Most people in Germany speak English in some shape or form... not always terrific English (although always infinitely better than my German) but enough for us to have a conversation. Many many people talk to me at the merch table in English and I have become fascinated by their choice of where and when to swear.
When English is your first language these curse words tend to lose their intended effect, they are dropped into conversation so frequently (or at least they are on a 5 week tour with 7 guys in a bus) that they become part of your everyday lexicon and are no more notable than any of the other words you use. When a German person swears in English it is because they have conciously chosen to include that expleative to further illustrate their point, and you must take that chosen swear at the level they intended it.
For example, in Hamburg when this crazy guy kept yelling at me "yah, that was great, mu-th-a-fac-a" he really wanted to emphasise how great it was. Equally in Munich when the promoter told us that there was "no fa-cking way" we could park outside the venue, I had to take that as a definate no. In Berlin the promoter helped us pack up and then declared we had to join him so we could "get totally faacked" we took his intentions as genuine and duely got totally faacked.
Ah, the pitfalls of international communication...
currently listening to: Katatonia sound checking (who you may ask, well exactly)
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