10 German-British cultural differences you may not know about yet

I’m fascinated by cultural differences and this is one of the things I particularly love about other countries: how do things work there? Many of them are not obvious to tourists, however.

Here are 10 differences between the UK and Germany that you won’t know about unless you’ve lived in both:

1) While it’s common knowledge that the Brits drive on the left side of the road (it’s a running family joke that that’s clearly the ‘wrong’ side since Germans drive on the ‘right’ side), you may not know that Germans will stop at pedestrian crossings until the little red man turns green even if there’s no traffic at all. While you can ‘jay walk’ in the UK, as the Americans call it, this is frowned upon in Germany (and risks a fine). You can tell a German abroad: they just don’t do it (I still find it hard).

2) German kids receive a Zuckertüte or Schultüte, a huge cone filled with sweets, stationery and small gifts for their first day of school (and several small ones from family and friends). I remember I received my first proper wristwatch on my first day, very exciting! It was nestling on top of the cone – that’s me in the picture!

Germany staggers its summer school holidays with every Bundesland determining its own schedule. The idea is to avoid one weekend where the whole country is on the move, though you will still find Stau (traffic jams) at the start and end of it.

Towards the end of the summer holidays, German parents have to buy their kids their own text and work books for every subject as well as the pens and other equipment British kids have to buy. I’m not sure that British school bags are lighter, though. Once they reach secondary school they still seem to carry around a lot of paper and more increasingly, laptops.

3) Windows open to the outside in the UK and to the inside in Germany. While the German housewife will clean her own windows, unless you live on the ground floor in the UK, you might want to engage a window-cleaner. The UK follows window construction in Northern countries where outward-opening windows are meant to avoid the wind pushing the windows inwards and allowing rain and draft to get in.

4) But once you’re out of the rain, you can’t open your umbrella indoors to let it dry in the UK because that’s apparently unlucky. I have no idea how it’s meant to dry… In Germany, you open it again in the hall or bathroom and let the water drip off.

5) Speaking of rain, we were taught at school that the idiomatic phrase ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ means ‘it’s raining a lot’. In over 20 years in the UK, I have heard this phrase just once despite frequent and copious rain showers. Nobody says this and I don’t know why they teach it in schools. German has proverbs rather than idiomatic phrases and it helps to learn a few of them to sound like a proper German.

6) There’s a stereotype about how much the Brits love queuing. Actually, I’m always grateful for an orderly formed queue (no ambiguity about where to join it and it appeals to my sense of neatness). I also love the very fair queuing systems, e.g. at the post office or bank where you’ll find one queue and once you get to the end, you go to the next available counter. I prefer this to the one-queue-per-counter system in Germany because I usually find myself in the wrong (aka the slow) one.

The only exception seem to be pubs: there you crowd around the bar and hope to attract the barman’s attention.

7) Perhaps the queuing system is born out of the British sense of fairness and politeness. Apart from ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘excuse me’, ‘sorry’ (it took me years not to be confused when someone apologised to me after I’d accidentally bumped into them or stepped on their toe), the British show politeness through speaking in a more indirect way. The Germans, on the other hand, are known for their directness, which can seem rude or brash to a Brit. Germans don’t really do small talk, they like to get to the point quickly. They will also let you know what they really think.

8) A definite way of showing politeness in Germany is punctuality. Germans like to be right on time, expect others to be and their public transport largely is too. When I first moved to London, this caused me much stress as it was impossible to calculate arrival times accurately when crossing the entire city by Tube. I employed what us students called the ‘academic quarter’ (das akademische Viertel), which meant you could be up to 15 minutes late. I’m not sure if that’s still a thing.

9) Being on time also goes for birthdays. It’s considered bad luck and bad form to wish someone a happy birthday early, it’s got to be done on the day because being late is also frowned upon. Apparently, it’s an old superstition not to jinx the year completing. I must admit I follow this rule to this day and will make a point of wishing the person happy birthday on the actual day when the office party was early.

10) And finally, if you’d like to wish someone good luck, you cross fingers in the UK and press thumbs in Germany. Pressing thumbs looks like making a fist with your thumb hidden inside your fingers. Supposedly, this goes back to someone subconsciously making this gesture when wishing someone success.

If there are any points you’d like to add, feel free to pop them in the comments.