Usedom

Usedom is a really beautiful German vacation destination in state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. During German summer vacations the accomodations and beaches are well filled up and early booked. The border to Poland is on the island and people can cross it without any problems.

For travel to, best use BER airport (Berlin) and either Deutsche Bahn trains (https://int.bahn.de/en) or Flixbus.
Alternatively use a rental car - the German Autobahn to this area is most times very easy to drive (not much traffic).

Any details you want to know?

Thank you Mark! I don't speak a shred of German. That said, I am especially interested in knowing how well travelers to Usedom might make their way around the area using English and perhaps common German and or Polish phrases that can be found in either travel books or online language sites? If I had one true wish, it would be the ability to learn different languages, but my brain just isn't wired that way. Thanks for anything else you might be able to add.

If you speak with older people you will likely have more success with Russian because in former GDR it was the second languange to learn, as in most cases English in Western part of Germany.

A help ist the DeepL translation app because it was developed by a German team.

Younger people and also most of reception staff at hotels speak at least a little bit English; and be sure that you will mostly find open-minded and helpful people. I am not sure about the Polish / German integration in this area but in other parts it is established such as in Frankfurt/Oder and Slubice. The Poland side often speaks also partly German because this is where in early years after fall of the wall the money came from.

Usedom has a lot of places to explore, e. g. by bike.
If you are interested in WWII sites Peenemünde (museum) is the place to visit - they developed, tested and built the V2 rocket there. Kuno, one of my grandfathers, worked there as engineer calculating flight curves and doing infrastructure constructions during WWII.

A day travel tip is close Greifswald with lots of younger people (university town).
Further up the German coast you will find Stralsund (World Heritage old town) and Rügen island - also very scenic and with beautiful nature. From Sassnitz on Rügen ferries start over to Denmark (Bornholm island) and Sweden.

Little history fact: the whole Pommerania area there was Swedish for a long time in history (short abstract in German language). Therefore still today some German families can find their emblem in Sweden's Riddarhuset in Stockholm. I have a close friend in Berlin with that family history.

And please write a short trip report and about your experiences, likes and dislikes. It would help other travellers to explore the area.

Many sincere thanks Mark for the information and links included. You have graciously provided me with sources to research more deeply.

Welcome.

Do not hesitate to contact me for more help.

RE: "my brain just isn't wired that way." In German I would respond, "unerhoert." (That's unheard of. )

Getting down the language is based on several factors. It's a matter of will-power, teaching method or instructor, determination, energy, time investment, (you cannot overlearn), goal orientation, etc that enables you not to just learn a foreign language but acquire it, ie writing it.

Some thirty years ago one of my ex-students ran into her American history a couple of weeks prior to graduation from the high school.

This student's origins was that of a simple refugee, Vietnamese-Chinese, as a kid her family managed to get out prior to the collapse in 1975. That teacher asked about her college plans (unthinkable if those were not to be included as part of her post high school life), if she had decided on what to major, etc. , etc.

She told him that her major would be " German " as she had already been accepted at SF State University. Taking on the German would language #5 since she was still having trouble, obviously, with English.

The teacher was utterly flabbergasted upon hearing her say German. She completed that intense major in the next 4 years at SF State and was about to go into the grad school program , MA in German in Stanford before the finances became an acute problem.

Good that you're visiting Usedom, I've only visited towns and cities in eastern Germany....Rheinsberg, Magdeburg, Weimar, Frankfurt an der Oder, Neustrelitz, etc, etc....all historically and culturally enlightening ....language-wise too.

As suggested , if you do go to Greifswald and are interested in the "Prussian East," the Pommern Museum is there. This is the museum on Pomerania, both Vorpommern (part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) and "Hinterpommern" (that part of the former Pomerania east of the Oder along the Baltic in Poland.

Thank you for your thoughts, Fred! It is always refreshing to hear the stories of accomplishment. I think it might be easier to say that "my brain isn't wired that way" than to admit that my determination for learning a new language is lacking. ;-)

If you go... it's 3 syllables, pronounced...

ooh-zeh-dome

Most helpful--thanks Russ!

I hope, Russ, you allow a little different pronounciation proposal:

ooh-zeh-dom

As local the last part of the name sounds to me closer to free-dom than to a dome.

Sadly, there is no equivalent sound in American English, exactly, or a perfect spelling that gets it just right; speakers will likely think "dom" rhymes with "mom" and "bomb" - which is roughly the same vowel sound as in German "Lahm." This will produce an even worse phonolgical result.

Maybe English "dumb" would be an alternative to "dome", one that is close and less of a "long" vowel and for this reason less offensive to the German ear.

I totally agree with your assessment, Russ, of the challenges that our everyday spelling presents when attempting to accurately represent pronunciation. I recently viewed a PBS show featuring Usedom as the primary setting and the island was pronounced a little bit differently by the each of the various characters. Some were from Poland, others from Usedom, Sweden, Denmark and America. On the whole, those native to Usedom pronounced the place name just as you suggested, whereas persons from other locales pronounced the word a little differently in each instance. Language is so beautiful and fluid. The one thing I think we can all agree upon is that Usedom is not pronounced "Use dumb" :-)

I have found a good sound source how to pronounce Usedom - from my German perspective.

I would suggest instead of relying or falling back on American English equivalents to pronounce Usedom that you rely on the German pronunciation key.

Contrary to those opinions saying that German is difficult to pronounce or articulate for native anglophones, I find the opposite to be true in pronunciation and spelling. If you're a stickler with German grammar, you don't want to make spelling mistakes when writing long hand.

Contrary to those opinions saying that German is difficult to pronounce or articulate for native anglophones, I find the opposite to be true in pronunciation and spelling.

It's an easier language than some, certainly. Not difficult once you master it, Fred, but mastering German phonology is anything but easy. If using German sounds were so easy, I would not have had full professors of German who could spoke it fluently but with severe American-English accents.

That link of course pronounces USEDOM perfectly, MarkK. Thanks for posting it.

The problem for someone with zero exposure to German is simply that they will not automatically start using German sounds when trying out German words, even after hearing them repeatedly. The will rely on their native language sounds to hear and pronounce them instead for some extended period of time. (And sometimes, forever. Acquiring a second-language sound system is extremely complicated.)

The German vowel in the "-dom" part of Usedom is not identical to the vowel in "dome" or "dumb" (my suggestions) or "dom/mom/bomb." Neither is my suggested "ooh" for the "U" in Usedom. Americans will always dipthongize that phoneme. My suggestions are only approximations. But a good approximation helps the traveler who speaks no German to get what he needs, which is understood (by a German speaker, that is.)

"...but with severe American-English accents." Emphasis is on "severe," I think I was spared that at SF State, Russ, where my full professors in upper division were native speakers , Prussians (geographically) of the old school.

If you want to sound native, you need to account for regional variation. This is from the 1970s, but still relevant (and the variations / maps he uses include pre-WWII, but again, the accents are still mostly relevant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btlGMBA2XO4

I fully agree, Russ. And of course as native German I am not familiar with the difficulties of how to speak the German language on a non-native base.

I just learned how many different accents we have of our language - some easy, some others not easy to understand.

Just the "hello" ("Hallo") is very different in German - starting from "Grüß Gott" in Bavaria via "Guten Morgen / Tag / Abend" to the "Moin" in Northern Germany - valid and used at all 24 hours. Some people say "Moin Moin" - the true Northern see these people as text machines. Very special is the classical Hamburg "Hummel Hummel" which needs to be answered with "Mors, Mors". So, communication is sometimes a lot of fun here.

The times I 've been in Kiel (well worth a trip too) I heard people often greet each other with "moin moin."

but mastering German phonology is anything but easy

So what? As HowlinMad writes, there is a wide range of variation between Flensburg on the Danish border and Salurn in South Tyrol on the language border between German and Italian. Someone who speaks with an American accent is just adding another variety. My American son-in-law speaks very good German, but with a distinct American accent and some Franconian overtones that he owes to his wife - and I think that sounds very attractive, and he should not try to replace it with the plastic German that comes out of the television.

Mastering German pronunciation: for most, it's not at all essential for successful communication, as you point out in the case of your son-in-law, sla019. Clearly not a concern for the OP, either, who is maybe just concerned about getting out a few words that will be understood, which is not easy for any beginning language learner... getting close is the objective. My comments on mastery were aimed at Fred's claim that English speakers should find pronunciation and spelling easy...

Moin is regional, moin moin is used Germany-wide. So we sometimes use it up here. But a local will only say moin. Or the aforementioned Hummel Hummel here in Hamburg.