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I assume that German is a very old and widely spoken language. I am not sure how much of Europe speaks or understands German. I want to know: can you speak German in all of Europe’s big cities, i.e. Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Bern, Zurich etc? Can people (who don’t speak German natively) understand you in most of Europe? Or is German proficiency limited to only Germany?

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – user9551
    Aug 1, 2019 at 13:43

10 Answers 10

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No, most people in Europe do not understand German

German is spoken in Germany, Austria, some parts of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. There are some other places worth mentioning; see the comments for these. While there are minorities living in other countries, the broad population in e.g. Rome will not understand anything if you try to converse in German. You might be luckier in tourist regions that attract a lot of Germans (e.g. Mallorca), but I still wouldn't bet on it.
At least in bigger cities, most people will understand at least some English throughout Europe, although in small cities or villages you might/will find difficulties.

While there are some to many similarities between English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Italian, ... there is no way you will understand what people say without studying the respective language first. To some extent, it is possible to read foreign texts and understand parts of it if you speak two or more European languages from the same family.

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    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – user9551
    Aug 1, 2019 at 13:43
  • This answer could be improved by recognising there are strong dialects between german speaking areas. You are likely to find that not everyone in Germany can understand the german that you are speaking clearly. I work for an Austrian comany and the small amount of standard high german I learnt at school is little help behond the rudimentary stuff (although greetings and goodbys are also differnt).
    – TafT
    Nov 6, 2019 at 17:27
  • One example of Germans not understanding Swiss (because they don't know that term): the latter uses Nachtessen, the former Abendbrot.
    – AmigoJack
    Oct 15, 2022 at 8:02
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Of course you can speak German everywhere. But you will be understood only in those cities where people speak German.

German is official language in:

  • Germany
  • Austria
  • Switzerland
  • Liechtenstein
  • Belgium
  • Luxembourg
  • European Union
  • Italy (only in South Tyrol)
  • Slovakia (only in Krahule and Kunešov)
  • Brasil (only in 13 local communities)

But this just means that official documents (like laws) are available in German. This does not automatically mean, that everybody in those countries and regions really speaks German. There are 83 million people living in Germany, but 6.2 Million of them can't speak German or speak it only very poorly. The proportion of non-German-speakers is higher in big cities, so when you are in Berlin, the chance to meet someone who can't speak German is higher than 10 %.

The situation in Austria is similar: German is an official language in Austria (i.e. all laws are written in German and Police and other officers speak German), and all children have to learn German in school. But there are districts in Vienna (which is the capital city of Austria) where more than 60% of all people living there have a native language other than German, and many of them only have rudimentary knowledge of German. (They speak Turkish, Serbian, Arabic and other languages.)

Switzerland has four major languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh), but even in the regions where people speak German you will find it hard to understand them, because they speak dialects there, that are quite distinct from standard German. Some people even say, that Swiss German is not a dialect, but another language.

Liechtenstein is the only country on the list above, that has only one official language1. Everybody speaks German there, but it is also a Swiss-style German, i.e. hard to understand when they speak their dialect.

1For example there are Regions in Germany, where beside German also Danish is an official language. Other official languages in Germany are: Low German, Lower Sorbian and Upper Sorbian, all of them only in small parts of Germany.

In South Tyrol (a region in the north of Italy) you will find a mixture of Italian and German speaking people. So, there is a high chance to find someone who understands German.

In Belgium and Luxembourg there are also German speaking people (also in France, next to the Luxembourg border), but only old people actively use this language. It's better to try speaking French there, or Luxembourgian in Luxembourg's case.

In Slovakia you will only find small villages where people still speak German. There are more people in the USA who speak German (most of them in North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas).

German is also regional or national language in

  • France (only in grande est)
  • Namibia
  • Poland (only in some local communities)
  • Paraguay (only in the Neuland Colony)
  • Denmark (only in Nordschleswig)

And it is an official minority language in

  • Brasil
  • Italy
  • Romania
  • Kazakhstan
  • Russia
  • Slovakia
  • Czech Republic
  • Hungary
  • South Africa
  • Ukraine

But again: This does not mean, that you have high chances to meet people there who speak German. Furthermore, the German spoken in these countries is often a bit archaic (compared to the core areas) due to the relative isolation.

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    Not only old people actively use German in Belgium, but it's only in a small part of the country. The German speaking community consists of several municipalities with their own parliament, governement, at least one newspaper etc. It's the everyday language there like in South Tyrol.
    – Eller
    Jul 30, 2019 at 14:22
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    Die Antwort braucht ein paar Quellenangaben im ersten Drittel was die Zahlen angeht. Sie erweckt außerdem einen merkwürdigen Anschein, als wenn man sagen würde "Du könntest mit deinem Englisch in New York Probleme bekommen, wegen ... Chinatown.". Die meisten deutschsprachigen Schweizer sprechen dazu neben dem zugegeben schwierig zu verstehenden Schwizerdütsch auch Schweizer Hochdeutsch. Wenn es danach geht könnte man auch sagen, dass man in manchen bayrischen Gegenden nicht weiterkommt, wegen des dort herschenden Dialekts.
    – mtwde
    Jul 30, 2019 at 18:07
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    @HubertSchölnast It's been a while since the end of the Soviet Union, and in Eastern Europe a whole generation has grown up learning English instead of Russian.
    – RedSonja
    Jul 31, 2019 at 6:46
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    @HubertSchölnast That was true 20 years ago, but today, English is by far the dominant foreign language spoken by Czechs. German is a distant second. As for the german names, it's not like the names have been "czechified" - most places with large German populations had two or more names. The same way, many German and Austrian cities have czech names. The Austro-hungarian empire was rather multi-cultural, and the multi-lingual tradition goes way beyond that (it was already part of the Holy Roman Empire, including places like northern Italy).
    – Luaan
    Jul 31, 2019 at 8:58
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    @XeoffBaloch: No! German is not an official language in Europe! It is an official language in the European Union. Europe is a continent, i.e. a geographic term. The European Union is a group of states, i.e. a political term. Switzerland and Liechtenstein both belong to Europe, but not to EU. On the other hand Cyprus geographically belongs to Asia, but still is part of the European Union. And as I clearly said: To be an official language means, that official documents (like laws) are available in this language. It does not mean, that everybody speaks this language. Aug 1, 2019 at 5:46
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According to Wikipedia, 200 million people give or take speak German worldwide; of these, around 90 or 95 million are native speakers and another 10 to 25 million are L2 (second language) speakers. The EU has a population of around 515 million so even the most generate estimates don’t allow for more than one in two Europeans understanding German. The native speakers largely reside in central Europe which happens to be the area where German is also an official, national and/or regional language (refer to Hubert’s answer for the complete list). According to the Ethnologue 2019 list found on Wikipedia, this puts German at 13th position worldwide trailing far behind English with an estimated number of 1.1 billion speakers (first and second language speakers only)—estimates that include non-L2 speakers claim around 1.5 billion people capable of speaking English worldwide. These raw numbers alone should show how unlikely it is to be understood anywhere speaking German if you are not in a natively German area.

While German is one of the working languages of the EU and boasts having the highest number of native speakers in the EU of all EU languages, and while certain other international organisations may have German as a working language, there is no special status commonly attached to speaking German (as opposed to e.g. French which some higher educated people consider a requirement to enter their exclusive circles, or English which is somewhat considered a language you can get around with anywhere). So while you might stereotypically assume a young German to be capable of speaking English or a regular at the theatre likely proficient in French or Latin, you really can’t tell those who might know German apart from the rest of a given country’s native population.

Finally, some languages are close enough to have limited mutual intelligibility: for example, speakers of Italian and Spanish can often understand the general gist of even more of the other’s message when speaking slowly due to their close relationship as descendants from Latin, or speakers of various Slavic languages might also understand what’s going on in other closely related Slavic languages. German is a Germanic language like English, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and at least one minor language that I will purposely leave out. Within this group, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are pretty much mutually intelligible, again due to their close relationship and common history. But German—a continental Germanic language—is less closely related to the Scandinavian languages and one cannot understand more than fragments of the other even when speaking slowly. The only place where you would have a realistic chance is the Netherlands because Dutch and German also share a long, common history. However, Dutch is closely related to Low German dialects which are obviously further away from the Middle or High German ones, meaning that someone from Bavaria or Austria will have a harder time getting understood in the Netherlands than someone from Münster or Emden.

Summed up: of the native language is not German you will most likely not be understood speaking German (as others have said), but if you happen to be in the Netherlands or Flanders you can try your luck.

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  • There are many people in the Netherlands who have had German in school and have at least a basic level of understanding of German. But for those who haven't, you won't get far beyond a very basic conversation. There are many similarities between the languages, but at the same time there are enough differences, or words sounding similar but having different meaning (nowadays) that this isn't much of a benefit in everyday conversation. Aug 19, 2019 at 10:06
  • German has the highest number of native speakers in the EU. English has the most speakers.
    – Mike Scott
    Nov 6, 2019 at 13:26
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“All over”? No. In Spain, (almost?) all German speakers are tourists. And at least half the tourists do not speak German.

(At least that’s my experience helping 20-40 people a day from 40+ countries.)

But you have English as a fallback, and although English-speakers in Spain are a small minority, you can find them easily in any big city.

I should point out that in areas serving tourists, most restaurants will have a German menu available (but not a German-speaking waiter).

And, I said “almost all” are tourists, but Ethnologue lists seventeen languages for Spain that have 3,000 speakers or more, and none of them are German! So maybe I should omit the “almost.”

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  • So in Spain no body can speak /understand German? except German tourists Jul 31, 2019 at 12:55
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    @XeoffBaloch except in Mallorca, which is part of Spain, and has such a high number of German tourists and expats that German is very widely understood in some parts of the island, and there are a few German-language radio stations, newspapers etc. Jul 31, 2019 at 14:50
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    I did not say “nobody.” Very few Spaniards, and very few tourists that were not from the few areas that are German-speaking. Monolingual English speakers far outnumbered people who could understand German, and then there were Japanese, Israeli, Korean, Chinese, Afrikaans, Brazilians, most other South American countries, etc.
    – WGroleau
    Jul 31, 2019 at 17:42
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    I suppose there are German business people also visiting. On the BOE (boe.es), the government site for legal texts, you can choose French, English, or one of Spain's five official languages. But not German.
    – WGroleau
    Jul 31, 2019 at 19:06
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    @XeoffBaloch to all intents and purposes that is correct. There are always exceptions: I've had someone come up to me on the street in London and start speaking Spanish to me, and I've had someone in Turkey talk to me in German; and on both occasions I did my best to respond, but those were only two instances over half a lifetime. As #DanielHume says, Mallorca is an exception as it's very popular with German tourists. I went there ten years ago and it seemed that one half of the coast was German and the other half was British.
    – Aaron F
    Aug 2, 2019 at 7:44
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Hubert has written a perfect answer covering all the aspects of official status.

As a German living in Austria and having travelled to most of the European countries, my experience is the following. Note that I'm only talking about countries where I have 1st hand experience. I can't say, for example, about Norway as I haven't been there.

  • You will do just fine in Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein. German is the official and daily language there.
  • It depends on location in Switzerland, Belgium and Italy, because they all have regions where German is the official and daily language, and in nearby regions you will find many bilingual people.
  • You have to be lucky in the Netherlands. Dutch (the language spoken in the Netherlands) is related to German, especially the Lower German that used to be spoken in the North (and is slowly going extinct). As someone who grew up in Northern Germany and heard his Grandparents speak Lower German on occasion (and my father can speak it still as well), I can almost understand most things in Dutch and after a short time I was able to have basic conversations in a Dutch-German mix that was probably cringe-worthy to the Dutch, but it worked. If you are not a native speak, I doubt your German will be good enough for such, though.
  • You will probably be ok in tourist areas in Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and possibly other countries that see many German tourists. Especially in restaurants and hotels I'm constantly surprised how many people speak German there.
  • Everywhere else, you absolutely can find people who had German in school or otherwise learnt it as a 2nd language, or who happen to be from Germany or have relatives or some other reason. But it's not something to rely on. If you're desperate, especially in a city you will probably sooner or later find someone who understands you, but it could be quite a while.

So depending on where exactly you want to go and if you are going to stay in tourist areas or go off the beaten path, very likely people will not understand you "all over Europe", as asked.

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    I would question "Dutch." I worked in Spain with at least a dozen Dutch people, and all of them could speak German and English, and several of them also French.
    – WGroleau
    Jul 31, 2019 at 18:53
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    @WGroleau yes, it is true that most people in the Netherlands also speak German.
    – Tom
    Jul 31, 2019 at 19:49
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    That's no longer true, that most people in the Netherlands speak German. Wonder if it ever was. Most of us can try and speak something that should resemble German. We can understand a lot of German and Germans understand a lot of Dutch, so communicating in our own languages usually 'just works'. But it's not German we speak and a good part of the population will refuse to try it. Having it in school for a year or two doesn't mean a thing 5-10 years down the road.
    – Mast
    Aug 1, 2019 at 10:26
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    @Mast as I wrote, this is strictly my own experience. I've always found lots of people who speak German whenever I visited the Netherlands.
    – Tom
    Aug 2, 2019 at 9:15
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No, most people won't understand german.

Even speaking german, you can have serious trouble visting german countries like austria or the swiss. I am from Berlin in Germany and if someone speaks a traditional swiss german, I have trouble understanding this person. The german language has a big variety on local dialects, but most can speak and understand a dialect we call "Hochdeutsch", which is the official dialect for written german and probably one would learn if learning german.

Traveling through europe, you can find people speaking german in places frequented by a lot of tourists, cause german people travel very much and local guides and service workers at hotels usually speak german. But speaking english is usually better, in most cases in europe. Only if you go to the eastern parts of europe, russian is the most spoken foreign language. In these regions, it is sometimes easier to find someone speaking german, than english, because east germany was once part of the soviet states and had a lot of influence there.

If you really want to be able to communicate in every country of europe, the languages english, russian and a latin language like spanish would be the best start, imho.

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    Agreed. My experience in Austria (outside Vienna, where you can generally expect Hochdeutsch with a local accent) is that many local dialect-speakers find it easier to switch into English than to switch into "standard German". Jul 31, 2019 at 14:37
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One addition to the above correct answers. In history, German was a more import language in Europe than English, therefore, if old people speak a second language in my country (The Netherlands) it is more likely to be German (or French) than English. From traveling Europe, I find that in a lot of Eastern and South-Eastern European countries older people sometimes speak more German than English. However, from politeness perspective, learn to say hi/good morning/good evening in the local language and only after that establish whether communication in any other language is an option to the person you are speaking to :)

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  • Thank you for such a nice information. Jul 31, 2019 at 12:56
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    Historical note: many of those Eastern Europe nations were previously part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so German was not only the language of the "ruling classes" but also a lingua franca uniting diverse cultures. Jul 31, 2019 at 14:42
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No.

And in some areas where German is often understood, frivolously using it instead of English can even come across as rude, due to past political history (german occupation). Such is often said about the Netherlands.

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  • countries formerly to the east of the Iron Curtain: yes, quite a lot of people have some proficiency in German (in fact, eastern Europeans tend to have excellent language skills -- most have some proficiency in at least one of German, Russian, or English, in addition to the local language)

  • Scandinavia: surprisingly, only a few people speak/understand German; many more can speak/understand English (as a person ashamed to be British, my modus operandi is to pretend to be German -- when encountering a person who cannot speak German but can speak English, this results in the rather amusing pantomine of my faking an accent in order to disguise the fact that I am a native English speaker)

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The only times I've found German to be more useful than English outside of DACH (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) was when speaking to some Czechs, Hungarians and Croatians over 50, and sometimes the German translations of menus are more accurate than the English ones.

It is adjacently useful for getting the basic idea of what something written in Dutch or a Scandinavian language says, but in those countries, everyone I've met under 40 or 50 speaks English really well.

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