Munich 2 days I picked 4 BierGartens any issues?

Try not to do what I did. I spent 3-4 months learning as much of the language that I could on Duolingo. Travel from the US happens so fast that the first opportunity that I had to converse with a waitress, I completely forgot to try using what I had learned.

 

I tried using Rosetta Stone but it didn't work very well for me. It's all in German with no explanation of why different forms of the same word are used in different places (cases). It was very confusing. I ended up taking 3 semesters of German at night at the local community college and that helped quite a lot. I now use Duolingo to help me remember it. I've been thinking of trying Rosetta Stone again now that I have some understanding of the grammar.

 

Same thing happened to me. I started practicing back in the Spring, but by the time I made it I I'd blanked on the earlier stuff. Plus, there's something very different when someone is speaking to you in their normal diction/accent and aren't phrasing everything like the apps do.
I found that I was better able to pick out random words and phrases, but I was no more conversationally proficient. Luckily, just knowing the names for different foods goes a LONG way. At the places with no English menus, I can recognize about 1/2 of the items. That's more than enough to have a great time.

 

I can probably read most of of menu in German. Unfortunately, Nierchen was not among the words I knew, yet I ordered it anyway because it was one of the chef's special. Yuck!

 

Not familiar with that one myself. I typically go with schnitzel, wursts (I'm willing to take guess), schweinshaxe, flammkuchen, schaufele, fleischpflanzerl, hendl, or even just obatzda. Those haven't failed me yet. I have a cheat sheet I made a few years ago that I can refer back to.

My wife tends to be the brave one with random pointing and guessing. She has had impeccable luck, too. I don't think she's had a bad meal to date and they've ranged from huge platters of different meats to charcuterie and cheese. I think from now on I'm just going to order whatever she has a good feeling about since it seems to work out.

 

"A fine tang of faintly scented urine"? (as James Joyce said about kidneys)

 

I took 2 semesters of college German after my first trip to Germany when I spoke enough to get drunk. When I showed up armed with my knowledge it worked pretty well, but when I spent more time in the countryside, speaking with many people who didn't know English, I got even better.

Then I came home and forgot most everything. It's all about the practice.

 

I think I did pretty well my first time out, but I'd also spent an entire year at it. I figure I got to about the level of 4 years of high school. At this point I'm hoping it just comes back but we'll see, it's been 3 years.

And I'm reminded of a story... flying back on Lufthansa I'd snuck a bottle of whiskey onboard with me from the duty free shop. I asked the obviously gay male flight attendant for... well, I said, "Ich möchte ein glas mit nur eis, und auch eins mit nur wasser" and he giggled at me and said in English "Oh, that is SOOOO cute, you almost got it right!". I thought he was about to squeeze my cheeks! And then he gave me one glass of ice water.

 

Which cheeks?

 

Watching German TV with the subtitles on really helped my aural comprehension. But it also helps that I've only ever heard German at full speed and often in an accent, having learnt it in the wild.