(Part 2) Top products from r/germany

> so I have no idea what it would be like living there.

Answering this could fill a book. Besides cars, is there anything else you'd like to know? You could also start with our wiki page on comparing daily life in the US and Germany.

> I’m a car enthusiast, so I would love to know more about how things are over there in comparison to the US.

In addition to the other comments: Germans love their cars, but actually need them far less than Americans. Unless you live far outside of a city, you can generally get around perfectly well with public transport or a bicycle. Furthermore, driving into a city is generally only for masochists - our cities were not designed for cars, so you can expect traffic jams and expensive (if you can find any at all) parking.

Between the mandatory inspections, insurance, and expensive gas (petrol), owning a car is a fair bit more expensive than in the US. While there are people who own more than one car, they are fairly few and far between.

I'm honestly curious: how does "being a car enthusiast" manifest itself for you? Do you enjoy taking care of your car? Owning an expensive/rare/unusual car? Driving a car through scenic countryside?

> Plus I would like to know about a few places to sightseeing on and off the tourist map.

There are enough things to see in Germany to fill several months (or even years) of your life. What part of the country are you looking to move to? I would honestly recommend that you buy an old-fashioned tourist guidebook (here is one example) - they would do a far better job at giving you ideas for places to see and do than random strangers on the internet.

> I want to visit Berlin forsure but don't know if I should stay there for entire month or visit other cities

Berlin is big in the sense that it is spread out over a large area and sights of interest are scattered all over the place: you could certainly spend a couple of weeks in Berlin and still not see everything. Berlin has had a fascinating history from the 12th century onwards, and each era has left its mark on the city. I highly recommend Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness Guides to get the most out of a big city like Berlin. As well as being packed with insider tips, history, art and architecture, they also have a comprehensive guide to everything from how to recognise a police officer to how to use the public transport.

Even so, a month is long enough to strike out and explore a bit. It depends on what you're interested in, but here are a few ideas that are easily within reach of Berlin:

• Potsdam (literally right next to Berlin)
  
• The Spreewald, around Lübben and Lübbenau; the home of the Sorbs, a Slavic ethnic minority, in an area of marshland with more canals than roads; the only place in Germany where the post is delivered by punt
  
• Dresden
  
• Leipzig
  
• Schwerin
  
• Hamburg
  
• Erfurt
  
  Prague is close enough if you spend a night or two there (not Germany, of course, but definitely worth a visit if you can manage it).

I used to teach 1001-2001 at a major university in the US.

You're having trouble learning in the classroom? Are you spending at least three hours outside of class for every hour spent in class? That's the recommended amount of homework/ review work to do well in any college-level class.

Here are some other tips.

1. Turn on German music or German movies in the background. Netflix has a ton of German movies. You can watch recent German TV shows here: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/hauptnavigation/startseite A German radio station with lots of news and German/ indie music is http://dradiowissen.de/ Turn on subtitles while you watch movies on Netflix. Write down words you hear that you don't know and then look up the definitions... using a paper dictionary, not an online one. (Studies have shown that people are more likely to forget what they read on a computer screen!) When you have a few free minutes on the bus or wherever, review the words that you wrote down.
   
   No matter what you do, make a point of doing this every day. I have an Austrian friend whose mom is a moderately famous Slovakian-born author who writes in German. Her (=the Mom's) German was admittedly lousy when she moved to Austria. However, every day, she made a point of watching a cooking show she liked and learned a ton of German from that. If you hate cooking shows, don't watch them. : ) In this case, the cooking show was helpful because there are a lot of repetitive actions and very useful nouns and verbs - food words are really important! : )
   
   
2. http://www.nthuleen.com/teach.html has a lot of great exercises. I also recommend http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-German-Grammar-5th/dp/0071824707/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1412112434&sr=8-9&keywords=german+grammar It's cheaper than Hammer's and also has a whole bunch of exercises to do. I've also heard good things about http://grammatiktraining.de No, it's not the communicative method. But if you ever want to remember all of the damned articles and endings, you're just going to have to sit down and do rote exercises.
   
   
3. Ask your instructors about any language immersion/ "Sprachbad" weekends that you can participate in or any "Stammtisch" nights. If someone speaks English to you, speak back in German.
   
   
4. Make a point of doing the orientation course before your semester begins next year. They are generally really good at exactly that - helping you get oriented. (Almost all of the social groups for the semester or year were cemented within a couple of days every time I went abroad as part of an exchange, so it's helpful for meeting people, too.) There will be people from other countries who will say, "Oh, Tubajewman! You are an English native speaker! Let's speak English; I want to practice my English with a native speaker!" You will have to put your foot down and say, "Yeah, but we both came here to speak German and not English, so let's speak German!"
   
   
5. These days, most universities also have "tandem programs" or "mentoring" via the international office. Sign up to do one, both at your home university and when you are away. In the US, you'll be responsible for making a foreign student feel welcome, and in Germany, someone will help you to get acclimated and settle in. People are usually paired with someone from a country or region where they share a mutual interest. In the US, I was given German tandem partners; in Germany, my tandem partners had studied in the US. When you get together, it's a good chance to practice speaking both languages.
   
   ETA - Reddit automatically changed my numbering. The stinkers! : P

> even read this entire book in my second year of my bachelor (the 6th edition):http://www.amazon.com/Java-How-Program-Edition-Deitel/dp/0132575663[1]
So I think I'm very experienced. But of course I never worked in the industry before.

No serious company will account this as experience.

>2- I also often see in jobs ads statements like: 2-year experience in java programming. And things like that. Do my experience in the uni count?!


what is generally meant by "2-years Experience" are internships (Praktikum), Werksstudentenjobs and maybe (that really depends on the position and company you are applying for) Studentjob in big Institutions or Lab with a reputation.


>so I'm not sure if companies would take that into account if I will apply from now and not be prepared for the interviews or so.

As someone who personally knows people who hire Guys in Software Development. I can assure you the company isnt looking for a "perfect 2 Years experience candidate" but rather if you fit in the Company, the Team and are capable of good teamwork.

From your statements i have to conclude, that you are really not at all experienced (remember any work that you do for your Studium doesnt count here).

Rather than rushing to an actual Job, i would recommend you to get atleast real world experience with a Praktikum and a Werksstudentenjob.

You could actually spend about 10 minutes reading about the early history of the Nazi Party and it's rise to power.

Specifically the bits where Hitler explains to President Hindenburg that Rohm's private army of socialists (the SA) were just a tool that he was using to get the chancellorship. The night of the long knives being the moment that the Nazi party shook off any pretence of being socialist.

It's been well documented since the end of WWII.

Please read about it. If you don't you're just being willfully ignorant.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich-William-L-Shirer/0099421763

That's the one I would recommend if you want a really in depth read. The guy who wrote that was a US journalist in Germany before the Nazis rose to power and afterwards as well. It is very good.

In all honesty I would love to have a book which covers from The Roman period to Bismarck. However if there are no books which can cover such a large period then a few books which covers all of this German history would also work.

So far I have mainly been looking on amazon but a lot of the books don't have the greatest reviews such as so I was mainly hoping people in this subreddit would have better suggestions

Highly recommended: Germany: Memories of a Nation by Neil MacGregor, former head of the British Museum. Also available as a podcast from BBC Radio 4. I love how he uses small objects to create vivid imagery of a complex topic (Frankfurter Würstchen is my absolute favourite).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241008336?keywords=memories%20of%20a%20nation&qid=1457598900&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

(edited: BBC Radio 4, not Radio 3)

This question comes up on a regular basis. Check the wiki on r/German and also see these threads:

/r/germany/comments/198ul5/german_young_adulteasiertoread_novels/

/r/germany/comments/1pcd5j/can_anyone_recommend_me_books_trying_to_improve/

/r/germany/comments/2bn477/books_for_learning_german/

/r/germany/comments/2umjjg/easy_german_books/

/r/germany/comments/3lf8xy/a_gentle_introduction_to_german_literature_for_a/

I personally recommend checking out Project Gutenberg. It is really annoying to find that a book that you picked is too hard for your current level of reading if you paid for it. But if you downloaded it for free you just shrug and move on to something easier.

I also remember somebody with a similar question/problem who raved about this book:


http://www.amazon.de/L%C3%B6cher-Geheimnisse-Green-Lake-Gulliver/dp/3407740980/

http://www.amazon.de/Holes-Louis-Sachar/dp/0440414806/

As for Bach you could do some research for yourself https://www.amazon.co.uk/Exploring-World-J-Bach-Travelers/dp/0252081765/ . Leipzig is an obvious destination and notice that neighbouring Halle is the place where Händel was born. Beyond Leipzig here is a nice website about Bach sites in Thuringia where he spent the largest part of his pre-Leipzig years: https://www.bach-thueringen.de/en/bach-locations/

​

Most larger cultural museums have some kind of medieval weaponry thrown in be it Dresden or Nuremberg but Solingen's Klingenmuseum would have been my first idea, too.

​

You will never encounter anybody who is offended about interest in the Thirs Reich there is rather some (arguably dubious) pride about the way Germany deals with its past and you can visit tons of places. Others will be rather bored than annoyed with this topic. Though it is a difference if you are interested in history and structure or if you are a WWII buff which will be seen with far less sympathy and understanding.

There are however questions I always ask foreign visitors who jump into the whole WWII topic. First what do you expect to see? There are preciously few buildings from this era. The art is almost never displayed so you basically often end up reading panels which leads us straight to question two: why are you focusing on the one thing you probably have a vague grasp of about Germany and the one thing you could learn about far more comfortably from home? The third question is if you explore dark sides of other countries or if this is a Nazi Horror Picture Show for you because the Nazis are cool and oh so evil. Also do you explore the dark sides of your own country or are the Nazis just a convenient evil landmark and you can say to yourself that your country wasn't as bad. Finally if you are from one of the major Allied countries: are you trying to re-win the war and bask in its glory? Especially the United Kingdom seems to be stuck in a nasty time-loop regarding that battling the EU as a Germany dominated Fourth Reich.

A simple example is Colditz castle near Leipzig which has tons of visitors from the UK - and almost no German ones. No one here cares or knows about the heroics of British officers who made rather pointless escape attempts but visitors from UK flock there to somehow relive their country's finest hour ... this is really something I see with a certain contempt.

So basically you have to ask yourself what is the point of visiting such sites.

If you want to go the RAF route, this is the mainstream book about it. Btw., the author used to be Spiegel's editor in chief, and if you pick any subject that is post-War (or rather, post-1947 when the magazine was founded), their archives are free.

There's also a movie.

I found this book to be very useful in relating German grammar to English.

Yes, they do. I mean, not every single one, but it is a common enough thing that a simple amazon search turned up examples:

• Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights: A Novel
  
  
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
  

A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People is a single volume history starting with Roman empire contact with Germanic tribes through to the modern day. I read this one a few years ago and it got me up to speed with some of the major developments in German history. But if you want to properly understand german history you will have to invest alot off time on this topic, there is a ton to learn about.

Norton Criticals or this one

I guess

Took me about a minute googling "Vier Zeiten: Erinnerungen" english"

New from $12 on amazon.

Edit: Wait a second. You've already been on goodreads? I'm extremely confused now.

Ferdinand von Schirach - Verbrechen and
Schuld
Both books are not for the easily disturbed.

Edit: English versions also available: Verbrechen = Crime: Stories
and Schuld =Guilt: Stories

> "Der Brand" by Jörg Friedrich is a comprehensive and well-researched book on the bombings of German cities in WWII. The English translation was well-acclaimed by the New York Times, but it's banned in Britain.

Doesn't appear to be banned:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Bombing-Germany-1940-1945/dp/0231133812/

> Concepts seem different depending on the language I use. I'm not sure what it is but I feel it somehow widens the mental horizon. Or I may be full of shit.

This is interesting. We find that emotions are much more difficult for us to discuss in German, or perhaps our emotional vocabulary is better in English -- all of us feel more equipped to explain emotional nuances in English. For my older kids, that meant sometimes they would grow very frustrated with their dad because he always resolutely refused to switch to English, even during an argument where feelings had been hurt, and as a result, they would come more to me to sort out feelings. With our youngest, he seems to have learned from this, and if they get stuck and neither is seeing the other's point of view, they'll occasionally switch to English and clarify a nuance they can't quite get at in German.

Also, we've all had this shirt at some point.