
I tried speaking German to a random security guard in Arizona and he just walked off.