It wasn’t a surprise for me that Germans are very honest and direct. However, some things in their way of communicating still surprise me to this day. For example, this last week, I have learned that the word „dispute“ has a much different meaning for the Germans than it does for me. A comical situation occurred at my workplace where I had an argument with a colleague, at the end of which he claimed that I threatened him ??? when at the same time I was just arguing with him and didn’t utter a single insult or any real threat. It turned out that he was mad and apparently wanted to sue me for expressing my opinion with which he disagrees. To be honest this really „impressed“ me because in my country the word threat has a very specific and clear meaning that has nothing to do with the above situation and I certainly did not expect to find such significant differences even in the understanding of legal matters such as „verbal intimidation“ or threat. However, the point of this example was to showcase that sometimes I have to forget how the rest of the world functions in order to understand Germany.