COPY LINK

For members

CULTURE

The five weirdest and best reality TV shows for improving your German

From the 'Voice of Germany' to 'Farmer Seeks Wife', here are five of the most sublime and ridiculous German reality TV shows that will keep you entertained while improving your language skills.

Published: 26 November 2021 15:15 CET
Updated: 2 August 2022 16:56 CEST

Photo: DPA

The Voice of Germany

For over 10 years, “The Voice of Germany” has been one of the most popular casting shows on German television. Launched with a new “blind audition” concept in 2011, the ProSieben show has consistently brought in high ratings, particularly amongst younger viewers.

In this singing contest, the judges initially sit with their backs to the auditionees so that they can only judge them on the quality of their voice. They can vote for a candidate by pressing a button during their performance to turn their chair toward the stage.

In the current season, British pop star James Blunt surprised the judges with a blind audition of his hit song “Goodbye my Lover”.

Watching this show will broaden your musical vocabulary and ability to critique anyone’s Stimme (voice) and Ton (volume/tone) – but as a bonus, it will also improve your knowledge of German popstars. To get into the mood, you can start by listening to some of the tunes of this season’s judges: Sarah Connor, Johannes Oerding, Nico Santos and Mark Forster.

Höhle der Löwen

The investors on hit German reality TV show ‘Höhle der Löwen’ gather for a press photograph. Photo: picture alliance / Caroline Seidel/dpa | Caroline Seidel

The German version of the British hit show “Dragon’s Den” features lions instead of dragons and invites entrepreneurs to present their business proposals to five wealthy German investors.

The “lions” have included some of Germany’s wealthiest business people over the years, including extreme sportsman and experience-website founder Jochen Schweizer and Formular One champion Nico Rosberg. The investors probe the ideas and business plans of start-up founders, before deciding whether or not to invest.

Earlier this year, the show was the subject of a furious online storm when two entrepreneurs proposed a peculiar menstrual hygiene product, in the form of a rubber glove.

The show is great for broadening your business vocabulary with Umsatz (turnover), Gewinn (profit) and Anteile (shares) being the most prominently featured terms.

LOL: The Last one Laughing

The German stars of the third season of LOL: The Last one Laughing. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/Prime Video | Frank Zauritz

This is a great show for anyone who doesn’t think that Germans have a sense of humour.

In this reality show, ten top German comedians compete against each other in a battle for €50,000 in prize money that’s donated to good cause.

The participants stay in an apartment for six hours and present each other with short performances and the winner is the person who manages not to laugh the longest.

This is definitely a show for those who want to broaden their lexicon with some colourful German phrases – and hopefully make their German friends crack a smile in the process.

Bauer sucht Frau

Farmer Keno Veith stands next to his tractor as he searches for true love in an episode of ‘Bauer Sucht Frau’. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Carmen Jaspersen

In this somewhat old-fashioned dating show, farmers from all over Germany search for their true love.

The show is one of the most popular and long-running German reality TV shows, and has been shown on RTL since 2005.

The farmers – who are usually referred to in the voiceover as either a raubeiniger Rinderwirt (rough-around-the-edges cattle farmer) or schüchterner Schweinebauer (shy pig farmer) – receive written applications from women hoping to be considered as farmer’s wives.

Prospective female farmers are invited to frolic around on the farm, to prove themselves in the field and in the barn and to try to win the heart of the respective farmer.

It may not be the most enlightened of TV shows, but it will do wonders for your agricultural vocabulary.

Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus!

The 2015 Jungle Queen Maren Gilzer sits on her throne. Photo: picture alliance / dpa | Stefan Menne

Another British import, the German version of “I’m a Celebrity – Get me out of here!” has been delighting German audiences since 2004.

In each season, 10 to twelve German celebrities are shipped to the Australian jungle, where they must compete in Dschungelprüfungen (Bushtucker trials) to win meals for their campmates. Celebrities are voted off by the public and eventually one is crowned the winner, or Dschungelkönig/in (Jungle king or queen).

While it may not help you order in a regular restaurant, the show is great for broadening your exotic culinary vocabulary, as one of its most well-known features is the eating challenge where contestants have to eat a variety of stomach-turning meals to win stars.

Previous episodes have seen stars eating a Käfersaftcocktail (beetle juice cocktail), Ziegenzunge (goat’s tongue) and even a Glas voller Kuh-Urin (Glass full of cow urine). Yummy!

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

10 essential tips for avoiding rental scams in Germany

When it comes to settling in Germany, one of the most stressful and difficult tasks you’re likely to face is finding a place to live.

With the country in the grip of an ever-worsening housing shortage, there aren’t enough rental properties to meet the high demand – especially in big cities like Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt – and the flats that are available can often stretch even the most healthy of budgets.

With renters desperate to find affordable homes, crafty scammers have seized the chance to place fake ads on the market, often in dream locations with lower-than-average rents.

While some of these scams may be easy to spot, others can be highly sophisticated, with fraudsters setting up professional-looking websites and even allowing hopeful tenants to view their properties in person.

Recently The Local reported on a Polish couple who lost around €7,000 through a rental scam in Berlin. The scammers had sublet a beautiful Altbau apartment in the popular district of Neukölln and created an advert for it via a fake letting agent website, then arranged for people to use a key box to view the property while the real tenants were away.

Despite checking the contract over with legal experts from their local tenants’ association, nobody saw anything out of the ordinary – that is, until they tried to access the apartment and found a family already living there.

So, how do you protect your hard-earned savings and steer clear of scammers while looking for a new home?

Here are 10 important ways to protect yourself from rental scams.

1. Be alert to suspicious signs

The key to avoiding scammers in Germany is to be fully clued up on the warning signs. Was the listing for the property uploaded in the middle of the night, is the advert thin on details or written in bad German or English, and does the offer feel too good to be true?

Though it would be nice to believe there are still cheap flats to be found, finding an attractive property at an overly reasonable price is usually a red flag.

Hamburg

Modern apartments in Hamburg. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Daniel Bockwoldt

If someone claiming to be a landlord contacts you out of the blue, that’s also your cue to run a mile. With so many people looking for housing, most letting agents and landlords will have more than people looking to rent their properties without needing to get in touch with people themselves. Anyone who does is more than likely to be a scammer.

2. Rule out landlords who say they live abroad

One of the major warning signs to look out for is a landlord who claims to be renting the property from abroad, or who says they are out of the country for other reasons, like a last-minute business trip.

That’s usually a scammer’s way of excusing the fact that they won’t be able to meet you personally or even show you the property before you rent it.

“When the country the landlord lives in appears then I would say there’s a really big chance this is a scam,” said Kuba Rudzinski, one of the victims of the Berlin-Neukölln rental fraud.

Even if the excuse seems plausible, your best bet is to ignore anyone who tries to sell you a story about living abroad and simply move on with your house hunt.

3. Do your research online

Before committing to anything, take time to do some thorough research to scope out the property, landlord and letting agent.

Running the pictures and text used in apartment listings through a search engine like Google will help you quickly identify stock photos and text stolen from other listings. For pictures, this is known as a reverse image search.

A laptop

Photo by 2H Media on Unsplash

It’s also worth checking that any websites you’re sent to are fully functional and not copies of other letting agent sites, and that any email addresses match the website domain.

4. Visit the property and ask around

Never agree to rent a property without seeing it in person first. Arrange a viewing and take the opportunity to ask questions about the property and the neighbourhood.

Kuba also recommends speaking with the neighbours in the building to check if the property is genuinely being rented.

“Go to the place before and ask the neighbours, is this flat really for rent? Because these people generally know,” he said. “You’ll need to convince yourself to do it of course, but just ask in the building, ask on the floor where the flat is.”

5. Don’t transfer the full deposit in advance

Advance payments for anything, whether it’s furniture, a deposit or getting a chance to view the property, should be considered a major red flag.

Under German law, you are usually only expected to pay the deposit by the start of the agreed rental contract – and certainly not several months in advance.

Euro notes lie next to some house keys on a table.

Euro notes lie next to some house keys on a table. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn | Andrea Warnecke

You are also legally entitled to pay your three months’ deposit in three instalments on top of your first three months’ rent after moving in, so definitely be cautious of landlords that place pressure on you to transfer a large lump sum.

If you’re really concerned, look into alternatives for paying your deposit, such as Kautionversicherung (deposit insurance) or a Mietkautionssparbuch, where you open a bank account and pledge the amount to the landlord, rather than transferring the money directly.

6. Insist on meeting the landlord or letting agent in person

If a landlord or letting agent refuses to meet you in person or insists on conducting all communication online, they’re probably not who they say they are.

Insist on meeting face-to-face to verify their identity and ensure they have a legitimate connection to the property.

7. Avoid sending documents straight away

Not all rental scams are about getting money from you directly: many scammers are simply after your personal details for the purposes of identity theft.

Be wary of providing personal documents or sensitive information before you’ve verified the legitimacy of the rental agreement, especially when it comes to things like passport scans or other forms of ID.

8. Seek legal advice from experts

If you’re unsure about any aspect of the rental agreement or if something seems suspicious, seek advice from legal experts or tenants’ associations.

However, be aware that this isn’t always a cast-iron guarantee that a tenancy is legitmate. Over the past few years, fraudsters have become increasingly sophisticated, even down to producing water-tight rental contracts for would-be tenants.

An estate agent hands over keys to an apartment. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn | Christin Klose

According to civil lawyer Emilia Tintelnot, becoming a member of a tenants’ association can be a good way to get affordable legal advice, and it can also be helpful to set up legal insurance to ensure you can access help when you need it without having to pay lawyers’ fees up front.

9. Be wary of stereotypes

Avoid making assumptions based on stereotypes or preconceived notions about someone’s gender or nationality, as this may cause you to overlook things you might otherwise see as warning signs.

In Kuba’s case, the fact that the fraudsters were German made them appear more legitimate in his eyes, as Polish people tend to see Germans as law-abiding and trustworthy.

Be aware that scammers can come from any cultural background and may use a variety of tactics to deceive unsuspecting renters.

10. Keep an extensive paper trail

Document all communication, agreements, and transactions related to the rental process, including phone numbers and any bank details provided.

According to the Berlin police, this type of evidence can be crucial for an investigation if you do suspect a scammer.

While evidence can differ across cases, “pictures, contact details used by the perpetrators, original documents, bank details with payment receipts” are particularly helpful for investigators, and could help the police stop the scammers for good.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!