Are the German language and culture really “cold”?

I've often heard people say “Germans are cold, they're not friendly” or “German is a difficult, harsh language”.

Are these statements true? We don't know. But we can take a closer look.

Where does the myth of “coldness” come from?

The fact that German has strong sounds such as “ch”, “sch” and “r”, and very precise structures, often makes it feel like a strict language. For many Albanians, coming from a looser language like Albanian, that feeling is understandable. The way Germans communicate also often seems “formal”, especially compared with more expressive cultures. Perhaps the variety and complexity of German words has also fed this belief. German has words that express very deep feelings and don't translate easily into other languages. A few examples:

Fernweh – a longing for faraway places

Geborgenheit – the feeling of being safe and protected

Fremdschämen – the embarrassment you feel for someone else, even though you did nothing yourself

These aren't “cold” words. They're deep, sensitive and very human. And the culture? The people? Germans might not hug you much at a first meeting or talk loudly in the street, but they're respectful, fair and dependable. (We're basing this on public comments from foreign visitors to Germany.) Every experience is different: some Germans are very friendly, and others prefer not to socialise with strangers. It isn't absolute or measurable. Still, Germans are known as strict, direct and down-to-earth people. Once, while we were talking about German culture, a student on our course shared an experience: “I like that when a German tells you ‘I'll be there at 10:00’, they're there at 10:00. No need for messages, no excuses.”

That's not coldness. It's reliability.

German culture teaches you that a sense of security and consistency isn't coldness, it's stability. If people listen to you attentively, treat you with respect and keep their word, that isn't coldness. At the end of the day, every foreign language seems “cold” when we don't know it. But the more we learn it, the more we realise the coldness was only the distance between us and the language.