There is water leakage in the bathroom of my apartment (I am the tenant). The house owner has organised for the repairs to be done and the cost of the repair will be paid by the owner. however, for the repairs, the plumber has installed a drying motor which runs for 12 hours a day for 3 to 4 weeks, plugged to the apartment wall socket. the drying motor also record the electricity units consumed during the process.

However, my question is who is liable to pay for the increase in electricity bill from running this motor in the apartment? can I ask the house owner since he is also responsible for the repair cost (I guess he claims this cost from his insurance)?

The rent agreement is unlimited and does not specify this type of issue, specifically the increase in electricity used for repairs.

p.s. I am aware that I would also share the meter reading as a one time consumption to my electricity provider, so my contract is not affected.

I watch a lot of foreign language tv. I know a bit of German, French, and Spanish. Not fluent in any. I was watching something involving the trial of Adolf Eichmann. It was very easy to understand him. Unlike say Gőring, or Hitler. Their accent, to me, (American) its hard to understand them. But Eichmann sounds so clear, perfect elocution. Kind of like how a British royal family would speak English. Almost without any accent. I read he was from Prussia but that can’t possibly be a Prussian accent can it? It also said he moved to Austria but i don’t think its an Austrian accent either. But i could be wrong there. What accent does he speak with?

We're picking a name for a boy who'll grow up in Germany.

For Germans generally, and ideally for anyone actually called Nicolas or Valentin:

- Nicolas: does the Nikolaus association come up beyond 6 December, or is it a non-issue once you're past kindergarten? And how often does it get turned into Niclas or Niklas by people who should know better?
- Valentin: does anyone genuinely make Valentinstag jokes, or is that a worry parents invent for themselves? I've also read the name described as slightly soft, or slightly posh. Fair?
- Valentin, pronunciation and spelling: issues around Falentin or Walentin?
- Both: is there any association I'd miss as a foreigner? A TV character, a stereotype, a regional or class connotation, a joke that's obvious to everyone who grew up here.

We're in northern Germany, in case that makes any difference 🙂

Thanks!

My hairdresser is quite expensive (prices for most junior stylists starting north of 100€ — even for men’s cut).

Is it common to tip on top of this? If so, how much?

I just had my brand new bike stolen at night from my porch i have already filed an onlinewache (was told in person by the Police Officer to do so) i reported the incident in less than 15-20 hours, what are the chances i will get my bike back with the help of the police and what should i do from my end to find it (i have no gps or bike insurance as it hadn‘t even been 48 hours of me owning it) really upset with how things turned out but hoping for the best

I have noticed a tiny social ritual that I keep getting wrong. I am Canadian. When someone enters a doctor’s waiting room, they often say a general “Guten Tag” to everyone already seated. Most people answer quietly without looking up.

I tried doing the same and it felt strangely formal, especially in a room with fifteen people. Then last week I entered without saying anything and two people looked up as if I had skipped an expected step. Nobody was rude, but the silence suddenly felt very noticable.

Is greeting the whole room still considered normal across Germany, or does it depend on age, region, and the size of the practice? Would you also greet people in a laboratory waiting area or at a government office, or is this specific to small medical practices? I am interested in where Germans personaly draw the line, not in an official etiquette rule.

I am visiting China and I would like to buy some gifts with Chinese traditional elements for a guy that I am interested in. What are some useful gifts that German men would generally appreciate? Anything particular that I definitely should not buy?

I had a slightly awkward situation recently that made me realize I don't understand the German rules for ending a visit.

A couple I know came over for dinner. We had a good evening, but around 11:30 I was exhausted and had work the next morning.

Where I'm from, you would usually start dropping hints. Clear the glasses, mention how early you have to get up, maybe yawn dramatically enough that everyone understands the performance.

I tried the German version of subtlety and said, “I have to be up at six tomorrow.”

They both said, “Oh, that’s early.”

And then opened another bottle of wine.

Eventually, around 12:30, I just said something like, “Sorry, I’m really tired, I think I need to call it a night.”

They immediately got up, thanked me for the evening and left completely normally.

Nobody seemed offended.

So now I'm wondering if I wasted an hour trying to communicate through increasingly desperate body language.

Among Germans, is it socially acceptable to simply tell guests that you're tired and want to end the evening? Or are there more polite phrases everyone is expected to recognize?

I have a very German boyfriend. We live in Canada. He is very considerate and polite, but when it comes to bread I find he has Opinions.

I have thought about getting into baking bread as a hobby. I thought I might use this as an opportunity to impress him. Also, I like fresh bread.

If you have a recipe to share I would appreciate it.

I don’t know if it’s relevant but he is from North Germany.

My wife and I live in Germany and may buy a home for ourselves in the future. I earn around €90,000 gross per year and my wife currently has no income.

We are trying to understand whether a Bausparvertrag is genuinely useful or mainly a product that salespeople push. My understanding is that you pay an upfront fee and receive very little interest during the saving phase, but in return you can secure a future loan interest rate.

We also invest in broad ETFs. If the money is not needed soon, I would expect an ETF to produce far better long term returns, although I understand that market risk becomes a problem if we need the money for a house at a fixed date.

For people who have bought property in Germany, when did a Bausparvertrag actually help you? Would it make more sense to use one only for a limited future loan amount, keep the rest of our long-term money invested, and gradually move the expected down payment into safer savings as the purchase approaches?

I would also appreciate practical explanations of how this works together with KfW financing. Can KfW, a normal bank mortgage and a Bauspar loan sensibly be combined for an owner-occupied home?

In Hamburg finden regelmäßig welche statt. Bei allen, deren Ankündigungen ich gelesen habe, wird ein Eintritt erhoben. Dieser reicht meiner Vermutung nach höchstens für ein paar Häppchen aus. Gleichzeitig ist es für mich schwer vorstellbar, daß ich den Eintritt bezahlen soll und dann noch einmal separat für das Essen - schließlich kann ich in Restaurants essen, ohne Eintritt zu bezahlen.

Is it normal to say hello to people you see at your big-chain gym who you see regularly because you go at the
same time? Is a simple “hello” enough? Sometimes I feel like they might think I’m being flirty because I’m Latin American and, by nature, I’m always smiling and sociable 🫠Sometimes I feel people staring at me, but I have no idea if they're waiting for me to say hi or what 🤔😅

Hello!

Next year, my friends and I plan on visiting Germany for 2-3 weeks in June to visit a friend of ours who practically lives in Berlin (He’s actually Ukrainian and goes to school in Lithuania but pretty frequently is in Berlin). My friend is very insistent upon spending alot of time in the Capital City, which I am fine with, but he also really wants us to visit Potsdam, Leipzig, and Dresden. This seems like it will be an awful amount of time spent in East Germany, which I feel odd about considering the AfD support in those regions. Meanwhile, I would like to hit up Bavaria and see some of the castles+the alps. moreover, one of my other friend’s on the trip wants to visit Hamburg.

I highly doubt it’s possible let alone convenient to visit essentially all of Germany within less than a month. Thus, I am curious as to what you guys think. Where should we visit? What places are more ‘worth it‘ than others? and are my concerns about visiting AfD supporting regions valid?

Why do Germans absolutely freak when another resident charcoal grills? Why do they insist it is illegal?

I know this probably sounds like a very foreigner question, but I am confused by Abendbrot in a practical way. I have been invited to a few casual evening meals where the table had bread, cheese, cold cuts, sliced vegetables and spreads. It looked nice, and everyone seemed satisfed.

For me, it still feels mentally like the opening act before dinner. I eat it, enjoy it, then around 22:00 my brain asks where the warm food went. I am not judging it. I actually like how simple and social it feels. I just cannot tell whether I am eating it wrong, not eating enough, or carrying expectations from home.

Do Germans generally treat Abendbrot as a complete dinner, or is it more of a light evening option depending on the houshold?

My contract says that I need to send a registered post but it doesn’t indicate what the letter should look like or what it should say. Any suggestions? It’s my first time renting and terminating rent so I am not sure how the process works.

Also, do I need to obtain some sort of documents from this landlord?

The reason for moving is that I want to move to a cheaper apartment. There have been no arguments or disagreements (at least thus far)

I know this one has been debated with some strong opinions on both sides. You have to pay for water at a restaurant which I get. This same restaurant will have a bowl of water out front for dogs and servers will gladly bring free water for dogs while charging humans for the same luxury. Should it not be on the owner of the dog to supply their water? I ask this as the debate seems to revolve around restaurants being able to pay rent and said rent money coming primarily from drinks. If a dog needs water because their owner is irresponsible, why should it be the restraunt owner's responsibility to subsidize this? It seems slightly twisted, from an outsider perspective, that because someone comes in with a thirsty dog they get free water but someone who is legitimately thirsty and asks for the same tap water will pay for it. Ps. I love your country and people. I also fully understand that every place on this planet have their own unique quarks.

I'm not sure whether my experience with Germans (or people in Germany) may be unique. I'm a student here and I also work as a student assistant at my university.

My interactions with students (including PhD students) are that they behave quite cold or don't really care for politeness unless they know me personally. But when I interact with the professors, head of departments and directors they are extremely polite towards me even though they could very much assume that I am the building's cleaner. For example, once when one of them opened a door to exit while I'm at the other side at the same time wanting to enter, they smiled at me and let me enter first. This is a very unusual treatment that I would otherwise never get, especially after considering the fact that you are supposed to let people exit first!

I would say the rudest people I meet are people in the services sector and gastronomy. At this point of course I have to acknowledge that not all of them are rude and there are definitely very friendly people in these fields, but my experience with cashiers at Lidl or DM have mostly been harsh. I've been through two humbling occassions where I took a little longer than usual to tap my card for payment because of a detection error and the cashier made me look stupid and asked something along the lines of "what are you doing?" in an annoyed tone. I can accept that their fast paced environment forces them to stress under delay, but I don't believe that that warrants such a reaction unless your pay rate is based on the amount of customers you served.

EDIT: I speak German with everyone on default and I have a German C1 :)

Hello guys!

I’ve visited Germany many times over the past few years on short family trips, so I’m not completely unfamiliar with the country. But I’ve been living in Italy for the past 5 years, and I actually grew up in a very hot country with lots of sun and good weather.

Even Italian winters affect me a lot mentally because I really struggle with the cold, grey weather and lack of sunlight. So I’m honestly a little scared of a German winter. 😭

I recently got a job offer from Amazon in Germany with a decent salary, so I’m planning to move there. I’m currently choosing between Cologne and Frankfurt, but I literally don’t know anyone there.

So my biggest question is:

How do you survive German winters without getting depressed, especially when you’re living alone and don’t know many people?

What do you actually do during winter? Do you have any routines, activities, hobbies, places you go, or tricks that make winter easier?

And if you moved to Germany from a warm/sunny country, I’d especially love to hear your experience.

I am still trying to understand the small social rules around Sie and du. Last week in my ceramics course, one participant used du with the instructor while asking about glaze. A few minutes later I asked a question and copied that without thinking.

The instructor answered very kindly, but used Sie back to me. I immediately felt like I had stepped on a tiny invisible rake. I said "sorry, Sie" and then the whole sentence came out even more embarrasng.

Nothing bad happened, but now I am not sure what Germans usually expect in that moment. If someone accidentally uses du once and then switches back, is it forgotten after ten seconds, or does it sound weirdly personal? Would you prefer a quick apology, or is drawing attention to it the more awkward part?

In my own country I would never since it would likely be read as looking for a hookup, but I and just attract creeps and trouble, or I'd be too guarded to enjoy it. However, sometimes I fancy a drink and conversation, and it sounds like a good way to practice my German.

How acceptable is it in Germany, and how might I be perceived? I'm in my early 30s and live in the outskirts of a large-ish city if it makes any difference.

Yes, I know that if the Bundeswehr recruits enough volunteers, they won't bring back conscription, but to be honest, I don't believe they'll recruit enough volunteers, no one wants to spend a year of their life sitting around in the barracks, especially young Germans.

So I got sick last week. I went to the Hausarzt on Monday and he wrote me a sick leave for the whole week, since I have a herniated disc in my spine that has been making me suffer every 6-8 months. I sent it to my eployer immediatelly, saying I am not working this week.

Now today (Friday) my boss texts me, asking if I am going to go on Monday. I text him back "I don't know yet. Momentally I feel awful still, but if it gets better until Monday morning, I am coming" which is I personally think a very reasonable answer.

Then he texts me back "I don't understand, are you coming or not? How do you don't know if you are coming on Monday? Are you gettin better?"

I text him, again "no I'm not good, and I don't know if I will be better until Monday"

Finally he calls me up and asks me "So then you are not coming. Did you get a sick leave paper for the next week?"

I say "No, because I didn't go yet, I'm telling you, there is a POSSIBILITY that I may recover until Monday, in which case I'm coming, if not, I WILL GO TO THE DOCTOR"

From then on he continued annoyingly that he has to know if I'm coming or not, to organise someone in my place. Then proceeds to remind me of my duty to always communicate in case of sickness. He basically had the aura that he thinks I am making this up, and I'm not sick.

Please someone tell me what should I do? How do people do this? How should I know if I will feel better 3 days from now? Should I just say NO and ask for a sick leave on Monday anyways?

We have a German boy coming to stay at our house just for 2 weeks as part of a high school exchange for German class (we are in the USA). I have a super silly question but am curious. Usually I put up some "fall" decorations in the house (pumpkins, leaves, etc) first and then add Halloween items at the start of October. He is leaving Oct. 1. Would he think it was fun to see Halloween decorations?? Wondering if I should put them up a couple weeks early this year. Thank you. He lives a little south of Frankfurt, if that matters.