Negotiating salary: Responding to a job offer

💬 German uses a dot where English uses a comma in big numbers: 45.000 is forty-five thousand. Decimals take a comma instead, as in 4,5.

💬 im is in dem squeezed together. im Monat means "per month".

🇩🇪 German offers are almost always quoted as gross annual salary, and taxes and social contributions take a large share. Net pay is often only around 60% of brutto.

💬 Germans say they think an "on" something, not "of" it: denken an. So Ich denke an dich means "I'm thinking of you".

🇩🇪 The past tense softens the counter-offer, so it sounds like an idea you had rather than a demand. Naming a concrete figure is normal and expected in German negotiations.

🇩🇪 This is a short, polite way to check whether something can be done. It works anywhere, from salary talks to booking an appointment.

🇩🇪 Coming from an employer, this usually means "not quite, but let's talk" rather than a flat no. A counter-offer often follows.

💬 With können, the second verb goes to the end in its full form: Wir können morgen anfangen "We can start tomorrow".

💬 Swap the last word to react to anything: Das klingt interessant "That sounds interesting".

💬 Homeoffice looks English but is German for working from home. English speakers don't use it that way.

🇩🇪 Asking about remote work at the offer stage is completely normal in Germany. Many companies set a fixed number of days.

💬 German has no "do" for questions. You just put the verb first: Sind Sie bereit? "Are you ready?"

💬 annehmen "to accept" splits, and an goes to the end of the sentence. gern adds "gladly".

💬 When dann starts the sentence, the verb jumps ahead of ich: dann nehme ich, not dann ich nehme.

💬 der Vertrag becomes den Vertrag when it's the thing being sent or received. Only masculine words change like this.

💬 German uses the present tense for near-future plans, especially with a time word like heute. You don't need a separate "will".

🇩🇪 In Germany the written contract is what really counts. Expect to sign it before your start date and read the notice period and probation terms.

💬 hören "to hear" replaces sehen "to see" from Auf Wiedersehen, because you only hear each other on the phone.

🇩🇪 This is the polite way to end a formal phone call. In casual calls, Tschüss is more common.