24 Reasons for Learning German – Speaking to German Taxi Drivers

Advent Calendar Day 5

Day 5 of our Advent Calendar has been written by Pam. Thank you, Pam!

Hi my name is Pam Jones and I work at Apetito. I have always wanted to learn German and was fortunate enough to do a one year crash course to “O” level standard many years ago. Since that time, however, I have not had any opportunity to use it and had forgotten almost all that I had learned. However my role at apetito necessitates travel to Germany, where our parent company is based, and when the opportunity arose to  have German lessons I jumped at the chance – for me it is common courtesy to speak (or to attempt to speak)  to people in their native language if at all possible .

I have been having lessons for 18 months now and am able to converse with people when I travel to Germany. Whilst most of my business colleagues speak  English fluently and return my attempts to speak German with English answers, I have found it extremely useful whilst travelling. Not everyone speaks English in Germany and I have used it on many occasions to check train information such as platform changes as well as purchasing tickets from the ticket machines to ordering food in restaurants, and speaking to taxi drivers to ensure that I end up at the right destination.