Ever since i got to Berlin, i always counted on my notions of German to get me through what i thought would be a short & fun stay in this beautiful city. I had learned German for a year during high-school.

As time went by, the short stay became a longer one, and before i knew it, i had actually settled here. Since it was never the plan to stay here for good, i didn’t take German too seriously but still trying to learn as much as i could to escape the usual expats crowds and discover what was beyond the obvious “scene”.

It was never an scholar approach anyway; “Just speak the street-german, you’ll be fine”, i told myself many times.

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There has been undoubtedly a sharp increase of foreign population living in Berlin for the last 8-6 years. This continuous flow of very different people from around the world has both brought a new dynamism and great changes to the city. This new state of affairs is perfectly normal to us expats as we belong this movement and we have no to little idea of how the city looked like before this “rebirth”. However, to original local Berliners, their environment has drastically changed over the past few years, raising mixed feelings like  excitement, suspicion, joy, or fear among others.

I will try to present here what Berliners friends felt about Berlin’s new face, expats, and change.  By doing so, i hope to give a clearer view of what locals think of expats here.

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