German Culture

by Protas S. Mlitwa

Language.
When travelling in Tübingen, you will come across various dialects of German, the language of various countries such as Germany (Deutschland) Switzerland (die Schweiz) and Austria (Österreich). The dialects as well as many different accents you hear, can be quite difficult to understand! And even native speakers, I think, have sometimes problems of understanding everything. However, if you ask people to speak slowly ("Sprechen Sie bitte langsam"), they definitely slow down a bit and it should be easier to follow what they are saying. If you still cannot understand anyone, you can always ask him or her to repeat the sentence ("Können Sie das bitte wiederholen?").

Shopping
When you go shopping ("Einkaufen gehen") in Germany, you will be always glad to see that the opening hours ("die Öffnungszeiten") are still much more restricted than in most other countries. On Sunday ("sonntags"), all the shops remain closed ("geschlossen") except for some bakeries ("die Bäckerei") which open for a few hours in the morning. Petrol stations ("die Tankstelle") stay open ("geöffnet") every day of the week, sometimes until midnight. You can also buy groceries ("die Lebensmittel") there. Bakeries are usually the first shops to open! Some open as early as 6:30 in the morning so that students and people who have to get up early can shop before going to school or at work. Big supermarkets ("der Supermarkt") and department stores ("das Kaufhaus") stay open from 9:30 a.m. until 8.00 p.m. from Monday to Friday ("Montag bis Freitag"), on Saturday ("samstags") they close at 4:00 p.m., the smaller ones sometimes closing earlier at 2:00 p.m. It has been said and proven to me that supermarkets stay closed at night, so there is no chance of a quite, relaxing night-time shopping trip. Otherwise ist alles gut in Deutschland.