German

German (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein.

Linguistics

Character Set

German uses the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut: ä, ö and ü, as well as the Eszett or "sharp S": ß.

Idioms

Date

German dates are formatted with day, month, and year. Month names are capitalized.

Location

In German addresses, the house number typically follows the street name, and the postal code precedes the city name.

Here is the typical order in German:

1. Street and House Number: The street name comes first, followed by the house number (e.g., "Musterstraße 123").
2. Postal Code and City: The 5-digit postal code (Postleitzahl or PLZ) comes before the city name (e.g., "10115 Berlin").
3. State: Unlike in some other countries, the federal state (Bundesland) is typically omitted in standard addresses.
4. Country: The country name is placed on the last line.

Capitalization

German is unique among major languages in that it capitalizes all nouns, regardless of whether they are proper nouns or common nouns (e.g., Haus, Apfel, Freiheit).

Other parts of speech, such as adjectives and verbs, are generally lowercase unless they are nominalized (used as a noun) or appear at the beginning of a sentence.

Additionally, the formal "you" (Sie) and its possessive forms (Ihr) are always capitalized in correspondence and formal writing.

Typesetting

Punctuations

German punctuation rules differ significantly from English in several areas:

• Quotation Marks:

  • The standard German style ("Gänsefüßchen") uses a low opening mark and a high closing mark: „ (U+201E) and “ (U+201C). Example: „Zitat“.
  • An alternative style (often in books) uses guillemets pointing inwards: » (U+00BB) and « (U+00AB). Example: »Zitat«. (Contrast with French « Zitat »).

• Apostrophe:

  • It is generally not used for the genitive 's' (e.g., "Deutschlands Hauptstadt", not "Deutschland's").
  • It is used to indicate omitted letters (e.g., "Wie geht’s?").

• Comma:

  • Commas are mandatory for separating dependent clauses (Nebensätze) from main clauses.

• Numbers:

  • Decimal separator: German uses a comma (e.g., 12,34).
  • Thousand separator: German uses a dot or space (e.g., 1.234 or 1 234).

Translations

YAMLResume adopts the following translations for various options and terms used in German resumes.

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Location (Countries and Regions)

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