He's basically reading off a script word-by-word with German phonemes. He sounds like a first year English student forced to read out loud from a text book he's never read before.
It's not that he has an accent. It's that his English skills are ridiculous for the position he is in. English is taught throughout all high school education in Germany and fluency in English is required or at least recommended for the vast majority of jobs.
He's not just any politician either. He's not some lowly drone in a communal government branch. His office involves a lot of international communication and English is the standard language for most of it.
But there's a bias here: he's mostly ridiculed by younger Germans. His English (just like Merkel's) is on par for his generation. It's not entirely ridiculous when you consider that he likely grew up in times when learning English wasn't considered as important as it is now -- my grandmother speaks no English whatsoever and my parents-in-law just barely understand some basics.
If young Americans groan about their presidents' "dad jokes", this is more like being embarrassed by your grandparents.
He's basically reading off a script word-by-word with German phonemes. He sounds like a first year English student forced to read out loud from a text book he's never read before.
It's not that he has an accent. It's that his English skills are ridiculous for the position he is in. English is taught throughout all high school education in Germany and fluency in English is required or at least recommended for the vast majority of jobs.
He's not just any politician either. He's not some lowly drone in a communal government branch. His office involves a lot of international communication and English is the standard language for most of it.
But there's a bias here: he's mostly ridiculed by younger Germans. His English (just like Merkel's) is on par for his generation. It's not entirely ridiculous when you consider that he likely grew up in times when learning English wasn't considered as important as it is now -- my grandmother speaks no English whatsoever and my parents-in-law just barely understand some basics.
If young Americans groan about their presidents' "dad jokes", this is more like being embarrassed by your grandparents.