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I'm thinking of offering my son the chance to go abroad and get fluent (he's taken 4 years of German), and I know that spoken German differs wildly from place to place.

In what region do the speak the closest to "standard" German?

If you can recommend a particular city that would nice to live in or a particular language school, that would be cool. I'd prefer he be in a town or medium sized city rather than someplace like Berlin or Hamburg.

Thanks

Tubingen is a nice german city, the center of the University world, and of medium size. Look into it. My friend learned german there, and he speaks it pretty well.

From my experience, they don't really speak standard German anywhere. I would certainly exclude Bavaria, and anywhere where they speak Platdeutsch, but even in Berlin if people don't want me (having only learned standard Hochdeutsch) to understand them, I won't. And someone in Görlitz (on the Polish border) thought I was German, so if they take my funny accent for regular German, I certainly wouldn't recommend learning German there

Tubingen looks very nice. College town that survived WWII intact. Is very close to Stuttgart, but I don't know if that's a plus or a minus.

Is the accent in Baden-Wuttemberg strong like that in Bavaria next door?

I was also looking at Freiburg in the same part of Germany.

This shows the basic linguistic lines in spoken German:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benrath_line

Would learning in Central German areas be best?
Or am I way overthinking this whole thing and should just concentrate on finding him someplace nice to live with a good school?

My sister lived in Hannover for years, and people there always maintained their German was the 'best' in terms of standard German (--a bit like Oxford English, which is not something that's actually spoken by the people of Oxford...)

Sadly, people in Berlin and Bavaria have quite a strong dialect, but 'Plattdeutsch' is only spoken in some rural communities in Friesland (as far as I know).

I hope that your son will get the opportunity to travel to various parts of Germany, even if local dialects are spoken there. But for learning purposes, it's probably best if he stays around the central part.

Looks like I found an answer to my question.
There's a bumper sticker for Baden-Wurttenberg that declares:

We can do anything!
Except speak standard German

Too bad, as this sounded enticing (from Wikipedia):

Freiburg has a sunny microclimate and popular opinion has it that Freiburg is the warmest, sunniest city in Germany. It straddles the Dreisam river, on the foothills of the Schlossberg. The city is surrounded by the Black Forest mountains Rosskopf and Bromberg in the east, and in the south and west by the Schönberg, Tuniberg and the Kaiserstuhl.

Since standard German is not really natrual to any place (it was an invention of the courts) I'd recommend your son just picking a place where he liked the accent or dialect. University towns in general also tend to have a mix of students from all over the country, so among them they don't really speak a heavy dialect anyhow.

While living in Germany I was always told that Hannover spoke the closest thing to "Hochdeutsch" as well.

I lived in Berlin and although it's been 13 years since I learned German and an American accent has reared it's ugly head, I still speak Berliner. Honestly, every German speaker speaks with some form of dialect and your son will not suffer by learning one of them. He should go somewhere he'll enjoy first and foremost. Don't stress about the accent unless it's Schwaebisch or something.

Found this page, which agrees with you:

http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~hr/lang/dt-dial.html#regions

quote:

Where in Germany are chances best to learn standard German when you just talk with people?
Surprisingly, this is not where the local dialect is linguistically close to standard German which developed out of Southern and Eastern High German dialects. In these regions, the local dialect mixes too easily with standard German. Moreover, the phonology of these dialects happens to be thoroughly distinct from standard German (see previous question).

In the regions where Low German was the local vernacular, High German has also been the official language for quite some time, but there, until not long ago, it was a language distinct from the local idiom. Therefore, it was not so much "spoilt" by local language habits, and chances are better for a foreigner to pick up standard German. Moreover, the standard pronunciation was defined by Theodor Siebs who himself came from the Low German region, further contributing to the puzzling effect that standard High German can quite well be learnt in the formerly Low German area.

The answer to the question is therefore: in the South of the Low German region, and there in the greater cities where interaction with people from the rest of Germany has traditionally been frequent. Hannover is often nominated as "capital of Standard Germany" but in other cities like Münster or Magdeburg you will hear standard German as well.

So now I'm looking for a nice college town in Central Germany, preferably with cool old architecture and within reach of a Bundesliga team.

Anyone been to Munster?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster

It's seems like a pretty nice town with a good-sized university (colleges usually tend to liven a place up), and this school has quite reasonably priced classes:

http://www.kapito.com/en/

I hate to sign him up for something sight unseen, but it seems pretty good. They have testimonials from students complete with pictures and full names (so I'm assuming they're real).

How about Heidelberg? It's fairly central and known for its university, and it's a pretty nice town albeit somewhat over-touristy.

Heidelberg seems nice, but not sure whether the Army base would mean they have a poor opinion of Americans.

Münster!

That's where I'm from!

Come to think of it, eh, yeah, we spoke 'Hochdeutsch' there. And it is a great city, but then I'm biassed. The university is huge (third biggest in the country in my day when it was west Germany) and all the students make for a great atmosphere.

Excellent! Munster does sound very nice.

If my son doesn't want to go, I may try it out myself instead. How is the weather?

Have you heard of the school Kapito, whalewatcher?
Or know of a good alternative?

Does the University teach German as a 2nd language?


Thanks

Never heard of Kapito, that was before my time, but it sounds like a good school with classes of max 12 people. The university does not run German courses as far as I know.

Münster has a reputation as the rainiest city in Germany (the zoo is famous for the covered walkways which connect the main enclosures and is called 'Allwetterzoo)' but the weather is guaranteed to be better than here in the UK! I remember the summers being very nice (but then, my memories are biassed too, and it's twenty years since I last visited).

I actually studied in Heidelberg a few years back - and had the most amazing time there!

I went through a program called AJY - (American Junior Year) through Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio. Information about this program can be found here:

http://www.heidelberg.edu/ajy/

I took classes both through AJY and through the Univeristy. Its nice because they cater to a variety of skill levels, and had small classes.

When I first arrived I took a month long Preliminary Course involving four weeks listening and reading comprehension, grammar and history. Then you take the University's mandatory German language proficiency test.

If you pass, you can take classes directly at the University with all the rest of the German students. For example, if you wanted to take a physics class in German.(I cant handle one, let alone both of these subjects at the same time...but hey, thats just me!)You can also take language classes through the Institute for German as a Foreigh Language, or the International Study Center.

I failed my test ( cant do grammer!!) and spent my days between the International Study Center and the Institute for German as a Foreign Language. It was fabulous - I was in classes with people from ALL over the world - Asia, Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, which made it all the more interesting. My teachers were fabulous - and so patient.

But the highlight of my time in Germany was jsut being in Heidelberg.I never encountered any anti- american sentiments while I was there - and loved every minute of it. Sure, you do get alot of tourists (Mostly in the summer, or during the Christmas Markets) but the scenery was beautiful - and it was very accesible to everywhere!

Honestly, your son is gonna have a great time in Germany no matter where he studies. I miss it like crazy! The food, the beer(!!!!), the people. Make sure he savors every minute he is there.

I'm dreaming about the time when I can get back..