The stereotype of Germans as overly disciplined, serious and focused on exactitude is actually not far off.
There is no better proof of this to my mind than the fact that the most commonly used word in the German language, I would guess, is genau. It means exact, or exactly, and in a typical conversation it comes up as the answer to any question to which English speakers would normally say anything from a rather definitive “yes” or “yup,” to a weak or uncertain “I guess,” “uh huh,” or “OK.” With the Germans, there is little room for such imprecision — even if it’s there in reality.
Indeed, the word is used so often, it sometimes seems like some kind of secret code that reflects two people being on the same mental wavelength, not needing to say anymore. I have heard entire conversations which seem to consist of people saying genau back and forth to one another, as if playing tennis, with just a few substantive words thrown in for context or good measure.
I have even heard people saying genau to themselves; at these times, the word appears to be some mental tic they cannot avoid for the life of them. My favorite genau story concerns an apartment I went to see when I was first looking for a sublet here over the summer. As my twenty-something tour guide led me from one room of the apartment to another, he would introduce each by saying, genau. For example: “Genau, here is the kitchen.” “Genau, here is the bedroom.” “Genau, here is the bathroom.” “Genau, this is the balcony, it gets a lot of sun.”
I felt like grabbing him and asking: Why are you saying “exactly,” exactly? To whom? It was sort of as if he was talking to himself, confirming a thought he had had in his own head. (“Hmm, this room… what is it for again? Oh, right, exactly! It’s the kitchen!”) Or maybe it was that he was trying to read my mind, and responding to a question I never asked. (“Is this the kitchen, this room with the sink and the dishes and the food in the cupboards?” “Genau, this is the kitchen.”)
The overuse of this word may rise to the level of a mild, widespread societal mental illness. Genau makes some sense as a response to, “I just solved this problem and I think 2+2=4.” But to an English-speaker’s ear, it sounds like overkill as the answer to, “Oh, you just got back from a week in the Canary Islands, didn’t you?” or “Is today Thursday?” We might say, “yup!” The Germans would say, Genau.
This habit seems to also reflect the Germans’ tendency to be know-it-alls, to always be a step ahead of what others are thinking or saying. So it’s not enough to agree with someone, or to answer in the affirmative–you have to give the impression that the other person is, rather, catching on to something you already knew. Now, as with everything else in language, there’s the chicken-and-egg problem. Do Germans use genau so often because they have know-it-all personalities? Or do Germans come across as know-it-alls in part because they say genau so often, and because they are conditioned to do so in every generation from an early age by hearing it said all around them?
Either way, genau is a hallmark of the language as currently spoken, and is so pervasive that I cannot see how it could be changed. I now use it myself all the time (you don’t sound like you know the language if you don’t), and have also caught myself more and more saying, “Exactly” in response to questions when speaking English, too. It’s addictive, and I’m sure it’s an addiction that would be hard to overcome. But for the Germans’ sake, I wish they would try.
