| @SSDKSSDK
Sorry if I offended you because that's not what I intended too.
It's true that officials are not testing here your language skills but your understanding of what "living" in Germany is or could be. I'm not the all-knowing one, I'm merely nobody and many around here knows that. I've been on this site since back in the days, and I know what this site is all about. I never came here pretending, I came sharing and I still do until now, some find my inputs worth it, some not, I just share hoping it will help. What I mostly share is what I know from reading or experiencing while living here for nearly 8 years, I never took the Integration courses even if I was asked too because I never felt that a paper can prove me to be integrated where I live but I feel myself integrated through what I do and what I'm involved in in my every day life.
I don't think that if the officials only wanted to check your knowledge they would have given this test in German, in fact, like the driving license courses and exams, you should have been able to do it in your own mother tongue, be it English or French, or whatever language it can be found. A driving license is also an official document, isn't it? So there's definitely a reason why this test *should* be in German.
We've seen it more than once on this forum: people who got problems or in problems because they couldn't understand what the law was stating, even if the law was clearly telling them what it was supposed to be; people who couldn't defend their own rights just because they didn't knew something or if they knew it, they couldn't let themselves be understood by the officials.
What's the gain if you can't understand or let people know of your knowledge in the very language you should be conversing with them?
And in fact, for me, most Germans won't be able to pass this test just because they are simply not interested in things ruling the country they are living in and this "basic knowledge" it is supposed to proof if nothing more than a small angle in their own culture.
You said that although one speaks German fluently, the immigrants will definitely be facing the problems in understanding political/ law based German vocabulary, this has nothing to do with being immigrant, I'm sure you can find laws in your own mother tongue that you can have difficulties to understand, so do I.
I won't pride myself saying that I speak a perfect German, oh no, I won't, I speak fairly good and let the native themselves rate my skills and I keep on learning new words from my kids (kids are the best teachers alive), I sometimes feel myself good being corrected because I said something the wrong way, I please myself learning idioms to be more "in touch" with people around me and I know a lot of people on this forum who can speak good German and are really good interpreting laws, but it's not because they are gods or special, but just because they invested their time learning the language and at the same time, learning the culture and the law. I know more about laws than most of my German fellows, but it is because I take time reading and following how the world goes and for that, you won't say that German is not a must.
Sorry if you think or saw nasty statements in what I wrote, maybe I've said some without realizing it, my apologies.
But for me, I don't even think I will go through the questions before doing this exam, I will just go and this will let me know if I got this "basic knowledge" or not.
I didn't intended to discriminate anyone, but he could be that I misunderstood your request, if it's the case, my bad.
@truster
if I had an exam in Chinese, it would have implied that I've learned or have been learning Chinese, why would I then have to get a translation in another language to do it? I never did a German course but when my wife did, she told me that they discouraged them to use German-"place your mother tongue here" and "place your mother tongue here"-German dictionaries when searching for the meaning of a word but to use normal German dictionaries, with sometimes easy German words to get the meaning. There's surely a reason behind that, don't you think?
D.
PS I sometimes look in French dictionaries for words that I can comprehend, even though French is my mother tongue. |