Six mistakes I have made since moving to Germany

Lessons learned after moving from Canada to Berlin

Photo by Blake Wheeler on Unsplash

18 months ago, I moved from Montreal, Canada to Berlin Germany. Since then, I have met a lot of people, and traveling to six different European countries. I have drank beers at a brewery in Munich, swam in the Dalmatian coast, and eaten tapas in Madrid. I have switched jobs in Berlin, and moved apartments as well. Along the way, I have made many, many mistakes.

Here are some of those mistakes.

1. Not learning German before moving

I arrived in Berlin with very rudimentary German. A few weeks after arriving, I started my new job. I had assumed coming here that I would sign up for classes once I settled into life in Berlin. I did — but I soon found that working full time, and taking night time language courses was exhausting.

I should have arrived in Berlin with at least a B1 level of German. It would have made life a lot easier from the start. Finding an apartment is a lot easier when you speak German. So is signing up for health insurance and registering your new apartment at the Bürgeramt. There’s a lot of bureaucracy that you have to deal with when you move to Germany, and it’s a lot easier if you speak German.