I strongly considered taking a job in Stuttgart a few years ago (going so far as an extended visit/tryout) and would have made an effort, but otherwise the only German I know is what my dad taught me in the 1980s when it looked like Germany and Japan were going to the economic superpowers of the future (he also tried to get me to golf because it is the "language of business" lololo). To this day I actually almost always call the gas station
tankstelle because when I was 4, it was one of the first German words my dad taught me, perhaps because he ran an export business sending classic American cars to Germany.
I love traveling and languages generally (I'm fluent in Spanish and professionally competent in Portuguese, French, Italian, and Sranan Tongo, and I've learned basic phrases in places as different as Bulgaria, Rwanda, and Thailand, and in Quechua in Bolivia, to the amusement/amazement of locals), but many Germans' English is impeccable, so it kind of reduces the need to learn their language.
I also recently discovered that my great-grandmother immigrated directly from Germany. Previously family lore was that on both sides we were 100% Irish-descended. So I'm kind of reevaluating my heritage at the moment.
Poll
