How to find friends in Germany | Easy German 343

CORRECTION: 0:34 *mit den Freundschaften

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► PRODUCED IN COOPERATION WITH:
Easy Languages is an international video project aiming at supporting people worldwide to learn languages through authentic street interviews and expose the street culture of participating partner countries abroad. Episodes are produced in local languages and contain subtitles in both the original language as well as in English.

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Edit: Janusz Hamerski / Carina Schmid
Translation: Ben Eve

[hamzakaanc.]

Shortly, to make friends in Germany, you gotta sign up for a Kindergaten, no matter what age you are.

[UzairKhaskheli]

After watching this video and living for 2 years in Germany I can say with confidence I am normal and there is nothing wrong with me.

[janbozman]

I lived in Germany for almost 8 years. It was very hard to get to know anyone during the first 3 months. I was actually thinking of leaving and returning to the States with my 8-year-old son. At that very moment, the doorbell rang, and an older woman from the down the street said she had noticed I had a young son, and she thought he might like some books that her grandson liked. Shortly thereafter, another woman rang and said she noticed that I did not have curtains on the windows (new house; only Rolladen). She wanted to recommend a place where I could buy curtains. Actually, I am sure it was just bothering her that I was not conforming to the standard window treatment; however, instead of allowing myself to feel insulted, I decided to ask her to go with me. She did, and we became best friends! After a few years, I had many friends, and German friends are loyal, the best! Neighbors gave us the first strawberries from their gardens, shared fresh fruit from their trees. German friends are not easy to come by, but once you have them, it is forever.

[fabiomrbarbosa]

I've been living in Germany for almost 3 years now. Never been lonelier in my entire life.

[xx-cjew]

How do you make friends in Germany?
Germans: A U S D E R S C H U L E

[costanza]

This is such a sad stream of comments to read. If I ever find myself in Germany I just may have to look you up, Cari. You seem like a kind, fun and friendly person : ) And thank you for speaking more slowing than others on your program do. I can follow you much better than I can the others.

[mattesrocket]

ich habe als Deutscher in Deutschland auch nur schlechte Erfahrungen gemacht, wenn du in eine Stadt ziehst, wo keine Jugendfreunde mehr sind, hast du echt schlechte Karten, z.B. wenn du in einem Job arbeitest, der Kontaktaufbau zu Kollegen nicht ermöglicht oder vor allem auch wenn du arbeitslos bist. So viele Deutsche haben mir die kalte Schulter gezeigt, auch in Sportvereinen. Meistens habe ich nach kurzer Zeit gemerkt, die haben einfach schon so große Bekanntenkreise aus Kindheit, Arbeit und dann noch die Verwandtschaft, die brauchen und wollen einen Neuen einfach nicht mehr. Als Mitspieler beim Sport gerne, aber danach treffen und was zusammen machen, nein danke. So habe ich es jedenfalls erlebt, auch wenn es sicherlich wo anders andere Sportvereine gibt, wo das viel besser ist. Es war eine kleinere Stadt, nicht Berlin oder so. (Inzwischen lebe ich im Ausland) In Köln habe ich auch ein Jahr gelebt. Köln war auch schwierig, dieses positive Vorurteil, die wären so aufgeschlossen, habe ich dort nicht erlebt, denn auch die haben schon ihre geschlossenen, alten Freundeskreise bzw. vielerorts gibt es gar keine Einheimische mehr. Freundlich zu mir waren 90% immer nur die Ausländer von Chinesen bis Lateinamerikaner. Sehr verschlossen sind auch die Schwaben im ländlichen Bereich, wobei die entweder total verschlossen oder sehr nett sind, aber für letzteres braucht man eine Portion Glück.

[danielleantoinettemeyer]

I lived in Heidelberg for six months with two students. They were from Chile and all of their friends were from Chile, even though they had been there for years studying and had excellent German. One day they explained to me " It is like this. Germans are only allowed five friends each. They would sincerely like to be your friend, but if they did this? They would have to give away one of their other friends." YES ! They were only joking but I feel, like with all jokes, there is some truth. If you cannot make the 'small talk' they dislike so much, then you can never find what you have to share. I have since gone back to Germany many times. It is a very slow process to make a friend. Lots of silent train travel ! They have to owe you some favour or gratitude to let you into their lives. MAybe save someone's life or marry their children. Apart from this I love the few friends I have made :)

[isidrorodrigocaicedo]

I'm from Colombia, and I've been watching this Channel for 1 year and half. I want to say. Thank you for all the help, information, time. I have a lot of progressed speaking German.

[hamidesmaeili]

Es wäre besser gewessen, wenn Sie diese Frage von den Ausländer, die schon lange Zeit in Deutschland sind, fragen hätten.

[alicezhang]

I am a Chinese live in Nuremberg for 8 months with my German husband and two kids. Before we lived in Shanghai for 7 years. First of all, thanks EASY GERMAN, i love watching your program for language and just-for-fun two aspect of view. Here I like to talk about my very different experience of making friends before and after moving to Germany.

In China: I have two best friends, one was my roommate, another was my colleague. In Shanghai I was single for 8 years and had very cool and fun job. I posted an ad to look for a roommate, then i interviewed 8 person until i found one. We become best friends; then i know a another cool girl from my job, we are best friends until now. Since i was kindergarten, I moved lot, so i don't have any best childhood friends, but i never have the problem to have friend where ever i was. All my roommates(from American, Japan, or other city of China) likes me, because i like cooking, cleaning and sharing, and have lots of interesting personal and job experience. I think i am a people person.
And i know lots great German in Shanghai.

In Germany: first, when we moved here, i am a mom with two little kids. I dont have chance to know any cool single female friends. Most woman I know here are from Russia, or Turkey or east Europe, who doesnt speak much English, and my poor Germany is not helpful either. I have my policy to select friends, I will be nice to invite people to my apt and cook nice food, then after i have done twice, or three-time, people will invite me back or we will know if we make further contact. However, it seem doesn't work here. I spend lots weekend to invite people who also has kids, arrange playing date and mom can talk and relax a bit. However, sadly, i seems become free-baby-sitter around, Kids love to come to my apt, moms love to drop their kids here and leave, all of them dont invite me back. My German husband said i should not have same expectation as when i am in China. In Asia, there is saying 礼尚往来 ， means One good turn deserves another; but here doesn't exist.


It confused me bit, now i am just not expecting know i should learn German as priority .

[daefaron]

Oh, guys... you are kind of breaking my heart here, reading your comments. I am german and I work with refugees. I met a lot of great people and I know how difficult it can be, even for germans.
Here are a couple of tipps from me:
1: Try clubs, like sport clubs, music groups, clubs for board games, whatever peaks your interests.
2: If you find a german you find is friend material, in a club, at work or anywhere else: don't hesitate to strike up a conversation and make plans for another meetup in your spare time. Only because a lot of us are socially awkward dosn't mean we don't want to get to know new people.
3: Keep at it! It can be hard, I know, but we are not all just grumpy faces.

I wish you all the best and hope you find great people. I wish I could reach out to all of you.

[gerardovazquez]

Ich wohne seit 4 Jahren in Deutschland und es fällt mir schwer neue Leute kennenzulernen. In meiner Heimat (Mexiko) sind die Menschen freundlicher.

Es ist eigentlich schade, weil ich mir mein Auslandsstudium anders vorgestellt habe.

Dieses Video hilft mir zu verstehen, wie die Leute da sind.
Und man soll einfach respektieren und weiter machen.

Danke fürs Video

[pappuprasad]

How to find friends in Germany?
This is easy, during my Student Life in Germany, I lived in a studentenwohnheim(student dorm) and I was fortunate to become friends with people from across the continents and I am still in contact with them.
If the question is:
How to find German friends in Germany?
Then the answer is: It's next to impossible.
Living in Germany for almost 5 years, I found people are really "cold" when accepting an "outsider" into their core.
Whereas in Canada or Ireland they will always ask you join them.
Living in Austria as an internee, has also been a nice experience until I was in a student dorm there also.
So no offence, but from my experiences, I found the German speaking belt(Germany, Austria and German speaking part Of Switzerland) people are next to approachable.
One of the reasons being the language, but even if you try to speak the language there is no motivation from the other(with whom you communicate).
For example: As per a Spanish girl(I have been in relationship with her) Spanish people do encourage you speak their language and also show their happiness even you make mistakes.
Sorry for these negative aspects but it my opinions are from my experiences.
Someone else can have positive experience and I totally agree with him/her.

[juaneduardoelias]

As some people here have already written. Same story. I've been living in Germany for 6 years, and till this date I have no german friends. I have many times tried to have friends, invite them for dinner, try to make sport together, have a beer, go to movies, go for a drink etc etc. But always got incredible strange answers. Its very sad, but I don't care anymore. I know a old spanish woman she has been in germany for over 25 years, and she told me the same. Its very sad but as a foreigner I dont think i will ever be part of German society of have friends here.

[o]

Captured by the title, watched the whole video and read the comments. Very interesting.
I live in Deutschland for 10 years now, Berlin. I'm fluent in German and I consider myself to have a wide range of interests. I have a pretty big circle of friends, I'm 45 yo. Still can't say that I have German friends. This is a topic my friends and I discuss quite often. I work mostly with German people and have great colleagues but sadly not German friends. :(
I enjoy this channel's content very much. Thumbs up.

[tgc]

As someone said down below, I have never been lonelier in my life after moving to Germany, sometimes i am even watching people at university while sitting alone and hoping for a miracle to happen someone just come and talk to me but that's never happening 😔 can't wait to end this and go back to home because there is no place like home.

[jruiz]

I love how Germans view friendship. I met my German friends in Uni in 2007 and we are still friends. Visiting each other, traveling together and writing letters in the post even. I think it's hard to make a German friend but once you do, you will have a friend for life.

[prashantnittala]

When she said "los gehts" i almost expected she would walk while the camera being followed, but then i remembered that this is a lockdown video haha.

[siryoutuber]

To make German friends in Germany is hard, very very hard. What she mentioned about “cultivate a friendship”, actually means that you as an outsider must prove that you are good enough to befriend them, never the opposite (as they have enough friends from the kindergarten ages).To find friends inside the expat community is way easier though.