Caching In Germany

[+geofred]

I will be making my first trip to Europe by a visit to Germany. I see there are several caching opportunities on my itinary but....

Can I bring my eMap?

Do I need new maps for Germany... Where do I get them?

Will I need to read German to complete the caches?

 

If there are any world travelers with advice please be generous!

[+geomaineiacs]

I went to Rome in Feb. for a week and did three caches. My Garmin Legend had crude maps of Europe; they worked fine but you will need to buy emaps if you want detail. The Garmin CD Mapsource coverage (go to their website) for Europe was about $150 so I passed. Unless you are planning to do long hike caches or plan to do a lot of them, I don't think you need detail maps.

 

If you do a country search, you will find most caches are posted in English.

 

P.S. Many airlines allow GPSr on the plane. It is a blast to track your progress while in route, especially watching the longitude go to 0! Check with your airline ahead of time.

[+Metaphor]

I have been caching in Europe a couple of times and was in Germany and Austria this past January. I did the caching the old fasioned way, with a paper map. It takes more time, but if yu know where you are going to be, it's not bad, and it really familiarizes you with the areas you will see. A very good site is Geocaching.de which has an interactive map to locate caches in the areas you will visit. It is in German though.

 

I can read a little German, but pretty much resort to "point and grunt" when I try to speak. I find that about half of the caches are in English and half in native languages. A big help is Babelfish which will translate (sometimes comically, but usually functionally) a variety of languages into English and vice versa. Just copy and paste.

 

If all fails, ask someone there to translate the page there for you. English is a very common second language, and often, they speak it as well, if not better, than we do.

[+Runaround]

You'll have no problems traveling with your GPSr. Just throw it in your carry-on bag.

 

Before any of my overseas trips I enter the street address of my hotels into Maporama to get the coords. I then search based on these coords.

 

Many of the caches listed are in both English and German. If you find caches only in German you can always run the cache description through Free Translation for a crude translation. You could also post a note in the German speaking forum and ask for some help with a translation.

 

Lastly, have fun. Some of my favorite cache hunts were outside the USA.

[+hedberg]

Our experience tells us: Don't use online translation websites. Write in english...

 

Here is one good example from an english couple writing about geocaching in Sweden.

First they wrote in english:

 

Hi,

 

Firstly - sorry for writing in English. 

 

We are visiting Stockholm in February for a very short break from work. Is anyone able to recommend a few easy caches in the city? I think we are staying in a hotel called Amaranten...........

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Nick (& Ali)

 

Then they translated it thru an online translation website:

 

Hej,

 

Vi er besöka Stockholm i Februari för en mycket kort bryta från verk. Är någon köpa duktig rekommendera et par lätt gömställen inne om stor stad? JAG tänka vi er blivande i en hotell alarmerat Amaranten.

 

Tack själv på förhand,

 

Nick & Ali

 

This is a stupid and funny translation that doesn't make a Swedish person understand nothing about the matter.

And when I did translate that back to english thru the website it became:

 

Hi,

 

We you visit Stockholm in February for a very short snap from work(or perhaps agency). Is someone buy clever rekommend a pair easy caches inside about big city. Me think we your coming in a hotel alarmed Amaranten.

 

Even when me translated it from the original english text TO ENGLISH (english to english!) it became funny:

 

Hi , Age unimportant hence writing internal English. We are sociality Stockholm internal February hence a truly incomplete disjunction because succeed. Is anyone powerful be the cause of advise quantitative slow store internal love resort? IMMATERIALITY reflect we are exist internal a resort required Perpetual. Gratitude before , Notch Ali )

 

 

Here is a link to the topic about this translations: LINK

[+hedberg]

I forgot to mention, we translated it into Finnish and back to english also:

 

Hi, Before lousy for time embroiding home English language. We square metre visiting Stockholm in home February for time very short film separates descend accomplish. It's whoever clever to suggest rare easy caches in home town? Letter i think us square meter backstay in home hotel alien Amaranten. Thanks in home to advance.

 

So I wouldn't recommend people to use these sites. The most people in Europe understands English, and if you write on our local forums (like the Germanspeaking forum) there will always be someone who can answer you in English.

 

In some countries in Europe do people know english better than in other countries, might have something to do with the dubbing of movies on TV and cinema. In some countries do they keep the original language and have subtitles in the bottom of the screen instead. In those cases do you hear and learn english.

 

But in some countries do they dub everything into their local language, and they are isolated from other languages...

[+sTeamTraen]

But in some countries do they dub everything into their local language, and they are isolated from other languages...

That argument works for most countries, but it breaks down in a couple of cases; for example, it doesn't explain why French-speaking Belgians typically have relatively poor English, or why German people tend to speak quite good English despite more or less all German versions of US/UK TV and movies being dubbed.

 

Back to Geofred's question: I would suggest you use this site to look at a couple of caches at random, perhaps near your first night's stay, and see what you think of the descriptions. My feeling (without having counted formally) is that about half of the caches in Germany have an English translation. And you can always ask in the "German-speaking" forum, you will get a polite reply in English there.

[+hedberg]

Doesn't the german learn english as a second language? The french government hate english language - my own experience.

[+sTeamTraen]

More or less everyone in France studies English at school, for as long as the Germans do. But a combination of teachers "wiz, euh, not verry goood aczents" and general lack of motivation doesn't make for good results. It's pretty much comparable with the level of French taught in the UK

 

Most German kids know from an early age that they won't get far in the world if they don't speak English. And of course, half the words in English are German words (including "half", "words", and "English"), so that makes vocabulary easier.

 

My kids are in a French school, currently learning German. They tell me that their classmates' efforts are almost laughable - same accent problems as English, plus almost no "easy, obvious" vocabulary. Well, apart from "Chance" and "Pommes frites", ha ha.

 

I spent 8 years in Holland. Dutch people know that if they can't buy from the Germans and sell to the English, they won't eat. Result: they study their languages hard from day one.

 

And of course, as you suggest, the French attitude that their language is in some way likely to compete with English at the world level "any day now" doesn't help either. Although, some pragmatism is creeping in: France is constantly pressing for EU schools to teach two foreign languages to all students, because if there's only one, guess which one students will choose...

[+hedberg]

I meet a lot of people every day from all over the world, and you can see a difference right now. Younger people in Germany and France are getting better on English than the older ones. But it is the same here in Sweden, where the older generation doesn't generally speak English.

 

But with the internet, video games, computer games, travelling, microsoft help desk and so on, do we all learn a lot of more english than we used to do like 10 years ago.

 

Also: Is is more popular to read the original book in English than a translated book, or seeing the Hollywoord production of the book

[+TEAM 360]

BUMP

[+The_Rocks]

Hello! We have been caching in Germany for a little over a year now and have had great success with most of the local caches here. Fortuantely we are in an area with a large American population as we speak only enough German to get us by, and read even less. Most of the local caches have a very good English translation right on the cache page. If there is no translation some of the cache owners state they will gladly translate it for you upon request. For those caches we have done using the online translators we have had good success with them as well. You may just have to decipher what it is you think it should say and go from there. We've only been frustrated by a few.

 

As for maps, we have access to the European Mapsource software, but choose not to use it and rely on paper maps. Some of the better maps even have some of the hiking and biking trails. We will use the MapQuest maps to give us a general idea of the location and then use our paper maps to pin point it more accurately. Next week we are going to Berlin and will be attempting some caches there. I have been to Berlin before and know a little bit about the area, but after seeing most of the cache pages there are in German, it may prove more of a challenge.

 

I think with some good local maps, somewhat translated cache pages, maybe even a spoiler or two, and a good attitude you will have a great experience caching in Germany. The countryside is beautiful and the forests are filled with hidden ruins, castles and towers.

 

Enjoy your trip to Germany!

Justin

The_Rocks

[+hbrx]

But with the internet, video games, computer games, travelling, microsoft help desk and so on, do we all learn a lot of more english than we used to do like 10 years ago.

All I ever learned from Microsoft Helpdesk was how to hum to 'Girl from Ipanema', eventhough I already knew it from the famous elevator scene...

 

hbrx.

[+tastom]

The same is true for Switzerland. Many caches have descriptions in English and the local language. (We have four official languages in our country: German, French, Italian and Romanch). On my cache description pages, which are written in both German and English, I provide links to my private website with translations in French and Danish.

 

About dubbing in movie theaters: In the German speaking part of Switzerland, all movies are shown in their original language, with subtitles in German and French, opposed to the French speaking part of Switzerland, there all movies are dubbed, and you don't hear the original language anymore. Many TV channels provide a so called dual-channel. On the TV sets, equipped accordingly, you can switch from one language to another (mostly original to local and vice versa)

Edited July 14, 2004 by tastom

[+TAT]

I went to Koln last year and had a great time finding caches. The best advice is to not get too obsessed with finding. Some caches will be in german only. You can send an email to the owner if you know any that you are sure you'll be visiting. As for maps, I used Garmin world map, (not much detail) and intuition. Intuition works much better!

 

There were some interesting consequences though. I went for one cache using the subway. Each day I got a little closer untill, finally, I got to the cache and found that you needed to rent a boat to get to it. The boat stand was about a month away from openning. Another cache was on top a large hill very close to the hotel. It has a comanding view of Koln and the surronding valley. The only problem was it was a virtual and I had no idea what the owner was referring to because he was speaking figuratively. It just didn't translate. He was nice enough to allow me to log it as a find since I obviously had been there.

 

Have fun and don't obesess!!